The Geranium Hotel Poems

I AM THE BUTTERFLY       ON COURSE TO LAND              ON THE TIP OF YOUR CIGARETTE AND YOU,                        WELL YOU KNOW THIS YET YOU LIKE PRETTY THINGS                       COMING IN T'WARD YOU ATTRACTED TO YOUR BOUQUET OF WORDS YET YOU WATCH LIKE A HUNTER        AS THE BEAUTIFUL CREATURES COME INTO LAND ON THE TORTURE PLAINS              OF YOUR CIGARETTE'S END.                  

Can you see the fallen statues staring grim, unsure and steady of mind? They seem to have no expectations of the future Only disappointments in the music that we speak to them The poetry that we write for the photographs, the heads In uniformed sternness   They look with architected melody and as we turn our backs they bow in frame to cry We are not what they wanted for sons, for daughters And we are the grisaille walking with our blood slowly dying In secret hoping to enfranchise the adventurers, the soldiers the leaders of our past Instead we sneak over to one another’s embrace and kiss the peach-like cheeks that it is so easy to get lost in Regrets cast out to sea like Mary Hamilton’s babe, in a boat made from reeds, inheritances and hand me downs And we grasp the kopis as we know our father’s did wondering if love will forever keep our minds in trouble But I shall ever stroke your hair with fingers that my mother says were her fathers And I s

The light grazes the skin on your shoulder The sailors are running in from their burning boats I think of when I met you, nearly ten years ago now You haven't changed much your face just looks a little more confused At a world that looks a little more empty You tell me its a crime to be a child who was born in summer Yet who always pulls his collar up toward the street Beneath the trees bare of the leaves in a world just before the daffodils Never mind that now, we need a bar my blue eyed boy I wonder what blood courses through your body to make you such a lover I wonder where you are from, where you exist You would make a terrible sailor, you never learnt to swim Though you know how to handle yourself in a crises I told you my father was a poor man, the product of the ghetto I told you my mother was a heroine, she has her own statue in a foreign square You told me your parents came from Istanbul They were undertakers who maintained the secrets of the egyptians

Looking at the city lights Through the rain's silver glaze Saying out loud the words 'small slender mouth' Because its Antonio Botto's birthday And the words go so well together Pavilions and gazebos Archways and ceramic pots Those ones that spew geranium tendrils The pink flowers bending towards the walls With leaves that smell of every season The choice is entirely his The cloud is of no consequence As the lights keep away the stars So the backdrop is forever the same It's the rain that is lit up Every wet point hardened into jewel I tiny diamond to climb upon Like a stair that changes fate And my malleable conversation Is the verging of words That shows how you would keep my picture And I know how it is that you find me But time is a funny thing and I am not here to think Of danger or you Of perfection or fools Today is Antonio Botto's birthday And I think of hat's and arms over shoulders Sorrow and flights of fear and flight

Ah yes, I remember the time Laid on a blanket with pretty pattern swirls A fiery sword opening my chest And snow landing so heavily upon the sand That we couldn't hear the waves Eating peaches on the roof And throwing the pips at the horses hoofs Maybe there would be an orchard to hide in one day One day there would be a million maybe's growing on trees being pulled up from wells Catching trains and travelling through the foggy night The moment you paused I fingered the harp of victory I had my face cast in plaster and heard the tailor at my door It's a simple room but I am glad I took it With the frogs singing, I kick at the dandelion With the cloud below me I flew to my city And I looked out my window wondering if the eagle still nested Or if the piano was still out of tune My grandmother she has a photo Of a baobab holding water in a desert My rules were all broken by the carriage I saw The horse men with their sorrow pounded at the gate I never