November 30, 2006
Posted in Poetry at 9:15 pm by Kristiina
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.
Permalink
November 14, 2006
Posted in Story Scrapbook at 11:02 pm by Kristiina
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.
Permalink
September 19, 2006
Posted in Poetry at 1:36 am by Kristiina
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.
Permalink
August 5, 2006
Posted in Poetry at 4:57 pm by Kristiina
duck-feathered fall
through sunsets; long eyes of a kite
follow steaming paths
Permalink
July 3, 2006
Posted in Poetry at 11:42 pm by Kristiina
I rained down here from space, I swear.
Fled from men in uniforms
double-dosed and staggering.
“Fine me up,” I said
to the wind, waving whiskey hands.
I did defend my actions
to the tired-faced pursuit; “Hold on, Miss,”
they said. “We’re not done with you!”
I stumbled to an alleyway, choked.
You’re a whisper now,
a madness with these stormcloud eyes.
You drew figures on my back;
escape routes, back doors, plans.
Abandoned boatsheds were our homes,
abandoned reason filled our time.
Higher, farther, the wind blows
the shreds of my paint-spilled shirt.
“No, these are not my people,”
I explained to wounded photographs.
“To crowded squares I came,
I rained down here from space, I swear.”
They sentenced me to solitude
and fictional homes. As crowds brushed up
against my self-inflicted pristine skin,
my thighs sighed contempt.
They had watched me rebel, silent now.
Famished for your moth-shaped cheeks,
grin-filled coyote teeth, smells of earth
and busy fingers, dripping paint.
“Good morning, Miss; hold on now
while I fill your name tag
with the substance for the day.”
Permalink
July 2, 2006
Posted in Story Scrapbook at 11:04 pm by Kristiina
I dreamt of dragonfire thundering through the veins of the wind. Lightning struck the sand and rocks next to me, giving birth to crystals, liquid and languid as the face of the sea. Granite pulsed and coughed in the heat. Sweating silver, it was painted monochrome like a broken caleidoscope, a few chips at a time.
I walked on hot coals and they turned into a sunrise, swelling under my feet and above the clouds. Horizon tipped over and played catch with the skeleton of a half-sunken ship, as I picked molten sea shells from the sand, turned them into dice, and rolled sixes. One after another they fell, six after six after six, and they burst into flames as they landed. One after another, I rolled the dice and watched luck spark up.
Permalink
June 27, 2006
Posted in Story Scrapbook at 3:05 pm by Kristiina
The music in my head stretches through my hair, webs upward and I grow taller with it, trying to catch up. The beat of another tomorrow chokes me out of silence, humming in tune with the moving air. The sounds grow stronger, more insistent, and then they spread as a blanket, drowning the wind.
Time stops.
It freezes over its tracks, liquid no more; waiting, luring, silent. I stand in an immeasurable void with blue-printed footsteps.
A transparent path curls out from under Time, whirls around me; ruffling, it crawls around my feet in lazy swirls. I am surrounded by a thousand tentative vibrations.
The path snarls: Time stopped. Can you catch up now?
I cover my ears and hum my name, over and over. To remember. To stay. But the name gets caught in echo and I forget after all.
I am a half-empty guilt equation, pulling vision into parallel lines of choice and defeat, feeding on patience and the sound of your clenched teeth: I never… I draw lines on the subterranean surface of Time, file your shape into it, break chips off its edge and polish features with guarded fingertips.
I give you away. Here.
Time starts to move, begins to nudge my working fingers with its threads and soak my toes in a messy flow, melting shapes until they steam. It gets under my fingernails, beneath my hair and forms dewdrops on my lashes. I dance in puddles, dripping, soaked. It’s so hot. Time yanks my reason, steals the edge and your face, and roars upwards, pulling loose each safety valve. I am an explosion, born of someone else’s body and mine, and a little careless chemistry.
From clay to dust the moment goes.
Permalink
May 12, 2006
Posted in Story Scrapbook at 8:37 pm by Kristiina
This spring burrows into me, stretching its claws far, far under my ribs, and hisses: breeeeathe!
I danced on the lawn in the back yard today, danced for the sprouting daisies and for starving ladybugs; danced for every teardrop I could not hold back and for walled up dreams. I laid out my heart on the pavement, whispered death spells over it and left it there for better days; danced under the trees, making leaves sprinkle wishes in my hair, sparkling and broken.
My longing stretched proudly under the stars, clumsy and loud; so loud that its grumbling should have reached your ears from far away, scratching, wailing sounds into your hearing and making you listen.
Thump-thump goes the heart, and spring kisses me on the nose, fiddling with the rain, laughing at loneliness, inviting me for a walk.
Sour-faced apples stare at me, as if it were my fault I could not eat anything else. I walk with the spring by my side with its greedy paws and too much passion, walk, knowing love is better at hide-and-seek than I ever will be, walk, feeling the dance in my tired, swelling blood, my reaching fingers, my wine-soaked tongue, my every fibre that cries for you.
Permalink
« Previous entries ·