nigel gray - come close

i can't write love poems
images keep
shouldering their way
between me
and my love
like pigs on a demonstration
images
of butchering
of mutilation
of an unkind word
like a
SLAP
across a child's face

in me
where the love should be
there is
a bloody
hole
like a quarry
where year after year
more and more
is gourged out
by mechanical grabs

yet there is something still
that is warm
(like a paraffin heater
in an empty barn)
if you are cold
you must come
very close


*this was posted in my earlier blog on 14th feb 2005...