In The Other Room

I thought for so long
                                that I'd dreamt you,
Created you out of shattering wishes,
                 crumbling hopes;
But I can see you now,
                          touch you even,
All it takes is a handful of steps
                                     into another room.
Not twenty feet away
                                  just in the other room.

Self Reflections

"These are not my stars,"  she said,
Looking up into the night,
"This is not my sky.
Why have you brought me here, my love,
Where the air is strange and the world frozen?
Where the birds come in only monochrome?
Why have you brought me here?"


"This is where you're from, my dear," I told her promptly,
"This is where your roots are,
This is where you were born,
I thought you'd be happy to see it again."


"It's not that I'm not happy here," she responded quietly,
"It's that here my blood runs cold and the woods are silent,
When I'm here I can't hear my heartbeat on the wind.
There's no fire in the bush,
No flood on the land."


"You could relearn it here, my love," I whispered,
"And learn to live here again like before."


"Of course I could," she replied,
And looked at me with a saddened smile,
"I can probably learn to live anywhere,
But when I'm there,
I'm alive and I belong somewhere."


"But emotions and attachments are ephemeral, love,
What you feel for him now might be ripped form you again."


"Life is too short to be afraid of the unknowable, my dear,
We've been afraid for so long.
Look up into this sky and tell me what you see."


I did then as she asked me,
Turning my face away from the mirror 
And looking up into the night,
"You're right," I whispered to myself,
"These are not my stars."

When I Get Lost

Child of too many worlds,
It's okay to be afraid:
Stranger things have happened to you,
                                   Remember?
Child without a single home,
It's alright to be lost,
Your feet don't have to remember
                        where to return to.
Child beneath wide skies,
You can tremble at the world,
But there is a place or person for you too
                      for you to belong.

Prayers of Fire and Fear

Being in love is like being on fire,

Stop, drop, roll,

But your brain is already on fire,

Burning, burning, burning,

All of it is burning like Troy on fire

And nothing left to hold back,

No walls left to capture or break.

Being in love is like being on fire,

Drowning me in happiness and 
Revives me to fear?

Fear of losing what I've found,

Fear of those high walls rebuilding, rebuilding

Higher, higher until they are there again 

As they were in the beginning.

I only my words to be the ivy that can grow 
Up, up, up those walls.

I only my hopes that those walls 
Will still be cracked,

When I return.

Fear reviving,

Happy tears lull me to long needed slumber,

At your side

In your arms.

Fleeting

My time is made from the seconds it takes
                                       for petals to fall;
A brief breath after a serenade's final note.
My time is made from passers by along a
                                     seaside sidewalk;
A child's laughter fading to adult whispers.
My time is the empty places in cupboards
                       between cups and glasses;
Silken touches of cold star-crossed lovers.

My Contradiction

You're the storm and the eye of it,

The calm and the turbulence,

You're the Spielberg flick and the psalm to me.

Never knew what broken meant until you up and fixed me,

Crumbling pieces of dust and decay that sort into feelings.

You're the confusion and the sense,

The philosopher and the nihilist,

Beautifully disharmonic and complete.

There are Things

There are things I cannot say to you,

- because of who I am -

- because of who you are -

I've never had this before and the inexperience can be daunting,

So I hesitate, so I watch.

You've been built up and cracked too many times before,

So you're silent, so you sit.

Your walls are mortared with past and present,

Mine crumble beneath future's hopes.

And somewhere our walls intersect,

Building the foundation of a fortress perhaps,

Inside where we can maybe let go.

Where I can say things I cannot say.

I cannot say "I love you" 

because I'm scared to,

I cannot say "for always" 

because you've lost your faith in forever.

These are things I cannot say,

But maybe I do not have to.

Lash of Flames

The sunlight fills my room

With gold and oranges;

It's like fire is beating at my door,

Not so unheard of in this country

That floods like the Nile and burns like the sun.

That people live here is at first a wonder,

Then a joy.

This country falsely sunburnt in broken visions,

Living radiant in every breath of hurricane

And ever lash of flame.

Murmurs

Drift away on the wings of silence

And carry the murmurs in the palm of your hand

Like memories that you will never forget.

Wake with the morning

And dream of the sunshine in the water

And carry the murmurs in the back of your mind

Like shivers of silver and glass.

Walk with the night in the darkness

That flows around you in eddies and reflections

And carry the murmurs in the core of your soul

So that you may always remember

Who you were before.

The Virgin's Never

Broken daylight like sand against my skin;
Rubbed raw at missing you.
'Never' seems so final,
Like Macbeth's bells of heralded death,
And while I know the bells will ring just this once,
The thought of 'never'
Is no imagined dagger but reality,
Here driven into my heart;
My virginal blood then on our sheets. 

Smoke

Amber dripping soft velvet,
Reminders of silk as it tipples into the glass.
It's the taste of memory that stirs itself up,
An insomniac's hazard.
The faintest lingering of cigarette smoke,
Ephemeral,
                   like sleep tonight.
Curling tighter beneath warmth,
Banishing thoughts to the backdrop of breath,
Curing the sleepless.
The faintest lingering of cigarette smoke,
Ephemeral,
                  perpetual.

 

Confidences

"How do you love a man who doesn't love you?" she implored me incredulously.
"Easily, if he's a good man. With patience, and hope. With understanding," I reply.
"What if he's an evil man?"
"Why would I love an evil man?"
She opened her mouth to counter, but then realised what I'd said,
and silence fell between us and the words were left dead.


"How do you stand on your feet after that onslaught?" I asked her years later.
"Unsteadily, since I loved him, with help, and with pain. I move onwards." she said.
"What if there's no help to be had?"
"Why would you abandon me?"
I realised as the words left my lips, the dumb of my query 
and so then was able to laugh with her at my folly.

Kindling

February seems a long memory
Lost underneath layers of spoken words and cooled sugars
that hang like sweetened icicles from the ledges of our lives.
February seems a distant thought
to be remembered by imagery and melody
savoured till perhaps it is rekindled by a month like July.

Rage

Save words by letting go

and simply following the flow of pen's ink on paper.

Letters curling around fingers turning,

whole sentences that burn down houses

pulverise walls in your mind.

Fire soothing water:

the hardest visualisation,

like happiness.

I want keys to break down heaven's doors

and wreck all love's cathedrals.

Bring them down

Bring them down

and give me what I'm owed.

Providence

Crackling sounds of crisp snow underfoot,
Harbinger of silver linings yet unseen,
Like some broken storm:
A sparrow fallen from providence's high regard
To land gracefully all the same 
Amidst the thorns and lilies of yesterday's forgotten stories.
Haven scorned and blanched in clouded paths,
Non-yellow bricked roadways to lead people over rainbows,
Wishing wells and birds risen from ashes,
Here lie those who fell and were dead,
Will you pay the ferryman to cross our sainted river?

The Misguided

True: I'd love to hate you.

It's like a cloud falling:

                               silver grey yellow blue,

                               soft wet, capturing cold.

Closed around you and not my guiding light

                               not the lighthouse on a cliff

                               calling homewards to me.

More the lulling river full of suggestion

                               your constructed hopes

                               your blinded desires.

Oh yes, I'd love to hate you.

My friend, you dreamed you were my love,

                               but it's the blind that dream so well.

But you're not my northern star in alien waters,

                               sailing these waters isn't so hard

                               You're for someone who doesn't exist.

Not my navigation or my cartographer,

                              Don't cloud the way.

You're not waiting for me.

My friend, you dreamed you were my love,

                              when you thought my heart was dead,

                              you thought I would take a final leap.

My friend, you dreamed you were my love,

                             like you were some knight,

                             on some imaginary stallion.

My friend, you dreamed you were my love,

                             and only the blind dream so well

                             in the wrong direction.

True: I'd love to hate you.

So take your dreaming far from me.

Politics

Thought of light that burns the sun,
Awakening.
Fires searing softly,
Lapping like waves: an oceans solid returning.
Cliff faces born of desperate hopes
Raised against the shed tears
In the hope to devour some forgotten song.
Inclining heads in one direction
                                          Brainless
                                          Mindless
Drones dredging upwards from the forest floor;
Sparks untouched and unnurtured.

You're Not Mine

You're not mine: I share you with the world.
At first I thought you the hart
Alone and untouchable in a forest of your own,
But now I see my error:
You're the hunter and the world's the forest,
And I'm the hart accidentally strayed onto your path.
What's left is for you to shoot.

Gutless Generation

TV blaring video games firing guns

and automobiles,

Cacaphony of clamors and lost coins rambling

Drowning out sermons of book or parent.

Runaway junkie daughter parked on

her corner of street,

Selling wares only the rich can keep;

But Joe Blo'll pay the eleven minutes

and she'll get her fix eventually.

Teenage bumblers hop on a bus:

Theirs is a different part of town

with shopping malls.

Shiny cars line the streets and behind

silver glass dolls display wares only they will wear but everyone buys.

The church is dead and God needs a megaphone,

Responsible adults need shotguns 

to get anywhere with the rotten core of society these days.

Ophelia Drowned

Ophelia drowned was beautiful still,
With frail palor and silken skin,
Flower guardians to shepherd her way
From ebb to flow from tide to day.
We drowned her and nothing's the same,
Lost our cause to falling tears,
Blinding aims have slain our goddess,
Doused the stars of fire
Brought the world to silence
Kills his love undoubtable,
Too much water we wept for ourselves
And for our flaws Ophelia's drown'd.