Patrick White Poems

And should I recall whose eyes made the stars most beautiful,
and set the mindstream that flowed though us aflame with fireflies
a moment there and gone and come again like light
in the keyholes of the feral cats that prowled the graveyardshift
...

I want to make a contribution.
I want to leave something on the stairs of the temple
in the dead of the night and steal away like a shadow,
hoping my small gift of a gift is well-received.
...

Someone keeps following me
like the shadow of who I was supposed to be.
The dark sibling of light
whose face got turned away from the sun.
...

Night. A whisper of rain. Peace in my heart.
A penny on the third eye of the hurricane
I've been trying to ride out all day without
having it throw me off like a big cat on its back.
...

You don't need to put a supernova in a window
like a candle in a telescope
to help me find my way back to you
from the next galaxy over. I'm gone
...

You're lonely
and you think it's because
you're not understood
in a small town
...

Safe, educated witness to bestial scenes
since I was born, the destruction of cities
and species, and helpless human beings
severed from their limbs like pruned branches
...

The day an empty envelope, the clouds
islands of their own in a slow wind,
gathering out of nothing, going anywhere
the blue conception of the dispersing sky urges
...

Not to be with you,
not to know your breathing beside me,
not to be able to put my arms around you
and kiss the black candles away,
...

I refuse to persuade any emotion to a poem
like a horse I can lead to water but can't make drink.
If it's a straitjacket it's a straitjacket.
When its a wet suit it's a wet suit
...