Cherry trees do blossom daily somewhere
Though frost now bites the glory off your bloom
For fairness cannot flower everywhere
And light that moves must in its trail leave gloom

So during Winter must you plough the soil
And turn its heavy heart to catch the seed
Trusting hope to sprout from roots of turmoil
The way that life and death each other breed

In sowing thus you'll reap the opposite
Begetting Summer's joy from pearls of frost
As time does teach to those who learn from it
You cannot find what has not first been lost

It is the hollow space inside your hand
That shapes a world inside a grain of sand

Today, today
So round, smooth, the clean-shaven weather
Lifting the weight off my stride
Untangling my bones as I march
Up the cobblestone street which I love
The rhythm so tight like a tune
The song that crinkles my nose
The very edge of laughter
A rose is a rose and I still know happiness
When I see it
I’m still able to scrape
Both knees to converse with the ants
Who inhabit the cracks in the pavement
Who do not know beyond what is knowable now
And what is knowable now is all there is to know
So the ants know everything.

Give it time
Release blooms in the heart
While you water the cracked soil
In the flowerpots
You’ve neglected all summer

While you rest in clean sheets
And collect poems and pebbles
That will grow paler
Atop the commode
And worn-down shelves

You may fear
You’ll rip apart at the seams
Feel your arms and legs detach
From the dull centre
Adding ruin to remorse

Be patient

Right now
A parched cactus
Draws fresh green
From the rain you provide
Never more a cactus
Than it is
Right now
The ocean leaves
Fresh foam on the sand
And takes back
Seaweed and debris
Sowing a new mantle of waves
Every time it moves
Right now
Life echoes
Across the cliffside beach
Sounding like seagulls
And water
Repeating its name
Over and over
So that the rocks will listen
So that you too can listen
To its pounding
In your pulse
And in your temples
Forcing out the roots
Of something so old
It can never die

If Shakespeare were to rise
From the cover of the brick-like tome
Bought in the year I was born
If Shakespeare’s head like a dome
Detached from the sky of the page
A photocopy turned three-dimensional
Though yellow and dulled due to age

Imagine Shakespeare’s paper legs
Walking about my apartment
Sitting where the cat hair piled up
Imagine cat hairs in droves
On Shakespeare’s dark woollen clothes
Which surely must be washed by hand
Though no label this fact will disclose

Wouldn’t he be surprised to find
That so many centuries later
We are all still fleeing the plague
Though as many have noticed by now
We don’t all write plays in our downtime
At best, some humorous remark
To make the rounds on the web

Of this he would surely know nothing
And would likely be shocked by the view
Of a woman of such dubious virtue
Who’d be seen wearing pants like a man
And letting her belly go loose
No corset nor hint of excuse
For the lack of a gown or a gem

All the same, I’d invite him for tea
Place his cup quite intentionally
By the spot where his book proudly lies
And lest my company bore
Slyly start dropping verse after verse
Amid our amiable discourse
To be or not to be, shall I compare thee
Being two he could not quite ignore

And I’d do my best to avoid
The more sensitive points of his life
Being born to illiterate parents
Or worse, the spiteful suggestion
The he, himself, could not read
And no work by one William Shakespeare
Could be penned by the man of such name

Aye, the proof that since Man is Man
Achievement has warred with acclaim

Lately my words are lazy
Like my two languorous
Felines whose sleep
Is simply a subtler
Form of movement.
My words lie dreaming
Of running. Their paws
And whiskers quiver
Perhaps in the midst
Of a chase. They’re
Warm from the sun
On their bellies, turned
Upwards, refusing
To stand in a line of
Neatly aligned metaphors.
Dirt-simple and soft.
My words turned quiet
And mellow, no longer
Hungry storms of ice.
They’ve shaken the
Rain off their coats
And smell of blooms.
Their nails are long
And unused.
Contraptions for a war
Drowned out by the
Overgrown grass.
If birds flock to branches
Twittering, they merely
Roll on their back, turning
A blind eye full of sleep.
An excess of love
Has spoiled them.
Gracefully obese, they feed
Off the platters laid down
At regular intervals
Recalling the hunt as
A bygone era of
Needless toil.

You dreamed it once
The slow bend in the road
Past which the world delves
Into the realm of the unreal
Unrealised futures selves
That are as material as
Anything will ever be
In this stretch of land
Between here and infinity
Where a million bonded yous
Could be living in flawed
Synchrony, a dissonance of
Possible lives you will never see
Even now at the precipice
Of all that waits to come
The time it takes for a hum
To bloom into the vibration
Of a body growing wings
Is that step that lays down
The brick for the next
Two feet never together
On the same square inch of ground
There lies the sound of cracking shells
A chrysalis to which you are bound
By birth, where inside you lay the
Stones of the inverted pyramid
With each clean bone leading
Cleanly to the edge, the rising temple
Held up by the apex of the roof
Long before belief has penetrated
The invisible heart of the root

Neatly the night
Has folded her robe
And walks in naked
Startling the paint
And the wood
In the window that creaks
Looking surprised to see me
She blushes
A crimson hue
Or appears to
A ruby-cheeked slumber
That lightly falls
On the skin of the room
Turning the pallor of walls
To the colour
Of a low-key melody
Spun round and round
On the surface
Of a record
Shiny black home
To the saxophone
The wild guitar
The sweetest
Up-tempo piano
My soul ever did hear
Spiralling upwards
Serpentine
Serpentine
The night is the smoke
That I dance with
The scale
The four-by-four
Slowly pouring time
Into a china bowl
Seducing the furniture
And the moon
That silver balloon
Frozen mid-air
Gently leaning
From its high balcony
Watching the scene

The fat slippery snake is chasing its tail again, oh you, grey-hearted ouroboros from below the tide, oh you, watery eyes that see through the innards of the ocean, turn now upwards, there may be fish in the sky eating the stars, there may be starfish tumbling down from the foam of the clouds, Now here the rain plummets and pounds, ticking, the clock of the world is calling the caves and the beasts out of their slumber, a restlessness falls upon the day, and a dark light.

Do not mourn August
Brown September is
The better month
Moving in with its
Neatly packed elegance
Washing the windows
Upon arrival and planting
Perennials over fickle blooms
The house feels now
Like a haven
Rooted at the heart
Of a downpour
A cleanse so complete
It gives Summer dust
A run for its gold
Shameless Summer
Who torched the place
Who played music too loud
Well past two a.m.
Goodbye to you and your
Feet full of sand
Clambering into bed
Without even a shower
Your ***** walls, your
Furious scribbling, your
Fleeting romance
I will paint over it
And turn it all into
A bright white canvas
Another chance at
Another chance
This year I will keep
My notebooks sorted
I will stretch profusely
And take out the trash
Of procrastination
I will mail those letters
And goodbyes
I will have my cry
With a side order of joy
Twirling in my dress
That is too nice to wear
I will stay hydrated
Going outside now
I will drink the rain

Do the gods follow our storyline like a soap
Over a dinner of microwaved ambrosia and sacrificial lamb
Hera with rolls in her hair, Zeus in slippers,
Debating taxes and kindergarten options
While we shed tears of unrequited passion on the screen
I wonder who does finally pick up the remote
Complaining “Enough with the drama,
Life is tragic enough as it is”

So much ink
You could make
Rivers flow
Out of pages
The world
Dripping blues
Blacks, hues
To match
Every bruise
Ever received

You could drink it
Out of jars
And fountain pens
Tasting the bitterness
Which is
Most pronounced
At room temperature
(I know this because
I once crushed
A Bic pen
With my teeth)

Then you’d ask
For the palate cleanser
And start again
Every meal a treat
From the library
Where they keep
Everything
Forever
You could ****
The marrow of life
Without having to go
Through the bones

So much ink
A man must die
Before running
The source dry
Can you imagine
Expiring before
Silence has entered
The book
You spent your
Whole life
Reading?

I’ll start at the end
With the cobwebs and trees
That sit on top of my bones
Hard though it is
To find gratitude in decay
I’ll choose to believe that
Perhaps the void bears a reason
A ceaseless expansion for which
We are fuel and flame

I’ll start with a name
The familiar echo in a
Boulder-strewn landscape
Where the rain pours and pools
In the grey cracks of the earth
Reassembling the peaks
And valleys of my face
The limbs and flesh
And cheeks I now kiss
Wet with memory

That this is me
The shocked horror and perfection
The mindless dripping
Of each meaningless moment
The ones I loved so hard
The ones I fought so hard
Every hour spent
Anxious for the next
All rushing back to the heart
Flowing backwards
Conjuring up a rhythm
Of blood and dreams
Where now age has lifted

The free form walks home
And home is no longer a place
As it used to be
Now that I see it so clearly
With the wisdom of the stars

The significance of consonants in my soles
As they crush gravel and dirt eludes me
My tongue is busy shaping words against
The soft palate, perfecting them for later
When we meet and I am caught off guard
By the storm of vowels and silent letters
We communicate with, as though just
Tuning into speech after a long period of static
Words are the low-hanging fruit, so
We grab at them despite the hard shell
Knowing we can never get to the soft flesh
Of ideas as they are before we tear them
With our teeth

Autumn has taught me
All I know about falling
Trusting the earth's old
Arms to catch me as I
Drop like crystal tears
From the eye of a storm

My skin's yellow-brown
Tint resembles the trees
Dissolving into miles of
Leaf-strewn pavement
A gilded world born
From late summer's ash

Hope is delivered of a
Broken glory, and quiet
Cracks in flawless skies
Are doorways revealing
The private dwelling of
My innermost secret

That I am vulnerable
Facing the world with
Eyes still wet from a
White amniotic sleep
Yearning for the warmth
Of a sheltering womb

Though changing seasons
Have tightened my chest
Into a shell, I've remained
Both old and newly born
A vessel for an ancient age
Of ever expanding want

Still pulsing in the long
Transparent strands of
Rain-like hair on my brow
As my body lunges into the
Downward-spiralling wind
Of an endless season of loss

Winding and wide,
the path pulls us
forward. Falling
around us are
beautiful beads
of radiant rain
washing the white
cobblestone clean.
A neckless the
generous Goddess
broke for our pleasure.
Neatly around us,
undone, one by one,
the precious pearls
are riches we run
to gather, gladly
giving grace for
the gracious gift.
Slanted, the sun,
the morning’s
magnificent arch,
is wide as ever,
though now divided
by seven. The colours
we chase cheerfully,
whistling while we walk.