yoga pants

you wore these
and now i too
to feel close to you

when i open up my lungs
it’s you i’m breathing for
a pranayama for two

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019

your field of reeds

i don’t think i’d ever have been old enough
to be the equal of you in our younger days
to the fullness of all our summers i lived
i know you have tried to remember them all

and of course we could never have been forever
here merely for the term of our natural lives
the naïve hope was to simply not die
how’s not to reason why

for as long as my shadow’s here at your side
your regret will be a coma of dreaming
and that blanket of night will smother you
so that all you’ll feel is the pain of now

love is a beautiful hideous thing
i miss you my dear, and thank you for trying
if we could we’d kick the whole damn sky in
i’m nowhere forever and you’re haunted more
grief is a beautiful hideous thing
miss you my dear, and screw me for dying
but tomorrow things will work out somehow
you’ll smile again in the reeds at morningside

we thought we held all the keys didn’t we
to lock all the doors to mutual oblivion
but no matter how far and vain you wander
in this hall of echoes you’ll never find me

and of course you remain to remember now
how we railed at the stalking geist of death
though i wish i had not crumbled, dear
you should not yearn to have died with me

and you’re old enough now to be scared of forgetting
but the end, as we’ve seen, is a broad church
and the road there is an arduous song
so for now be resigned to the sunshine my dear (i won’t mind)

love is a beautiful hideous thing
miss you my dear, and screw me for flying
if we could we’d kick the whole damn sky in
i’m nowhere forever and joy will return
grief is a beautiful hideous thing
i miss you my dear, and thank you for crying
but tomorrow things will work out somehow
you’ll smile again in the sunshine at morningside

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

regret

heed the silence that follows
truer than any promise made
the sound and fury of a hidden life
you cannot dream this into submission

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020

2016 bc (before covid)

we kissed in george town
where sidewalks are an afterthought
where one must step into oncoming traffic
or take no chances at all
i’m glad we took ours

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020

love strabismus

your eyes avoid my face
my face avoids your averted gaze
why should i apologise

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020