And though I may not mention it,
I need you to remain and sit in place within my life.
I'm home, I don't mind a few renovations but you can't move out.
Change the furniture, change the setting, change the colours of this love, but don't pack up.
Don't relocate, because I can't leave with you, hence I live with you.
Continue to settle, continue to speak your plans to my walls, we'll breathe life into them.
And may the building of this love never feel the clocks run forward.

by Dvniel Jones

Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs,
you look like a world, lying in surrender.
My rough peasant's body digs in you
and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth.

I was lone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me,
and nigh swamped me with its crushing invasion.
To survive myself I forged you like a weapon,
like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling.

But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you.
Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk.
Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence!
Oh the roses of the *****! Oh your voice, slow and sad!

Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.
My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road!
Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flows
and weariness follows, and the infinite ache.

At least graveyards are a constant

I like to do those quizzes
in glossy bubbles that you
find
in Cosmopolitan and
Elle and
Seventeen.

Which girl should I be?

Should I
dump paper flowers
on my milkmaid braid?
Long skirts, long chains, and
Beatles on my radio
during their ‘Indian’ phase?

Should I
paint it all
black, strip life down to
a *******,
blare punk at full
scream,
and cram my toes in ratty Docs,
smash all emotion
into smithereens?

Should I
sugar-coat my mouth with
Maybelline, button up
collars, laughs, opinions,
read books on behaving
just like a
daydream,
sip teas, bake cookies, aim for
Ivy Leagues?

Which gilded box do I crawl
into?
Which skin to don
this week?
Which fashion editor-friendly
stereotype to fulfil?

Which girl should I be?

I know you.
Your colors are lovely

They shine like December's blue snowflakes
Frost liquefies in wake
Beautiful galaxy of pigments
Spiral.
Perfectly Chaotic
Icy black holes pull me
Neverland's star dims

Who alone are quite at ease
Company are sure to please,
Those unhappy on their own
Perhaps are better off alone.

288

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—Too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise—you know!

How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a Frog—
To tell one’s name—the livelong June—
To an admiring Bog!

It is difficult to laugh
than to cry.
It is difficult to live
than to die.

It is easy to do wrong
than to put something right.
It is easy to forfeit,
all without a fight.

It is easy to yarn
than to share.
It is easy to be indifferent
than to show that you care.

It is difficult to sit
and to patiently wait.
It is difficult to love
rather than to hate.

Wanderer.
From window to window.
Seeking
             something
in different glass scenes
from offices and trains and restaurants.
Like she'll see something or someone
or somebody.
And the world will no longer be
a tilted painting.

Clear spring cold
papers over
the scene of the city of her world.
She's freezing.

There is a cafe at the end of the
road
where sidewalk snow has mingled
with trod-on mud
from commuter's shoes.
It's called
'Les yeux qui voient tout'

She can smell coffee and cigarettes and paper and words
and smiles and wine all the way from Bordeaux.
She sits by the window.

Tendrils of hair cut
across her cheek
as she lowers.
The seat is cold.
Legs crossed,
                       arms clasped,
high-heeled shoes with straps
that cross,
head bent
over a crossword.

'Un cafe au lait, s'il vous plait.'

Last four-letter word pencilled in so
she crumples up the paper.
The eyes don't notice
origami birds dangling above her.
Somehow
they're all angled
towards the glass window
like sunflowers reaching for the sun.
Perhaps the casual
shuttered-open winds
are the birds' oxygen;
reminders that
                          something
like
sky,
air,
wind,
exist, beyond
coffee-smoked counters.
Reminders that
they could breathe, live, fly
in some other city of some other world.

Cup and saucer on a silver platter
hover over.
Idle fingers
and then a clatter.
She stares down into
the white porcelain pit,
teeming with hot brown
                                           alarms.
It isn't a portal
into
       something.
Just a cup of coffee.
Now that is an alarm.

Slow and
                shaking,
drip,
         drip,
                  drip.
The milk is poured.
Curling, italic, Persian carpet spread
from the cup's centre into warm-cream brown.
She imagines it is
blood in her heart.

She raises the little silver teaspoon
napping on the saucer and
stirs.

'Le sucre?'
Does she want it all
to be
sweeter?

Two packets, long like
Marlboros,
hastily, desperately dumped
into the mix.
Quick and
                  shaking,
she raises the little silver teaspoon and
stirs.
Little sugar grains ******
into a vortex,
dissolved and melted into
the city of the world of the cup.

With her little finger, she
dabs
stray sugar grains
on the table
and tries to bring sweetness
to her sleep-thick tongue.

Slow and
                shaking,
sip,
      sip,
            sip.

She's­ tricked herself
into feeling warmth.
Ticker-tape banner
pops up in her head:
'All of this will not
fix you.'

Porcelain clatter
as cup meets saucer.
Again.
She arms herself with
a cigarette case and a book.
Maybe now she will belong
amongst these people
with sad eyes and burning lips,
clinging on to cups and drinks.
So desperately-lit smoke
trails out of
her warm mouth,
steaming up her face
like a window on a cold winter day.
And meanwhile Camus perches
in her hand.

Her eyes swim
in the choppy seas
of French.
The cigarette dangles,
painting the air grey, grey,
tilting, tilting, tilting.
Slow and
                shaking,
she weeps.

Half-aglow in the white sunshine filter
from the glass window,
a woman is wondering.
She drinks her coffee,
wipes her smudged mouth
and leaves.

Nobody notices the wobble
in her high-heeled gait.
She's just a part of
another tilting painting,
another glass scene.

These simple acts,
           simple things,
define
the speaking soul.
In a scene of the city of the world.