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?