The Interview

A work from last year, for someone who I was truly in love with - not just hoping I could be.

And as I recall you, take stock of you, I suppose what comes to mind,

Are those salient saline eyes, which would meet me there,

Wherever there was, like a cornflower left on mute.

It is the small and quiet garden, foremost: starlit, landlocked,

Where the planets made use of their pull and I got stuck,

In your orbit, though a hundred times I tried to untie that knot,

As an errant backstay; that brief voyage in the harbour, I still taste the salt,

And then upon the larger vessel, where evaded we the guards,

Filled our lungs with soot and seabreeze, kissed blindly,

Your heart always pounded so fiercely, as if I had shut the door on it,

Entreating entry, each time I’d draw into you, drink down your desire,

Though, we washed a lot of things down those days, and I,

Was always stumbling about the shore, calling to you from the sand,

When accustomed had my talons grown to those more jagged places,

Where I could not be reached, though still my throat was golden,

And you slept, all night then, with the haft in your hand,

Then, perhaps more harmfully, I placed the hollowed tome,

With hallowed scriptures in your isolated loft, far above where,

The crashes and clamorous jubilation would sweep through the streets,

And we’d light up our cigars, take our smothered sips of Moray’s honey,

Where you’d come before me as the proconsul of your prised res publica, 

Actium was not as harsh as the day you quitted town,

And the barren stretch I sped across to get to you, never,

Proved what must have seemed but delusive words to you,

Perhaps, then, I was not made full aware of my own purest intent,

Too tangled in my tenebrous nest, lined with hearts and fleeting elation,

How I did love you then, and yet do I, I find in my self-made isolation,

I have chosen no one and opted to remember the decline, for now:

The gaping wound I felt in that small piece of Europe, in leaving,

And now a farewell to Holliday, all those times spent on holidays,

Where we were sunburnt and we were happy, and it took me far too long,

To discern what it is you meant by those songs, and by the time I had,

The stars had all pushed themselves out of alignment, and perhaps you,

Merely played the narrator for a dying ember, or shrouded thoughts,

Whose veil even their keeper could not see behind, I suppose I,

Will never know, for I have consigned myself to your joy,

Something I could not have gifted you and perhaps am still incapable of,

Though, the temple is empty, though, our empires have flooded,

There is a sickly sweet feeling I get, just before the dawn breaks,

When I see those flashes like fireworks, I remember. We will remember.