You asked if I was pretending to type
But the sounds are real
The words
are real too
I have never sat down
At any keyboard
With any pen
To write fake words
Across paper and screens
Setting up words and letters like
Puppets in a play, dancing across a cardboard set
Human hands making them move in a mockery
Anything I’ve ever written
Has lived and had a life
Nothing that I’ve written or will write in your presence
Will be without substance
Or marionettes on string, dancing for you
No, my love,
They live and come alive
Because we believe in them.
Feb 4, 2016
Feb 4, 2016 at 12:00 PM UTC
Our bodies are great things
Despite our hate and years
of alcohol and poison and mocking words
our bodies still stand and work
When our souls
crawled under our own darkness
And we certainly thought we could not continue on
Our bodies picked us up and kept moving
The hills and large parts of our bodies
Holding memories of all we've ate and said and done
The bones of us
Keeping us up and laying us down
Our skin, covering all the oddest parts of us
Our brains, the only machines
to create cures for themselves
Our bodies are great things
Our cases and our cages
Holding us together
Keeping us in.
Dec 28, 2015
Dec 28, 2015 at 9:10 PM UTC
Our favourite diner
closed its doors two years ago
we can no longer walk in from the cold
feeling the warmth of syrup and coffee cups
Our favourite diner
closed its doors two years ago
and that server we liked so much
we haven't seen him since
and no where else has real carnations
in milk glass vases on every enamel table
Our favourite diner
closed its doors two years ago
it smelled like a Church basement,
felt like my uncle's house
and it was our place, it was what we did
Our favourite diner
closed its doors two years ago
and so we stopped going out for brunch
on Saturdays
we made new traditions
but they were never as good
And we both knew it
Our favourite diner
closed its door two years ago
and so did we.
Aug 14, 2015
Aug 14, 2015 at 9:39 PM UTC
Always dusk
Quilts like capes and
saying sweet goodbye - cheek kisses to summer,
August draws into September,
where seams don’t matter and everything changes colour.
We suddenly stop running and sit,
our youngness ages like the leaves
and our quilts gather dust
Aug 9, 2015
Aug 9, 2015 at 1:09 AM UTC
Laying on piled spines,
pages as blankets,
we stack books against the sun
so we can dream sweetly through the morning.
And when we're rested,
we can take down these bricks we've laid, one at a time,
the brightness of the sky filling our space, strip by strip.
We will take the stories from their towers
read them together,
and then decide
that it's far better to be awake in the light
than to be only a shared dream.
Aug 9, 2015
Aug 9, 2015 at 1:00 AM UTC
My home is made of grit and dirt
The taps run sweat,
the windows are shattered,
their glass clinging to frames
like broken teeth to gums in the mouth of a boxer.
My town is a fighter,
built of scrap metal and machines.
The streets are steel
and the river nuts and bolts,
its gears turn through rust
and parts corrode away.
Time turns it green, orange,
black with oil and grime,
but my city is a fighter,
made of grit and dirt,
and it lives.
Aug 5, 2015
Aug 5, 2015 at 9:16 PM UTC
The sun on my tongue tastes
like home, like childhood, like all the happy parts,
like warm syrup running down my spine
and my worn feet, on grass, thistles, bluebells, your bed,
springing up to touch the wooden ceiling
later to be found peaking out from the duvet
as I was waking up to rain early
and smoke from the chimney across the way
and looking over to see, on the night stand, steaming tea and sticky-sweet buns
that taste like the sun, and you.
Aug 5, 2015
Aug 5, 2015 at 9:07 PM UTC
Isn’t physically quick or agile.
Disappears in libraries.
Has been known to dissolve into the physical pages of books.
Is good at tucking herself into the stacks and retreating to reading nooks.
Blends in at coffee shops where her voice can be drowned out by the grinding and the steaming.
Can become indistinguishable in the dark of theatres, in the quiet shuffle of art galleries, the finger-snapping of poetry readings, the hum and jostle of the Tube.
Is indistinct. Adept at hiding in plain sight.
Aug 5, 2015
Aug 5, 2015 at 9:05 PM UTC
On the dampest days,
I miss you enough to fabricate you.
Years worth of my heart’s energy invested into the study of making matter,
Of bringing it across an ocean
to reassemble near the maples and the bush
and on paper and cards, across a board of letters we catch up and play and paint,
just the same.
Aug 1, 2015
Aug 1, 2015 at 11:43 AM UTC
I will settle in to the storms and waves
And find peace in the gaps
The spaces between set-up and torn-down
From cliff to cliff
We’ll find heart in the air that separates
where we were to the places we are going
Jul 29, 2015
Jul 29, 2015 at 5:01 PM UTC