She is a spindle on my bed
Reminding me of my mumma
  Sweating on my sheets,
naked, lewd, romanticizing me
  Not knowing I hide her
from my friends and family
  Not knowing I drink, pop
uppers, downers, as I prop
  Up against the headboard
and as I watch her cradle
  Her head between my
Half Caucasian, Half ******
  Thighs, riddled with scars
Seven years old, one year older
  Than the baby I gave up.

I wonder how I taste, how
  I look, Do I taste like shame,
Do I taste like love forgotten
  Do I look like the ******
The city girls gossip that I am
  Can you see the removal,
The crib I threw my child from
  The trauma that caused me to
Abandon him, to abandon me,
  What will cause me
To abandon you

  Sarah, my love, where have I gone
Why have I left you, bloodless,
  Soulless in the pitch black dreary
Gravelled upon the smoothness
  Of my deceitful, coarse projection

Sarah, I am sorry that my shame
  Coerced me to run from your
Eternal rays downward on my
  Dimpled, crooked smile, on my
Dimpled brown ***, attached to
  My snakey spine, what holds
My ribs, what protects my lungs
  Which do nothing but breathe
You.

The wiggle waggle of this little tongue
will one day flop out the side of my mouth
all the muscles will be totally relaxed
and I will lay there stone dead.

On the deck of the HMS Randalls
Were sorry array of antiques
They would amble about in their sandals
To a chorus of ominous creaks
The crackle of bone upon gristle
With a litany grumbled above
Just give them the slip
If you feel a grip
Like a handful of dice in a glove

In the galley of HMS Randalls
Where the tables were ******* to the floor
There’s a chef with a dwarf where his leg was
He was bombed in the Argentine war
If you ask him about his ‘prosthetic’
He just winks and he taps on his nose
But the dwarf will admit
That they make a good fit
And a noteworthy total of toes

At the engines of HMS Randalls
With her overalls smeared with blood
Stood cannibal kind of mechanic
By the name of Veronica Spud
Her hunger has never been sated
Or her eye been the source of a tear
Her teeth have been chipped
Into screwdriver tips
And a spanner protrudes from her ear

On the bridge of the HMS Randalls
Sits the captain, Geronimo Spent
His unblinking and pallid expression
Say he left but he never quite went
But he puts on his hat and his jacket
He fastidiously logs his report
With a secondary list
Of the passengers kissed
As he figures that life’s too short

**

Tonight, I spoke into the darkness,
No stars to light my way,
       The black void all encompassing

   My words drifting up in ribbons,
          I waited for something, anything to happen

              I felt a rumble that was akin to ripples emanating from a drop of water hitting a puddle

        I was small next to the impossible,
And when it spoke back, it changed me
      
        The blank canvas of stark black was pierced by blades of light,
    The sky becoming a shutter in a rain storm
           Blowing open and closed
       The words came and wrapped themselves across my body in its entirety
        Constricting my air flow

             I felt myself shatter
  An implosion of feeble glass
       Ricocheting through a skeleton of paper, reflecting the brightness above inside ripped skin

                I was nothing.
                I didn't exist.
                I floated in an incomprehensible place that had no end, no walls

     No ceiling or floor

            Just illumination in every direction

                    I opened my eyes
  
    And was blinded by an incredible radiance

      I shut my eyes tight and swatted in front of me
        My hand struck something metal and I yelped in pain
          
          I shot up and stared downward
    Towards the desklamp unplugged on the floor
        
          Breathing heavily, I sat upright in my bed,
                 *Struggling to pull away words that had already sunken in

Sometimes
Life keeps moving when you're trying so hard to hold still.
Roll with the punches, make changes, do something to better yourself
Or *simply fade away.
There's more out there,
There's undiscovered emotions and ideas that could broaden your horizons wider than the most beautiful sunset that you may never even see because you were too set in your ways to go outside your comfortable little box and really SEE the world.

*The choice is yours.

when my time comes
it comes
and I will gladly leave
to those who go on living
the task of sorting out
the mess I have accumulated
over years

let them discover
not only the stamp collection
the bank accounts
but also unknown niches
of their father’s/friend’s/husband’s life
the words unspoken
scribbled on some paper
thoughts never shared
for lack of time or opportunity
the letters to a friend of yore
emails to many people
hints of potential
love affairs that maybe never happened
ideas to change the world
into a better place

here I am
  now with a 7 before my years
envisioning life after death

a sign of vanity
perhaps
or an expression of despair

I am not sure

it may just be
the fleeting thoughts
on a clear winter evening
when cold creeps slowly
but insistently
into your bones

reminding you

   of all that cold space
   in our universe
   how it grows larger by the second

making you wonder
if it has a plan
and if that plan
includes you
speculating
about your destiny

        * *

Once when I was young,* I was told you could swing so high you'd be able to just *fly away.  

   I learned early on
               That not everything we're told is true
               The fantastical can sometimes amount to a pile of plastic bags scattered in the wind
                    The end isn't always happy and there's not always closure
      Punctuations are more often question marks than definitive periods
                And looking for a definite explanation took prevalence over allowing our imaginations to fill in the blanks.
         Play time was replaced with study time,
             And before we knew it, it was time for work
                      We strayed from the playgrounds of our youth,
      Never returning to the top of the slide, we'd hit the ground a bit too hard to keep the enchantment of seemingly endless possibilities going
                                              Carriages became pumpkins long before midnight,
              And the school bell rang before we could finish our fun
                       But to tell the truth, sometimes,
     When everyone else has gone inside, back to the real world, full of logic and banalities,
         I sit on the old swingset kicking my feet
    Hoping it will let me *soar

Went  down  to  the  lake  today.
The  vast  expanse  of  water
shimmering  under  the  baking  sun.
Had  some  food  and  drink
sat  on  a  bench.
The  swans  came  up  from  the
water  begging  for  food.
Truly  amazing  how  they
cope  on  dry  land.
. Slender  legs  supporting
a  bulky  body  mass.
They  certainly  belong  
in  the  water.
Crowds  of  people  about
mainly  Chinese  tourists.
Really  warm  day.

Keith  Wilson.  Windermere.  UK.  2016.