haustafall - Hello Poetry

i took the morning train today. hushed city streets and sweater-grey skies, clouds like milk in coffee. a flurry of wings, silent strangers, heads down, umbrellas up, sunshine dreams and briefcases. i took the morning train today. left the city behind me, grey walls and grey pavement and grey concrete skies. red buses, black taxis, camera clicks and glinting lenses, crumbling walls and lost tourists. i took the morning train today. watched as the city fell away behind the horizon, rain drumming on the glass. somewhere, birdsong and the glint of blue skies beckons me home.

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Mar 24, 2020

Mar 24, 2020 at 2:28 PM UTC

london dreaming

i took the morning train today. hushed city streets and sweater-grey skies, clouds like milk in coffee. a flurry of wings, silent strangers, heads down, umbrellas up, sunshine dreams and briefcases. i took the morning train today. left the city behind me, grey walls and grey pavement and grey concrete skies. red buses, black taxis, camera clicks and glinting lenses, crumbling walls and lost tourists. i took the morning train today. watched as the city fell away behind the horizon, rain drumming on the glass. somewhere, birdsong and the glint of blue skies beckons me home.

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an angel fell from the sky tonight. he wandered the streets, wings trailing (didn’t last long — do you know how difficult it is, getting chewing gum out of feathers?) the angel squinted at the headlight-drenched pavement, the neon signs and gold squares stamped into the sides of skyscrapers. he lifted his wings against the rain and looked for his stars but only saw the red light of a passing plane.

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Mar 24, 2020

Mar 24, 2020 at 2:17 PM UTC

an angel falls, 2020

an angel fell from the sky tonight. he wandered the streets, wings trailing (didn’t last long — do you know how difficult it is, getting chewing gum out of feathers?) the angel squinted at the headlight-drenched pavement, the neon signs and gold squares stamped into the sides of skyscrapers. he lifted his wings against the rain and looked for his stars but only saw the red light of a passing plane.

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last night the wolves came. *there are plum bruises across the sky and mountains burnt white with faded sun and there’s a path seared sharp into the pines that brightens as the sky dims.* *there’s a nameless man beneath the gallows squatting like a carrion-bird at a **** a smile splits his face like a wound there’s blood like spilled wine, great grinning pools of it, and the snows are thirsty to drink* *and there’s a woman with a story like a knife and nothing to lose, and she sharpens her words and follows the fraying path into the woods.* the wolves come. they always do.

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Mar 24, 2020

Mar 24, 2020 at 2:03 PM UTC

and we were wolves

last night the wolves came. *there are plum bruises across the sky and mountains burnt white with faded sun and there’s a path seared sharp into the pines that brightens as the sky dims.* *there’s a nameless man beneath the gallows squatting like a carrion-bird at a **** a smile splits his face like a wound there’s blood like spilled wine, great grinning pools of it, and the snows are thirsty to drink* *and there’s a woman with a story like a knife and nothing to lose, and she sharpens her words and follows the fraying path into the woods.* the wolves come. they always do.

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black eye no eye three eyes, do you hear the ravens? you measure yourself in summers; lie down and let the snows fall, cut-glass pines and grey sky and the path scarring up into the clouds. these are the winters we wait for, these are the winters that claim us. close your eyes and fill your lungs with snow and ice and snow and ice.

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Mar 24, 2020

Mar 24, 2020 at 10:50 AM UTC

Odinsleep

black eye no eye three eyes, do you hear the ravens? you measure yourself in summers; lie down and let the snows fall, cut-glass pines and grey sky and the path scarring up into the clouds. these are the winters we wait for, these are the winters that claim us. close your eyes and fill your lungs with snow and ice and snow and ice.

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here the sunshine patriot, bright and bleached – they plucked the stars to hang them from your chest. the rest are gone, hidden by light pollution and concrete skies. your eyes reflect the blank face of stopped clocks; steps from the car, summer soldier. but winter hides in the cold metal of the trigger a bang – it echoes in fireworks, spatters the street with blue white red red red. the stutter of a gun, or just a backfiring car? sunshine man melts in a puddle of gaudy red, the colour of sticky ice lollies and patriotism. here the newscaster, weeping tirelessly for the camera. “he was our country,” he says, and wasn’t he just? back alleys and sunshine and wanting to go back, wanting to hide in the past. and here the politicians, mourning loudly into crisp white handkerchiefs. oh, how i wish we could freeze time, draw grimaces in markers on their painted faces and watch them point fingers. they use pretty words heroic, or tragic and pat their sweaty backs. meanwhile, sunshine man bleeds into the gutter red white blue the colour of freedom.

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Mar 17, 2020

Mar 17, 2020 at 3:00 PM UTC

sunshine fireworks

here the sunshine patriot, bright and bleached – they plucked the stars to hang them from your chest. the rest are gone, hidden by light pollution and concrete skies. your eyes reflect the blank face of stopped clocks; steps from the car, summer soldier. but winter hides in the cold metal of the trigger a bang – it echoes in fireworks, spatters the street with blue white red red red. the stutter of a gun, or just a backfiring car? sunshine man melts in a puddle of gaudy red, the colour of sticky ice lollies and patriotism. here the newscaster, weeping tirelessly for the camera. “he was our country,” he says, and wasn’t he just? back alleys and sunshine and wanting to go back, wanting to hide in the past. and here the politicians, mourning loudly into crisp white handkerchiefs. oh, how i wish we could freeze time, draw grimaces in markers on their painted faces and watch them point fingers. they use pretty words heroic, or tragic and pat their sweaty backs. meanwhile, sunshine man bleeds into the gutter red white blue the colour of freedom.

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You wanted a love story, sweetheart— well, I’m an unwritten tragedy; hand me a skull and I’ll monologue while Rome burns. We’re two acts in and falling fast, we’re half a city down and soon there’ll be nothing but ashes. You wanted a love song, baby— I’ll sing to you in a minor key, harmonies in the rain under neon stars, screaming in tune with flowers in your lungs and blood in your hair and city lights and city lights and city lights. You wanted a love letter, honey— “Dear Heartbreak, I’ve got purple bruises on my chest where my prose hits me. I’ve got a mess of clichés and a dark and stormy night and a pinch of melodrama, no talent but I’m trying, honest. I don’t suppose you could maybe unravel me a little? Cut me open like a knife through butter? Maybe then I’ll bleed words; maybe then the poems will spill out of me, entrails unravelling.” You wanted a love poem, darling— meet me in your aspect and your eyes at ten o’clock tonight. Rome’s burning, baby, and all our lions are loose. No time for sonnets; we’ll climb the Colosseum with our flowers and our songs and we’ll deny the gaudiness of the day. You wanted love, sweetheart— I’ll give you everything I am: a burnt-out city, a soliloquy in G minor. I’ll play til my fingers bleed, sing til my voice gives out and maybe— maybe it’ll do.

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Mar 17, 2020

Mar 17, 2020 at 2:10 PM UTC

rome is burning (and we’re just writing love songs)

You wanted a love story, sweetheart— well, I’m an unwritten tragedy; hand me a skull and I’ll monologue while Rome burns. We’re two acts in and falling fast, we’re half a city down and soon there’ll be nothing but ashes. You wanted a love song, baby— I’ll sing to you in a minor key, harmonies in the rain under neon stars, screaming in tune with flowers in your lungs and blood in your hair and city lights and city lights and city lights. You wanted a love letter, honey— “Dear Heartbreak, I’ve got purple bruises on my chest where my prose hits me. I’ve got a mess of clichés and a dark and stormy night and a pinch of melodrama, no talent but I’m trying, honest. I don’t suppose you could maybe unravel me a little? Cut me open like a knife through butter? Maybe then I’ll bleed words; maybe then the poems will spill out of me, entrails unravelling.” You wanted a love poem, darling— meet me in your aspect and your eyes at ten o’clock tonight. Rome’s burning, baby, and all our lions are loose. No time for sonnets; we’ll climb the Colosseum with our flowers and our songs and we’ll deny the gaudiness of the day. You wanted love, sweetheart— I’ll give you everything I am: a burnt-out city, a soliloquy in G minor. I’ll play til my fingers bleed, sing til my voice gives out and maybe— maybe it’ll do.

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