Blackstar

After a long silent time
With a friendly peck on the cheek
She was off to the ocean with it's crystal blues and sunsparkl'd azures

He cleaned up after she left
The glasses and tobacco
plates and sheets
papers and her hair
Draped on pillows
creating casual arcs on the tiles
debris on the shore as after a rough sea

Emerging into sunshine
hot and beating
to return to the bench
with a cordial
and a smoke
the litter of butts surrounding
testimony to the time spent there last night
and one…
the first one

the one when she first arrived
happy and expectant
hair cut and straight
new skirt 
and totally gorgeous
with lipstick

a touch remained on the single butt
the first one she kissed
before the blackstar
emerged later from behind the moon
and played it's game of scramble
and miscommunication
and churned joy into turgid silence 
and distance

The first one
with lipstick

he cried then
when his eye caught it
hot tears of hurt and love
for their fragile hearts
each now cracked
and from where?
How?
He dare not seek a why and be forever searching
for something he would never find
for the blackstar 
in wicked interferences conspires never to reveal

It has it's methods own
The blackstar
honed on our fears
with twisting happen-stance and evil synchronicities
bent on undoing the fine tapestries
of our lives and dreams
Plans? Pfft! She told me once
[and not very long ago!]
She had met the blackstar before and is no stranger to it
Perhaps she called it something else
We've all known it
sometime
somewhere
with someone we love

Begone!
Enough of the blackstar!
Just fuck off back to wherever you came from.
[He uttered it forcefully enough to cause a magpie to tilt and peer]
[OK it wasn’t quite screamed but it had intent!]

In the heat of the sun
breeze hot and crisp 
it left him alone
and he was
alone

alone.

He thought of her then
driving down the mountain
Her hair fragranc'd with his shampoo
The road a focus 
for the singular cogency that road tripping delivers
angling to arrive 
at land's edge
the coast
and the promised purity of the ocean's kiss
the refreshing salty cleansing
and momentary exhilaration
of the heart
only the sea's immersive embrace
as only the ocean can
and will
when nothing else works…

Swim strong my love.

[8 February 2014]