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.

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.

Away

Iced cold knife tip
- burning way through -
Following the line
down the rigid spine
searing a path.


Every step against the tide
- against the tugging -
Wrenching agony
dislocating not only limbs
but self.


Forced a-drift by circumstance
- frustrating agony -
Relieved only by the steps
taken backwards.

Speak To Me

Speak to me of stolen things,

Fallen things,

Forgotten things.

Tell me how you found my heart,

And how you hold it in your hand.

Show me how sweet life can be,

And how truth can make stars seem dull.

Talk to me of broken things,

Crumpled things,

Rusted things.

Tell me how I took your heart,

And set it back in place.

Show me how my life could be

Complete if I had not ever been with you.

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.

Explosive Love

So I thought I saw you today,

We may even have talked!

Conversed is too strong a word

For worded meanderings

Between empty lovers.

Having dinner and a movie

Is just to get us through the motions:

Let’s pretend, play house.

At least we can say

That Spielberg’s done it again.

‘God I wish our sex had that

Many Explosions.’

The latter sentiment left

Unspoken.

Because we’re not ready

To suggest it.

You drove me home.

The same CD as years before,

The same words.

‘…in a brave new world…’

The same words,

Both bridge and barrier

Between empty lovers.

It’s strange though the sky blue

In the middle of night

That you love

That I’m wearing.

Or that you turn

And give me that smile

That brought me

Into Chaos.

That’s no illusion.

No explosion!

There’s still something here.

We’ve just become more careful.

I know you won’t make

The first move so

I move.

You pretend to think.

I lean in and whisper in your mind.

So you chuckle and park the car.

Lead me on.

And before long we’re trying

Our own movie stunts

The kind that’d make us blush.

Like explosions.

It gives us something to talk about,

Made happy by re-igniting the hidden flame.

Us empty lovers

Full

And once more

Content.

Be Still

As the storm crashes over us,

And the winds above howl obscenities

Be still.

Be still.

As the world crases down on us

And the we fall beneath the waters deep

Be still.

Be still.

Be still for they cannot harm you,

Be still for they will not touch

They are thoughts only meant to scare

They are sounds only meant to hide

What you feel inside.

Be still.

While up above all is rendered to ash

And the stars are darkened

Be still.

Be still.

When the sun is gone down

And the moon too has faded into the sea

Be still.

Be still.

Be still for the dark won't harm you

Be still for it will only cradle

You in its arms and rock you quietly to sleep

And in the morning you will wake and there the light will shine.

But be still now,

Be still now and revel in the darkness this night brings,

Be still.

Wait Not For Me

Wait not for me

If the darkness falls

Do not tarry here for long.

Wait not for me

When dawn is come

But pass into the world beyond.

A whisper

In the wind that flows

And follows

The river to the sea.

A mystery.

Unknown song

Carried far from here

You are gone

Too far away to see

Wait not for me.

Wait not for me

If the darkness falls

Do not tarry here for long.

Wait not for me

When dawn is come

But pass into the world beyond.

Poem

So roses are red and violets are blue

But what do they matter when I know it’s true?

And daffodils grow and leaves are green,

Why point it out when it’s clearly seen?

Those clouds can rain and the stars align,

But I know that in your hands my heart will shine,

So roses can stay red and violets blue

But no poem can say how much I love you.

One of the Roses

So you have found the way through to cold verity,

You search for how to kill it in its cradle,

Hidden from eyes the iced clarity.

And when the road is ended will you still run?

A wandering fool throughout the rest of time,

It will still be a ghost you'll have become.

Your memory will not last but fade away,

Vanishing into the vast pool of Forget,

Where your thoughts will now always stay.

Say you'll never break away or fall apart

Lost forever in this darkest dream of mine

This sweet nightmare of my longing heart.

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.

Dead Lines and Tissue Paper

              so when you said
                                     'i don't know 
                                     anymore'
what you really meant was
                                     'yes it's over now.
                                      sorry'
couldn't just have said it straight
                          out could you?
                                                     3 letters I tried to mail

                                                     2 of them I set on fire

                                                     the other I tore to scraps.                    
        had it ever occured to you
           that i thought more of it?
            that i thought more of it
                           than you did?
                                                     Part 1 says
                                                        'I miss you.'
                                                     Part 2 tells you to forget

                                                     Me and part 3 says

                                               'I wish you were here.'
                  of course you didn't
                     why should i even
                         have expected?
           cos then you'd have said
                                               'I'm sorry. I don't
                                                know if I love you
                                                anymore.
                                                I don't know what else
                                                to say.
                                                I'm sorry.'
                                                    Now I'm looking at part 4

                                                    The page is empty

                                                    And I'm stuck with the

                                                   opening line because I

                                                    don't know what to say

                                                    To make you answer your

                                                   Switched off phone.

     but you didn't say it that way
                                                    I'm running out of

                                                   murdered lines writing

                                                    'I love you
                                                    I do.'
now i'm left to choke on                and all you've left me is

                  whiskey lullabies and tissue paper  

Your Last Lover

Her arms she raised above her head,

Her eyes they glowed from sheet-strewn bed.

Her lips they breathed and her voice

                                                   it begged.

And sun it flew from my room in the depth of night,

Leaving shaded hands to grope for hidden light.

The sword it

                    fell

                in a shining arc,

A silver line cutting the golden dark.

My eyes they shadowed to that distant plain.

My heart it faltered in the molten rain.

Arresting me, Death drew the cover:

“Casanova, I am your last lover.”

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.

Selene and Endhymion

At  the dawn of every day

As the moonlight fades away,

From your sleeping side I go,

Eb and tides: I follow their flow.

Leaving kisses on your cheek

No means left for me to speak;

Only whispers for when you wake,

Drifting to watch the sunligh tbreak.

Open your eyes, sweet prince of light,

And wish agian for swift come night,

When to you once more I'll come,

And dancers beat and singers hum,

Carrying love throughout our song,

To you I'll always belong;

Twixt dusk and dawn its always true:

In the darkness I'm for you,

But at the dawn of every day,

I will always fade away.