May 24, 2007
Stuck Behind the Mirror
Letters sent to self
of slow roads and lanes stripped of colour;
fog smells of the shrunken world,
an envelope of haze.
The day weighs a ship above my head.
March 28, 2007
Thaw
It was wind, then
running gypsy feet,
half-shadow in a puddle
tripped over laughter.
Morning rose
as winter sloshed away.
March 27, 2007
Hush
I am tied up on train tracks. Inevitability approaches, shaking the world until the vibration seeps into each of my bones. A wine bottle falls off the rail and shatters into pieces. Someone flips a coin and it lands into the broken glass, sending sparks of reflection my way. I am calm. Fate rushes towards me on shaky legs and unties me right before the train arrives. I miss the vibration.
Love’s choked the words out of me. They’re there and not-there, until thoughts become this morning’s fog, shrinking the world into a cocoon. Colours fade and the end of any road becomes invisible. I hold half-finished paintings, one line of two thousand poems, and scribbled ideas around, and they stay this way, unfinished, quivering in anticipation. Soon, I promise them and get distracted by a sound or a daydream.
I watch films about Africa and cry only to walk around with swollen eyes the next day. I worry about hurting him somehow, and not realising it, and make new resolutions each day. But even though my mornings begin in confusion (how is one supposed to switch between the dream-world and alarmclock-reality with ease?), I look forward to them. Maybe we die a little every night, and wake to another beginning. I feel lucky again. He makes me see new colours.
January 19, 2007
Really Bad Poetry (Death Doesn’t Mix With Drink)
this day is a rusty metal piece
scraps of paint peeling
lean into a bridge, tongue-tied
oh! to get drunk with death just once,
to steal his cane and push him
down some slippery stairs.
November 30, 2006
Stillborn
when dawn has no name, i become stormbound
waterfallen from your skin
where love lasts a second, sometimes a day.
the nomad dressed in hunger
drums to a hurricane, beaten
in prelude to silence and broken trees.
when dawn has no name, i become liquified
breathing violin sounds into newborn eyes.
i shut down the clocks,
close your voice and the howling desert wind;
time’s birched in a tree, swinging feet -
deprived of oxygen,
out of breath, out of mind i become stormbound;
ride north over glaciers where ice men cut time
and break sun-kissed waves, shoulders bared.
they exhale ozone in scaled lights -
look, there it weaves.
barely human, i scan the fjords.
rush through shallow water,
forget to stop looking for you
forget to stop, to love, to leave
forget to stand, to run, to close my eyes -
a sea gull glides above my head,
wails of lovers and the high of flight.
i am bound.
when dawn has no name, i lose you somewhere,
and the wind rattles me away.
November 14, 2006
Fallen
Jazz broke the reflection of a streetlamp in your livingroom, jumping above the levels of white noise, distant traffic and someone’s sleeping sounds.
Come, baby, you sang, and turned my necklace into chains.
You caught a song fraction with long, dark fingers; snatched it from the air and tasted alien syllables. Whiskey and water, you thought, and mixed in some drums for strength.
Sprawled on your bed, I asked for Spanish guitars, and you added that. The drinks remained untouched.
I became an aquatic robot, sliding down pipelines and merging decibels, clank! from one, keeeshhh! from the next turn; echoes everywhere. You played blackjack on my body, turning cards infuriatingly slowly. Down, down, down another pipe I went, and I made a savage out of you; an outlaw flooding streets with jazz and shooting lampposts with laser eyes.
Come, baby, you said, and then shot me down so I’d never surrender.
September 19, 2006
When the Sun Fell
the sun sets behind you; look -
a shadow falls and your arms drop.
two hundred yards and jagged peaks sneak
ever closer to your outlined shape.
the death, my dear. its teeth filed.
red dirt and footsteps swallowed
by a greedy road, the endless snake
like you, my dear. blind as you.
you were bared on that path,
a distraction, toes dug in the soil.
i cry when i see knotted hair, torn dresses, you
cocking an ear at birds crooning ahead
one round for tomorrow the past.
all my lovers have blue eyes.
mud-people writhe before lying skies
i cannot think when my body’s this loud
there is dust in my eyes, sepia hair
blown around, blinds for the dusky haze.
one round for the dice; turn me into the wind.
i don’t know how to show you this colour, my dear.
this haphazard orange. this murky glow, teeth bared.
not quite a sundown, not quite a day. less gray.
August 5, 2006
Summer
duck-feathered fall
through sunsets; long eyes of a kite
follow steaming paths