Now THIS is a love poem

Borrowed Love Poems

John Yau

1.
What can I do, I have dreamed of you so much What can I do, lost as I am in the sky
What can I do, now that all the doors and windows are open
I will whisper this in your ear as if it were a rough draft
something I scribbled on a napkin I have dreamed of you so much
there is no time left to write no time left on the sundial
for my shadow to fall back to earth lost as I am in the sky

2.
What can I do, all the years that we talked and I was afraid to want more
What can I do, now that these hours belong to neither you nor me
Lost as I am in the sky What can I do, now that I cannot find
the words I need when your hair is mine
now that there is no time to sleep now that your name is not enough

3.
What can I do, if a red meteor wakes the earth and the color of robbery is in the air
Now that I dream of you so much my lips are like clouds
drifting above the shadow of one who is asleep Now that the moon is enthralled with a wall
What can I do, if one of us is lying on the earth and the other is lost in the sky

4.
What can I do, lost as I am in the wind and lightning that surrounds you
What can I do, now that my tears are rising toward the sky
only to fall back into the sea again
What can I do, now that this page is wet now that this pen is empty

5.
What can I do, now that the sky has shut its iron door
and bolted clouds to the back of the moon
now that the wind has diverted the ocean's attention
now that a red meteor has plunged into the lake
now that I am awake now that you have closed the book

6.
Now that the sky is green and the air is red with rain
I never stood in the shadow of pyramids
I never walked from village to village in search of fragments
that had fallen to earth in another age What can I do, now that we have collided
on a cloudless night and sparks rise
from the bottom of a thousand lakes

7.
To some, the winter sky is a blue peach teeming with worms
and the clouds are growing thick with sour milk
What can I do, now that the fat black sea is seething
now that I have refused to return my borrowed dust to the butterflies
their wings full of yellow flour

8.
What can I do, I never believed happiness could be premeditated
What can I do, having argued with the obedient world that language will infiltrate its walls
What can I do, now that I have sent you a necklace of dead dried bees
and now that I want to be like the necklace
and turn flowers into red candles pouring from the sun

9.
What can I do, now that I have spent my life studying the physics of good-bye
every velocity and particle in all the waves undulating through the relapse of a moment's fission
now that I must surrender this violin to the sea's foaming black tongue
now that January is almost here and I have started celebrating a completely different life

10.
Now that the seven wonders of the night have been stolen by history
Now that the sky is lost and the stars have slipped into a book
Now that the moon is boiling like the blood where it swims
Now that there are no blossoms left to glue to the sky
What can I do, I who never invented anything
and who dreamed of you so much I was amazed to discover
the claw marks of those who preceded us across this burning floor