VERSES FROM VARIOUS SOURCES

1981–1990

 

From THE ENDS OF OUR TETHERS 2003

Poem: Alasdair Gray © 2005

19 – Outing attributed to Luke Aiblins 

 

This sunken track through the rank weeds

of docken, nettle and convolvus

does not belong to us: only to me

whose nostrils gladly drank the stink

                                    of vegetable sweat,

whose ears sucked in the sullen

                                    whimper of the gnat’s wing,

who gladly felt the wet sting of smirr

                                    upon the cheek.

 

So do not talk, say no word to me

but walk in stillness on a path of moss,

a slope of trees upon our right hand side

and on our right the cluck & flow

                                    of a wide stream.

I do not know what you see here.

I do not want to know.

 

For if each tries to see those things

                                    the other sees

our probing eyes will shatter

the brittle matter of the other’s dream

so each of us will be

inside a toneless, tasteless, aimless world

of mediocrity.

 

Walk in my dream and I will walk in yours

but do not try to share our separate dreams.

two dreams can touch, I think,

                                    but there’s an end

of dreaming if we try and make them blend

for this can only be when both of us lie bare

and I have felt the ripeness of your flesh.

 

When bodies mix

                        then even dreams can melt.

 
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