Patient Silences, Clapton
Keev Ó Baoill
i want to write poetry for you
about you,
basking in the half
baked morning light,
bringing you coffee,
or you, for me
I want to write poetry for you,
about you
that captures the exact proclivity of
our love,
(or mine)
for you.
Of the hyperbolic
sentiment(s) of our
deepest understandings
of one another.
I want to write poetry
for you, about you
little poems and love poems,
and strange off kilter
sex poems
And poetry about the first time I saw you — and
poems about the knowing queerness of my eye catching yours
and of so much untapped potential and
longing.
Of my stomach dropping,
And about how you
make me feel otherworldly, like
I belong in museums and galleries and canonical literature
with people who can really feel,
and really articulate
I want to write poetry about you, about falling in love, again,
and
with you.
About how we barely belong in the same galaxy, the same universe, let alone
the same planet, the same city, the same Room.
About how sure I am
About your golden hair in the summer’s dusk, about
wandering with you, lying with you, romanticising with
you.
About your life,
and mine, and
dancing in the
kitchen
Oh, to write
Oh, to have the desire to write
To listen to a song, to read a poem
To sit, basking, in its presence
Oh,
to share an orange,
To watch a bird tip-toe up a stone platform, waiting on the train
The flick of its head,
the glinting autumn light
Oh, to live in a home full of friends, to feel, with ease—
the laughter and tears
To build a home with you, and
die
with you.
To think, as the most leisurely do,
of all the things that make me pause
of a bird perched on his seat
Flitting about his day.
I think, as people often do, of the light touch
Of a friend, a lover,
Of my lover
Of a moment’s embrace, of a chuckling of laughter
in a moment’s disconnect
The calm delight of a day gone past.
I hope, one day, to wake to you
(all of you)
And find that time has gone
by
To know that it was spent,
in such moments—
over nibbles of rye toast,
And quiet, patient silences
I hope one day, to wake to you,
And find such fullness in a life,
spent
and with you
