Poems by Jeffrey Side

B BLOCK

You keep your
services for them.
You keep
the church they know.

And they make
donations regularly
with
one hand on your head.

They lean you
down towards
the cup.
You sip the overflow.

You lick your lips
and move your fingers
far apart.

You have no town
inside you
now.
You have no
travellers there.

Did you send them
home again?
Or did they leave for
better fare?

I was the one who
landed upon
your
lessened wing.

You had me
and then you had
your king.

I came to you a
broken ring. I danced
inside
your mouth.
I gave you all my

money
before you let me
in.
I couldn’t be a
saviour now. I couldn’t
be a queen.
I keep looking around
for things
I haven’t seen.

I seldom wandered in
your night.
I seldom took
the fall.

Now deep inside
I know
there’s no
one else to call.


VOICES IN THE LIGHT

Sometimes voices
in the light
will call me back to
them.

Back out of this
place where
I have spoken
from.

And then I will turn
my
back on you,
and on
the storm-bled sea.

And even
on the sleeping faces
that will
never
wake for me.

I will find myself
expanded
out of limitations
plight.

And no
earthly cause
or battle
will keep
me in this fight.

And what will
seem like
nothingness to
those
that have remained,

to me will seem like
childhood
when in
the time of May.


SHE WAS AS TALL AS THE EIFFEL

On the journey back,
riding on a lonely track
beat-up.

My memories of you
are packed deep inside
a sack.
I never knew your mouth
or your soil. I never
knew your fingering.

Begging
lonely men you begged
me, and I gave you
something then.

I can't remember
which or what
or when.
Or if it was
something I once sent.

But is it time?
You left them
abruptly.

And is it true about
the merchant?


CAN’T TALK ANYMORE IN THE OLD WAY

On the days I'd go to visit.
I knew
she would be free.

In the mornings she'd do
the Sun Salute,
and in
the evenings
make peppermint tea.

I first caught sight of
her in the designer sea,
when she was captive in her
swim suit
and the water beckoned me.

On crowded nights she'd
calm me down
with all I expected and without
any sound.

And on days
like this, when the coast is clear,
I'd travel
up to see her there.
Then back at
dawn to my place, here,
by morning I would repair.

On days like this I'd visit her,
when her lover was
elsewhere.

And into the darkness I would slip,
until she ceased
to care.