Читать книгу Collected Love Poems - Brian Patten - Страница 24

Tonight I will not bother you with telephones

Or voices speaking their cold and regular lines;

I’ll write no more notes in crowded living rooms

Saying what and how much has changed,

But fall instead to silence and things known.

When through exhaustion you scream, throw up

Sorrow that’s become a physical pain,

I’ll not try and comfort you with words

That add little but darkness to ourselves

But with the body speak, its senses known.

There is no frantic hurry to love

Or press on another one’s own dream.

This much I know has changed,

What was once wild is calmed,

And quieter now behind the brain

May throw more light on things;

And what starved for love survives

Whatever shadow it hunted down.

Taking what love comes makes

All that comes much easier;

Something buried deep selects what our shapes need;

The smaller habits it allows to breathe then fade,

Leaving the centre clean.

Tonight I will not bother you with excuses.

If owning separate worlds means pain

Comes more easily, and hurt

Remains a common part of us,

The silence is best; it will allow

All doubts to strip themselves.

Then whatever’s seen will surely

Be seen in its own light,

And whatever is wanted be wanted

For more than wanting’s sake.