Love, I Must Leave

Love, I must leave, we’re covered in lichen,
the kind found fogging a graveyard address
that draws you close to decipher the writing

of praises for people we never knew.
Love, I must leave, I’ve trodden on tombstones
and questioned if eulogies are ever true.

Love, I must leave, the letters are burning
and someone should summon the fire brigade
to quench old flames and stop them returning

in the gowns of girls they impersonate.
Love, I must leave, the mist has just thickened,
the clock has just struck, it’s almost too late.

Don’t wave goodbye, don’t try to figure me.
Love, I must leave, to rewrite a history.

Outside Of History

After many a summer time must have a stop:
an empty stage and a canopy hung starless.
Aldous Huxley’s dying and Kennedy’s been shot;
the United States are watching Dallas.

He asks his wife to tip the boy two dollars
for delivery of the oxygen tank;
there’s an infinite succession of tomorrows
that Huxley is attempting to outflank.

The worn out stoic, the literary gent;
something of a saint or bodhisattva,
undertaking a brave new experiment
to illuminate the world that lies thereafter.

Idolaters venerate the sacred ground
of some Golden Age or Utopia;
only outside of history is goodness found
and mankind is a martyr to myopia.

The Western world murders a scarecrow saviour
and confabulates a Cuban connection;
a fine day to sneak underneath the radar
and disappear through the doors of perception.

Fortified by pain relief and LSD,
he floats upon the pleasure dome waves.
There’s no heaven or hell, just eternity.
Yet perhaps there is an entity that saves?

Not Mohammed, Jehovah, Krishna or Buddha,
nor these nightmarish machinations;
not these temples and schemes for a perfect future,
just this emptiness enhanced by medication.

Ray Miller is a Socialist, Aston Villa supporter, and faithful husband. Life’s been a disappointment.

You can find more of Ray’s work here on Ink Pantry.