Tonight I was putting some new things on my mp3 player. Deciding to take some of my favourite photographs of you, create a new folder, and then put that folder on my player.
The title of the folder simply says “Darling.” But I guess I could have tagged you “boy” “harlot” “king crimson hood” For when I picture you, it’s these many images and more I've seen.
I determined to carry you around inside my electric sighs.
I could walk, with the tiniest emblems; pixilated pathways to you would line my pockets.
These small depictions vouchsafe my obsession with you, to no one but me.
Those semblances of your most raw pigments, I left behind in private folders.
I would reveal your likenesses to no one.
I could see hundreds of people around me on my way to work. The train is never short on them, but, I’ve elected to see, in their stead, a few well chosen photos of you. You’ll accompany me on my journeys.
If in the palm of my hand, you go as I go and You are mine.
My fingers curled lightly round your resemblance, you’re my secret, so silent.
Lover is as Lover does, a he-cat ginger-pawing that walks me past midnights again and again.
Picture this. The soft slow smile I’m going to make when your photos randomly swirl through my shuffle.
I’ve got your cobalt blue in my sights. And I hear tell that to look into them is to climb down into the body that owns them.
And I do. Again and again, walking you past midnights. Tell me, how do You see in the dark?
Do you follow the scents of musk and lime and of lavender in Time? I guess and say your eyes follow well.
No, you’re right, not much gets past my dark eyes. These hooded eyes have the kind of night vision that behold in broad daylight that which others think so cleverly to cover under daytime Frowns, beneath Chanel and the smell of clean Oxfords
By Day or by Night, I see what others do not think they say so loudly. Moonlight illuminates, but the dark of the moon feels its way around. Knows more intimately her surroundings.
Picturing this:
I am positive your visage belongs entirely to the consciousness rented out by the hour, by the landlord Day Light.
(Day time is a place I can rent but have never owned).
I see you move in the light, in your world, a modest emperor afloat.
Neither puffed up in sails, nor backwards for going forwards when it comes to talking close with those daytime faces.
I picture you Vivid, Visible. Yet you’re never afraid of the scrutiny of afternoon hours the way that I am.
I like more the long shadows of late afternoons slipping into sunsets.
Shades love in shadows and I am no less.
I picture this, the open warmth of your Daytime Face. Bearing the nodding Calm of Sunflower and You - discerning, diplomatic in discourse, whether talking to those on trains on their ways to steel and glint offices, or in the green quiet sunlit garden voice you give to the small. Your good humour’s a balm and a glow.
I understand that when you look in my eyes you believe to see wells that go down forever. Too deep for reflecting whatever lies - wherever lies at bottom. And though you’re not wrong, you’d be wrong to assume this pit has a bottom.
Picture this. I’m Blinking in your sunlight. Walking and stumbling. Nocturnal instincts do me so little good here.
I am made snow-blind by the white hot of midday ~ where you are merely a stretching cat, yawning in good fortune.
Pattering mice to your mawed, I am horrified, but I’m awed.
See your unsteady mermaid on daylight’s shore. It’s your hand that grasps mine, until I become accustomed to your forms of photosynthesis. So much that I begin to think I can breathe your solar air.
Picture that.
Now picture this …. I’ll walk a little ways in your garden glare, if you’ll walk a little my night gleaming.
Failing that, we can meet twice a day in between. Sunset and sunrise we’ll wink as we pass one another.
And if I can’t walk yet in Your full heat of Day, still, I can picture you, in the frame of my hand.
I open the electric bud when I like,
~ for I’ve etched your talisman aspect there and can carry you anywhere I go ~
whether over Daytime rise or under night-times sighs.
Blondie/Picture This/Parallel Lines/1978:
All I want is a room with a view
A sight worth seeing, a vision of you
All I want is a room with view, oh-oh
I will give you my finest hour
The one I spent watching you shower
I will give you my finest hour, oh yeah
All I want is a photo in my wallet
A small remembrance of something more solid
All I want is a picture of you
Picture this, a day in December
Picture this, freezing cold weather
You got clouds on your lids and you'd be on the skids
If it weren't for your job at the garage
If you could only oh-oh
Picture this, a sky full of thunder
Picture this, my telephone number
One and one is what I'm telling you, oh yeah
All I want is 20-20 vision
A total portrait with no omissions
All I want is a vision of you, oh-oh
If you can picture this, a day in December
Picture this, freezing cold weather
You got clouds on your lids and you'd be on the skids
If it weren't for your job at the garage
If you could only oh-oh
Picture this, a sky full of thunder
Picture this, my telephone number
One and one is what I'm telling you
Get a pocket computer
Try to do what you used to do yeah