precious silence
would be
my
mandate


it can
get to me,

it can take
just a moment,

on a bus, or
on the street

and just a voice whining,
or a face

will
set me off
and
I will think
of bliss -

a room somewhere
with a little air
( moderate size )

no doors,
telephone,
windows,
or a partner's
jolting commands.

just silence,

silence.



flatmate


she was
a quiet individual

who had

1 a Chinese father
2 an Australian mother

she left her bedroom
only to

drink or eat,
pee or poo

she enjoyed brisk 1am walks
and read the ancients

like

Tacitus,
Horace

and sometimes
a book on Greek myths by Robert Graves.

I remember
her one flash of excitement

had been discovering
that an

ancestor
was killed
in a threshing machine

some time

in the late
nineteenth century.



a non-submissive
submits


she standing,
asks me to kneel

and,
knowing me at a vulnerable time,

I kneel in the way of the
defeated hound.

I look at the wholeness,
the seeming purity
of her whole
exposure

in quiet
mystery & wonder

before I invite
myself
to
lean forward

&
kiss her triangle

of
somewhere

reachable.



there is
a rare woman who
I have loved;

and I remember her
as a rarity -

while we feasted

she
left out

the
dish of guilt

commonly
offered

by
others.

.

Brad Evans

---

Home