Yesterday was okay:
Food is good; mood is good
The newbies look wired:
Lauren, he is nervous and pleasantly disturbed by forthright kindness.
Arthur is slow and engaging and intimate.
Kate is a little crazy
She sneaks into the men's house:
The men tense
Our eyes move together like magnets
"Hello." She accepts the challenge with interest.
"Hello." A Slavic lilt.
I comment that she mustn't like rules.
She is overjoyed by this.
Five minutes later she is caught and saunters sulkily away.
We are friends.
The old men, we are slower;
Even our eyes move slower
We explore the grounds with less hurry:
They will not move, and we resist the urge to pry their secrets before we have earned them:
We save their hidden corners like sweets under a pillow:
Times will come when they are needed; gorge now and starve later.
For us, time will stay put if we ask it.
With quiet acceptance we foresee the many moments that lie ahead when we will burn to usher time along.
A sullen wise old donkey that resists the switch.
He is our concern. And our fear.
You may become a master of time here.
More likely, you will realise its mastery over you:
Illuminated to a vivid and terrible outline.
Nov 11, 2018
Nov 11, 2018 at 8:39 AM UTC
Burning face as you
Fly off with my airship.
Diesel scorches moist lungs
Dark nostrils flare.
Raised eyes behold, dreamlike:
Your silhouette 'gainst the blushing pearl of a yawning sky.
Soundlessly you vanish beyond canopies and ken-o'-man.
Dawn slips expertly among shimmering trees to greet me with love.
"WHERE IS MY AIRSHIP!"
...
Cicadas tense to pour into a silence
Stretching like an open gullet.
Mar 21, 2018
Mar 21, 2018 at 6:24 PM UTC
She must be beautiful;
She must be funny;
She must be perfect.
She knows she isn’t. And this terrifies her.
He knows he is none of these things either.
Neither is he happy, nor motivated, nor selfless.
Mostly he is lazy. He hates himself without really noticing.
If he didn’t feel this way he might not be scared enough to do anything-at-all.
She finds it hard to be assertive without sounding like a *****
She feels stifled when he gets too close. How will she ever make a marriage last?
She has failed for never liking children.
They both skirt the issues. “She is blunt and he is forgetful”.
They laugh and accept this.
They laugh a lot together,
Carefully and with shame they hide the things that make them horrid.
Time passes
..........
*And one day, as the light filters down to hang in the mists of a darkening month, infusing their street with a hushed sort of patience, she appears in the sitting room.
In quiet confidence, this beautiful, funny, thoughtful girl reveals to him a portion of the true, uglier weaknesses she has masked. Does he run away? Of course not. He embraces them as she is all the more beautiful for revealing these truths that are so rare and so well hidden.
Whereas before he beheld a doll at arm’s length. Perfect in form but somehow not real; porcelain even. Now the shell has cracked to reveal beautiful breathing blemished sensitive skin beneath which he scoops up and holds in his arms.
He felt as a man who had never seen a real woman, only pictures, and here was one now, open and shy and willing and as exhilarated by him as he is by her.*
..........
He sees she is happy.
It is only natural to him that she be worthy of love.
She is silly for doubting it.
He wishes to fall in her lap and to lay out his own faults as best he understands them.
For one desperate moment.
He must be a little better first; a little less worthy of disgust. One day
Not yet, not yet.
They reveal themselves in bitterness later. When she is unprepared and he is suffocating under guilt.
They deny any problem until they are screaming.
They make up and soldier on.
..........
Perhaps his faults will break them apart.
Perhaps hers will, in spite of his initial embrace.
This will not be because they are disgusting, or truly horrid.
Without exception their issues are troublesome, yet entirely normal and worthy of understanding.
We can hope that at the close they are kind to themselves.
We can hope they will not feel despair at everything ending.
We can hope they are wise enough not to see it as everything ending.
We can hope they do not hate themselves for succeeding in doing something that is, in reality, incredibly difficult and praiseworthy –
Making a deeply intimate relationship last any time at all.
Aug 12, 2016
Aug 12, 2016 at 12:56 PM UTC
They let me in the room with her and I walked without meaning to walk. It was bright with big windows covering the opposite wall looking out onto grass and a bed at a right angle to the light so that lying there she rested her chin on her left shoulder to gaze out and had to roll her head rightwards to see who came in. Walking as I was she got bigger and I started to feel her fear and only then did I realise that I was absolutely terrified and had been for a long time though I can’t say when it started. The room smelled sterile and smelled like a room you shouldn’t leave. It made you want to run but made you feel like you absolutely couldn’t; she wanted to run but politeness kept her sane.
She looked at me and it felt like when we met at a station or arrived by taxi and hadn’t seen each other in a while. Except this time we had seen each other but wouldn’t see each other for a while yet. Her eyes were filled with tears and she had a smile like she was happy and proud and surprised in her happiness but glad, and that it was all too much to bear. ‘Hi.’ her voice was stronger than I thought and I knew that I loved how she could be so full of emotion but still function and not collapse.
I couldn’t say anything but patted her with my hand. We both cried quietly. I started to feel I should be doing more and I wanted to tell her but now it all seemed lame and wrong and stupid. So I told her I loved her and I felt I was saying it to be strong and make her feel safe but of course I didn’t feel safe and I heard it as a squeak and more air than sound. I wanted her to say it and she did and her face was still proud but now also concerned but concerned for me and how I was and in a moment all this love turned to hate and then all I felt was shame that I would make her worry for anyone but herself and then blame her for it. It couldn’t end like this so I started to tell her and at first I fumbled and had to keep starting over but then I forgot where we were and even that she was there and I just felt what I wanted to feel and before I knew it I had said it.
‘Here’s what’s going to happen. We’ll cremate you. You’ll be ash. And… well ash is a great fertiliser. After a volcano the land regrows and the crops are full, for years they’re full. So I’ll take you, and--- remember when we went to the garden centre? You said we should get lilies and I said we would and I haven’t. Well I’ll buy some and I’ll take you… I’ll take you…and I’ll plant them and mix you in with the soil. I’ll mix you up with the soil and I’ll plant them and they’ll grow and… you’ll be in them. And I’ll look out and see them growing and know that you’re in them. And when they’re big I’ll pick them and smell them and put them in vases all around the house and I’ll always be with you. Because I love you so much. And you have to know that. I love you so much and I might meet someone but it won’t mean anything because they aren’t you, do you hear me? I will always think about you because you are my heart and you always will be. Do you understand? You have to know that because I’d want to know that, desperately; that not for a second will you be less important to me than you are right now.’
Only then I saw that whilst she was touched and she nodded and her face filled with yet more pride it was all show this time and maybe always had been and really she was just scared. I knew then that she was really only grateful that I cared so much to need her and that she didn’t really care if she was a plant and that was fine with me.
By the time the footsteps came we had fallen onto each other and were kissing clumsily because we were too busy crying but we were smiling with this painful relief that we weren't acting strong anymore when we weren't. And I had begun to feel excitement for some reason that this would all be over soon and I could go back although things would never really go back of course. But now this felt right and I was glad that I had told her.
The nurse came in the needle went in and she was gone. I saw I was walking and in the corridor and the moment I saw I fell in a stumble against the wall and slid and couldn’t feel a thing for all the shaking. I shook on the floor and wept and shuddered in sobs and no why did I leave I didn’t want to leave yet I wanted to be there with her but I can’t now she’s gone.
I looked around dumbly as people saw but couldn’t give what they thought they should because they were embarrassed or busy feeling. And I looked around for the family I knew wasn’t there because my family had been in that bed and now had faded along with my heart. I was sharp breathing and strange noises and that was everything for a while until someone helped me up and walked me around until I took my body back and walked to my car and went home and stared blankly at a door and remembered I’d forgotten something and went back to the car again to get lilies.
Mar 16, 2016
Mar 16, 2016 at 7:40 PM UTC
Will we meet in shady groves;
Upon a hill? Perhaps in morning.
In hidden vines of deepest green… Does day break?
We spool in canopies as the world beyond awakes;
Cocoons of fragrant freshness. So here I sit and of you I wish.
Will we meet in times of woe;
Under streets beveiled? Perhaps in mourning.
The well-worn cobbles ache terribly, my dear, let us go inside
A yellow cigarette crushed against the glass; I burn for tenderness and see
It in your eye. So there you sway and beneath you I lay.
Will your face be one I know;
Past veils of spidersilk? Perhaps, my darling.
This well-worn world aches terribly, let us make our own
From shady grove to comforts home; an empire on the hill.
Lifetime passes in an eyeblink. So with you I hide
Til our tender world’s first sunrise.
Feb 13, 2016
Feb 13, 2016 at 5:27 PM UTC
When I sit and sink and sigh with my back against the sky,
Will you sit and sigh with me, and strap our backs to yonder tree?
Feb 13, 2016
Feb 13, 2016 at 4:54 PM UTC
He plods with heavy steps
Laden down by the memories of brighter mornings
When the curtains would open to the Sun’s ****** rays
Striking his face with glowing force
Knocking him from his sleepy perch
Sending him tumbling, smiling
Through the giddy fall of day.
On his way he passed bright things.
Things that make him want to risk the fall
To surge forth and cling onto this shining view of fields
Caressed by a teaming blue ribbon of fire.
Or that tinkling, joyous, feminine giggle
Heard as the heat of an afternoon
Of early summer presses on his back
The throng of a crowd surges about him,
A million island universes all striding about their tasks
The comforting presence of all that strong, purposeful flesh
Swimming in never-ending eddies around him.
His mind may scream ‘Reach out!
Grasp at this shining moment, this fickle mote
For it is rare and precious!’
But the fall cannot be stopped.
Should he succumb he is left spinning downwards
Watching, through clouded eyes, this glowing thing shrink
As it passes noiselessly upwards
His back burning and his limbs
Nearly pulled from their sockets.
And he mourns, until he catches the next glimmer
And his eyes fill with light once more.
No, he discovered long ago that all things turn to smoke.
It is better to sit back in comfort and watch with a lazy grin
Than squirm and flap and curse your way to the bottom of the fall.
The bottom. As the glimmers fade, it comes into view.
And the youth, at monstrous speed, would strike this bed
Of black feathers, sinking deep into their fluttering embrace
And several times, as one, they fling him up,
Til he floats back down with ease
And comes to rest
And waits to wake once more.
Feb 13, 2016
Feb 13, 2016 at 3:40 PM UTC
Will I stand upon the heath and rid my heart of sleeping grief;
Will I crawl on trembling hands and shed my tears upon the sand;
Will I lie in muffled night and brave myself til sweet sunlight?
Feb 13, 2016
Feb 13, 2016 at 3:35 PM UTC
Jimmy returns from a grand escapade
Bruised and bloodied and laughing,
His smile too wide and a glint in his eye
“How proud and wild a figure I cut”
He wears the thought like armour
Because he’s a charmer, a rogue,
A brave renegade.
Fuelled by laughs and tuts and praise
Of those he loves, he’s blind
To their concern.
He sees the sighs, the rolling eyes,
The cries of ‘classic Jimmy’
But to him they’re just his just desserts;
An ironic awe. Reserved for he who flirts
With danger, uses outrageous behaviour
With a smile and a wink
So that this charmer,
This rakish renegade can get away with ******
Oh no!
Here comes Billy
See Billy’s a bully and Billy thinks Jimmy’s a c***.
Where Jimmy is eloquent, Billy is blunt.
Now Billy, this boorish bully,
This hulking brute, leaves Jimmy's flesh untouched
But he creeps upon our hero still,
A pat on the shoulder
A warm tone of voice
He whispers in Jimmy’s ear.
At the sound our hero frowns, but continues to entertain.
He can’t quite push aside
That shiver that climbs his spine
At the memory of sinister whispers
And the pain he had to feign away
With smiles that never quite
Reached his eyes.
See, words from the mouth of Billy cut as good as any knives.
They linger first, but soon
With practiced deftness, cut at the straps,
The leather tendrils that keep Jimmy’s armour in place.
Until it falls, with a clatter, to the floor
And where, not a minute before,
There stood a God resplendent
Now cowers a boy.
And this ugly, naked,
Whimpering wretch gazes up in fear and hope,
And now all he can see are the sighs behind the smiling eyes.
And now every time he laughs too loud
Or unwittingly draws attention.
With every look just a little too long
With every ‘what?’ or ‘huh?’
He feels knives digging into his back
And sags a little lower.
…
Until one day, they’re gone
The whispers are far away
And Jimmy finds he’s come up for air
To a place where things are bright and fair
And laughing means more
Than just a social game - a display to spare feelings.
And there are things to love and cherish.
The sweet taste of wine; the brush
Of a pair of soft and willing lips.
The racing of theories and thoughts
And the meanings of things; shocking
In the clarity of their colour.
Fattening the soul in shades of cyan and amber.
Filling this bedraggled wretch with the glowing warmth
Of a crackling fire. Shooting through his limbs and trunk
Until he expands and stands on legs of iron.
As the furnaces of joy are stoked
A grin begins to spread.
The flames a glitter to light the eyes;
Quenching fears put to bed.
…
Yet still, deep down he knows, that every
Time he comes back up
And dons his shining armour,
He feels just a little weaker.
And the armour hangs a little looser.
Nov 16, 2015
Nov 16, 2015 at 3:14 PM UTC
Drinks, articulate, a friend and his friends, all strangers
New faces and talk and chortle chortle
Har har har but same old, same old
Little Jimmy looking for I-don’t-know
A zap, a spark, zane for the brain
A flash of brilliance.
Electric hope
Fear, but fear of the good.
Glides in the Girl,
The boy perks up.
O, Heaving youth, lithe
Smiling with mischievous intent.
And the boy is alive.
** ** ** he makes her giggle
And never a more electric ******
Could you hope to hear
As he sits, dropping crystal
Shards of intensity sparkle between
Through a veil of shimmering liquor.
And the strangers begin to fade
So, alone, they talk
And O!
How full of colour and ringing joy it is
Bursting through the grey pallor
Of those strangers
Of the terrific tiny talk of tiny types
The chatter of proud people- of thoughtless things
And improper imperfection
(That fear of the bad that can make good people
Gobble on like gluttons;
Gossip their glistening gloop)
And the plastic nod nod nod, har har har
Ever bound to ragged boredom.
But She is different;
A scattering of the light.
And they laugh and zap
They bite and soothe
And play and croon
And find themselves lost, but quite content
In a world of delirious joy
A sacred place reserved for sleep
And the welding of atoms.
As Her furnaces of laughter
Roar their blazing joy,
Her hammering heartfalls
Pound upon this lost boy’s soul
Melting it into hers.
The flying sparks begin to meld
Along with hope and hopeful fear,
Til a second Sun reigns proud amidst the dawn
Shining high above its peer.
Morning.
Zipping their separate ways,
The heat of twin Suns firm against their backs,
So bright the light,
It takes time before their eyes behold
The second glowing orb they made
And gaping in disbelief,
They find themselves rushing back
To fold into each other’s arms
Tired and aching and dizzy.
On the verge of wakefulness,
They glance back at grey strangers,
With a smile, laying in perfect silence,
They sleep.
And, filled with goodly fear, the couple wonder
And marvel at their fortune.
Nov 16, 2015
Nov 16, 2015 at 3:11 PM UTC