I.
The humdrum whitewashed wall of my balcony
overlooks almost everyone here,
but it’s yellowed in the slightly
past-the-season holiday lights
winking behind my back.
Rip them out, and yet
the still flaming cigarette butts alight
the charred pupils watching.
Never quite willed away.
II.
Today I saw a hairy upper-ankle poking
out from a tie-dye dress
and out-of-fashion Birkenstocks.
Adam leering through
the straightened golden curtains,
and I thought: woman? No.
You wouldn’t catch me out like that.
III.
The end of my mug’s looming
and only now am I confident
in passing personal judgment.
The last drops smile while they cling
resolutely to the inner-rim.
How they refuse to fall!
The sprightly demon climbing
the wet, ridged inner-walls
of my throat is parched,
strumming on my vocal chords,
and I’m singing,
obscenely.
IV.
You can’t come into my house
before I’ve cleaned it up,
flipped the cushions, hidden
all the plastic cups and washed
the clear ones to look like glass.
I’ve gotta Lysol, Clear-ox, and detox,
then I’ll let you in, maybe.
V.
My balcony knows too much about me.
-BRD
Copyright @2012 by Ben Davies
Nov 13, 2013
Nov 13, 2013 at 11:48 AM UTC
Just because the rose beats our blood,
Why does the violet come second?
I’m sure the lizard loves it warmer
Cold. His heart flies in a square, blue box.
They should sacrifice blue ribbons in
Stead. Martyrdom looks clean, sans crimson,
Sans blood at all, then we’re murdering
Statues, already dead, beaten me-
Tal, standing without legs or organs.
Sheba, just part of the whole shebang,
You look so depleted, staunchly there,
Staunchly not, and somehow I wonder
Whether you’d like the b or the a
Better, or nursery rhymes at all.
-BRD
Mar 18, 2011
Mar 18, 2011 at 11:03 PM UTC
A wraith in Monday’s spoon,
I’m pale to start again,
Winter’s dark in day lit June,
I’m maimed by blackened game.
My skin so deeply grooved
With days of gritted muck,
I forget the face I wore in youth
On such temporal crutch.
With lonely else but waiting,
I’ve yet the time to count,
Eighty-eight in lines remaining,
As the bright of day, dims out.
-BRD
Mar 18, 2011
Mar 18, 2011 at 11:00 PM UTC
In the Garden
As the rose cuts deeply with its redness,
I see your visage in sleepy visions,
like a portrait beneath my lashes, stroked
flawlessly, through the length of days
spent trimming down the weeds
that grow relentless through our efforts.
In a matter of time we’ll shear
them down again, that much harder
to slice that pestilence away,
as the darkness of autumn evenings
creeps into summer’s passing shadow.
Let there be some light yet, to see
the work of longer days in our garden,
to see your final smile in the sun’s beam,
and watch, as my delighted fingers caress
your freckled neck in admiration.
Let there be hours to pray and sing,
and laugh at gilded butterflies,
let there be moments yet to wonder
at the splendor of it all.
I close my eyes to see your likeness,
but the paint begins to crumble
from its canvas, wrinkled
as if worn by the harshness of times.
The smoke between your fingers
has clambered up and stole
your golden hue away,
like a breath of darkened wind
it strips the petals from your face,
and tears have dripped the very
sparkle from your eyes,
the spirit soon to follow.
You wounded me with beauty once,
without, you wound me still,
the faded wings of butterflies,
pressed cold, upon the sill,
the garden’s white with winter’s cover,
the glass with winter’s pall,
there’s only moments yet to wonder
at the brevity of it all.
Feb 15, 2011
Feb 15, 2011 at 10:44 AM UTC
Dear K,
I’m broken
With a half-empty toast rack and extra jelly,
Unground coffee beans and our unwashed dishes,
I woke to a cold pillow, but no amount of caffeine
Wakes your absence to my expectant lips.
I wandered down with the falling drops
From my tributary lashes,
Wondered why these pearls should dive
So much deeper than it seemed they might
When you said we’d be better off,
You’d be better off, alone.
I shook with clammy hands and nervous glances,
It should have been a sign of things to come,
Briefly entranced for brief romances.
With nothing to be clammy for, anymore,
I sit in the desert dry of unaccompanied rhythm,
Like these notes were begging to be written,
Written because I’ve no other river
Through which my thoughts meander so comfortably,
But stop, I know you’ve no desire to hear about
My breakfast, my day
I linger.
-BRD
Feb 2, 2011
Feb 2, 2011 at 11:20 PM UTC
Shades of Gray
A man in black,
blurred, as the beating
wings of butterflies
cannot be captured.
Smudged, the steps
he took, lie
smeared
on his past,
like a wake of mud printed
soles.
He’s cryptic,
obscure as the pictures
drawn to fill an
empty space,
unknown as those behind
him. Come back to
airplanes and clover leaves,
childish bathroom walls. These tiles
are trodden weary shades of gray.
Jan 23, 2011
Jan 23, 2011 at 2:29 PM UTC
A thick mist twists about my childhood,
when it all seemed so much simpler.
Mammoth butterflies tickle
my imagination, I sit and wonder
at the minute grains of sand
cascading from my palms,
the naïve pleasure it once rendered.
These men are chasing dreams
on the backs of butterflies.
Soft driven airstrips blow away,
I have little expectation left to fly.
My mother used to tell me
I could do anything I wanted,
I would sign my name on the clouds
but I have no strength left to leave the ground,
time has left me reaching.
My sand has dwindled.
The butterflies have drifted away.
-BRD
Nov 22, 2010
Nov 22, 2010 at 8:05 PM UTC
De-winged and flightless
is the dragonfly
that tried to slip by
in my slipstream,
It found instead the pickup
traversing the alleyways
of my convoluted imagination.
I don’t know why I’m driving,
ever driving someplace
unrealized and unexplored.
I feel so disconnected,
I feel so disrespected by the world
sometimes
But that’s not fair
it has been good to me.
I feel so disconnected
sometimes
and yet it comes in times
when I’m most consumed
most surrounded.
Maybe I’m just tired
and the walls around me quiver only
from the struggles of my waking eyes,
Maybe I’m just bitter
that I can’t have the perfect life
and feel as if nothing could be better,
Maybe I’m affected
by this liquid life I’m draining from my cup
in hopes of finding a different day
at the bottom.
Is it jealousy that lingers in my mind
or mere longing tinged with a heavy
dose of confusion?
I am confused.
And yet I’m still alive
unlike my dragonfly
and so I stumble onward.
-BRD
Nov 22, 2010
Nov 22, 2010 at 4:03 PM UTC
Teardrop
that
beauty
sits inside the
tears - sweat, sliding
down your skin - slowly
dripping down to fall where
memories lie awaiting - the smallest
ripple on a pond - a wave so subtly
starting - the faintest tingle whimpering
for its life’s exasperation - wants some simple
recognition, a tiny touch of reckoning - shed that
drop that comes to cause the wave’s unbridled
movement - be the pin’s undying call in a room
plush packed in silence - that saline drip on weathered
floors that saw this life worth making - gives this
road a worthy end, or bend since path’s are
wending - ride the bead that singing tells, the
ticking, tocking resilience - the glistening
few that beating drum - through shine,
with light, the spectrum.
- BRD
Nov 22, 2010
Nov 22, 2010 at 3:47 PM UTC
Start with:
Airway, Breathing, Circulation,
easy as ABC
they said.
Perhaps they meant
clear my throat,
slow my breathing,
check my pulse.
I could have used
the advice, but
there wasn’t time,
for him.
Perhaps, no.
His pleading eyes
will not fade in time,
and his sand soiled body’s
last electric leap
seems to hover
still longer
with each
repetition.
His blue lips
still murmur
words
to me
from the
water.
-BRD
Nov 22, 2010
Nov 22, 2010 at 3:37 PM UTC