A Dark Illumination Once again, we are here, as we are on this day every year, two hearts lit up with pain. And as day falls into night, a little candle illumines this dim corner where we half-appear. And every flicker, like every breath, is a discrete sensation of hurt, one after the other. It is always the same. Her sitting there, Me sitting here (still wearing yesterday’s shirt). Look at the light. How can a flame smaller than a baby’s fist,

In the Dark, Dreaming (Inspired, in part, by John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Book 5: 108-113) Tonight I am not in my right mind. It was the same last night And the night before. When at night the conscious mind Retires to its Monastic cell, and my senses are Asleep, the dreaming mind yokes together Heterogeneous shapes that Derive from the remembrance of Things seen in daytime. And not only that. It dredges up past deeds, produces Strange ideas that Run together in the Form of a

Made of Light Everything is made of light. Everything is light, of differing gradations and qualities, from the big bang to the atom. Earth and sky are the light of God, and the spirit in man is a self-shining light. The light of lights is the true substance, and that substance is God. Art is the light of the imagination projected outward. Bodies are dark light, lacking luminosity, where “darkness is simply an expression for the lack of light.”

The Darkness of This House Making his advances in tall steps, Davie marks Suzie standing small at the kitchen sink. She drops something, holds still her breath. ‘No-one’s gonna listen to you, Suzie, and that’s a fact’. The ugly brown voice of a drunk scrapping for a fight. From him bad odours rise, smells of fish and river foam, tobacco and beer. He picks up a carver, puts it down. ‘So don’t even think about it’. It is evening, it is hot, and a dead carp’s eye looks up at Suz