His Room

The piano with its lid down
is a lung. White light
assumes the dust in it is poison,
dies quickly. Until the moon
the only sound is
breath of wood and strings.
He sings, but as little like a wolf
as loneliness resembles being loved.


(c) 2007 JL Williams

The Hole in the Tree

Time, whose life depends on ours,
keeps its secrets as only the best lovers can,
those we meet in passing
in places with no name
where joys exist purely
and are possessed completely
though not at all.


(c) 2007 JL Williams

Ariadne

Leeward, men on bright ships.
In the night
stars reflect
the surface of a black sea.

Each man a pirate for my heart -
none that can bear
its ruby spikes,
its tips wet with all their blood.

My island, my white dress.
Bells' toll
echo in my womb
that can only weep.

They cannot have me.
No man can.
Death is my husband.


(c) 2007 JL Williams

Like a Wild Horse

Coming makes him look more beautiful
into a room with light through leaves.
He jumps her and she's started, running again
to the sound of merry bells.

Against the wall, thrown,
light in her shape - it shivers, it shakes, she
undoes the weight of him with her
tremulous sighs.

Hanged high, like a wild horse
she breaks him over her belly, he
tosses his hooves against the light,
falls shining into her improvised embrace.

He sings to her, she whinnies, is
turning her elegant face to the light.
He walks beneath her, she tightens
her thighs around his pounding heart.

Coming makes her look more beautiful.
Music flutters about them like many-coloured
butterflies. The light is flinging their shadows
into the sky as if they were birds set free.


(c) 2007 JL Williams

Under the Tilted Ceiling

Some animals after being caged
become afraid of the sky, some
love it more forever, love it
more and more and more.

The hall is an interim of justice,
its view deceives and looks like
shrink or curving - dive
below the sight line, take in
the spirit of the passage
between two voids or train tubes -
sing, bird beneath tilting rafters.

Hold, again and again, and again
the visage of the beloved. If only
we lived this once if only
we learned to live outside of cages,
to let ourselves out and
fall for the sake of the chance to fly.


(c) 2007 JL Williams

WORD, TOOL

"My objects mimic the everyday. they are not tools. A word cannot pin down its functionality or its category." Leigh Chorlton


I be, I no be, I is, define me, define this!

Word is Tool is

And forever we will remember
Carlos, Carlos the art teacher with wings and crazy hair
running in the night field, eyes closed, flying screaming
"USE THE RIGHT TOOL!"

hands of rocks

unsign, unsing

a boy in the bubbling pool
has the power to make new metals, his
eyes gleam he LAUGHS easily, undoes
his swimming trunks to show me

Word on the tongue!

Moth on a pin!


(c) 2007 JL Williams