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732 · Sep 2015
Seasonal Breeze
the Sandman Sep 2015
Seasonal Breeze
You are winter afternoons;
You're light jackets and khakhi shirts;
You are long fingers twined around a cup of chai;
You're the authentic exotic experience without the strings.
My cool heat that stings the back and caresses the arms,
You blow hot/blow cold
Alternately.
When you're hot
And my hands are stuffed in my pockets,
You are gentle and intense
And full of purpose
But with the spring,
You whirl away in dust,
Leaving your tropical wonderland
Bitter, barren and absent.
My Persephone that retreats to the underworld,
You take away my flowers
Too soon.
Let me have May with you;
Wait for me to catch up.
Slow down.
I'm counting in clicks of the clock
Our ons and our offs.
Continue reading...
710 · Jul 2014
Lines Composed at a Stormy Sunset One Sorrowful Summer's Eve
the Sandman Jul 2014
Lines Composed at a Stormy Sunset One Sorrowful Summer's Eve
The Sun, red as night’s carnage
crashes down
As colours bleed deep blues
and mix into the wave’s crown.

Sky’s witch in raging fury
fingers down
Bright bolts of light that crash
And melt into grey; they drown.

Grey shards, pelting like bombs
Forks falling ‘to an abyss
Flailing, floundering they drop into blue
But the hue seems to drown them in bliss.

The sky’s beams breathe bright beads
Yellowing the neon string
sinking with the thundering rain that feeds
A large and hungry monstrous thing.

Sky runs down to see the sea
sisters bound and still so free
while the roaring thunder laughed
dark closed its jaws ‘round the sun.
#anger #sun #rain #fight #friendship #sky #sea #sisters #thunder #drown
Continue reading...
638 · Nov 2015
morning garnish
the Sandman Nov 2015
morning garnish
I pepper
Your face
With soft flecks
Of kisses
In search
Of the spots
Free
Of acne cream
(Rarer than the spots
Free of acne),

Like it's a game.
My freckled,
Toothy queen
Is still behind,

four years,
and love swells
From out
                  Bellies
we have in common.
Continue reading...
629 · Feb 2016
Stages in Recovery (sonnet)
the Sandman Feb 2016
Stages in Recovery (sonnet)
When you fall asleep by TV light; and wake
Without coaxing whispers or suggestive
Pulls, realising the ghosting, restive
Fingers you felt were only ghosts raking

Over your skin; when you pick up the phone
Every time you see a droll pick-up line,
But hear just "Leave a message at the tone,"
Don't find yourself all by yourself, but find
Yourself, all by yourself; smile wistfully
At echoes of past weaknesses; learn bull-
Fighting, or pottery, with tickets you'd bought
Together; fill your minutes with you; and when

All else fails, console yourself with dreamy
Leads, cheesy films, and tubfulls of ice-cream.
And the sun will again sink into the West, and the day will again melt in the night, and summer will freeze, and I
Am in love with you,
And will be,
As I look you in the eyes and tell you, "I'm over it."
Continue reading...
569 · Aug 2015
Drag
the Sandman Aug 2015
Drag
you are running water
Spreading, seeping slowly down the holes
Of a drain, and
You are holding a slim pencil
Between two long elegant fingers
And ******* its tip into your mouth
So that its pink rubber end
Disappears behind your pink pliant lips.
Your every sleek movement is sensual
And I am ignited by
Every turn and tilt of your head
And the drawl of every unwakeful stretch
That pulls the skin over your forearms tight
And makes the sweat on the back of your neck
Glisten like imperfect rhinestones
Sliding into
                      forbidden,
                           ­               inaccessible
territory.
-How I wish that territory
were accessible-
You lackadaisical beast of the mornings,
With sandy eyes and ambling legs,
Wrap. Wrap!
#love #morning #lazy #drawl
Continue reading...
540 · Jan 2016
Hand held
the Sandman Jan 2016
Hand held
I'm a
Puddle of emotion
Trickling through your palms
As you clutch me upright.
The fire of your fingers leaves marks:
Scars; tattoos,
And their tips plant flowers
Into the goosebumps on my arm,
everywhere they touch.
Your knuckles peel away my skin,
Everywhere they trace.
When your fist clenches
Around my heart,

I come undone
In your hands.
Continue reading...
530 · Jun 2016
Bakhtin
the Sandman Jun 2016
Bakhtin
I don't know if I should be
Ceaselessly hopeful
That I am understood
Or ecstatic
That I can finally understand you.
You, without me, outside me,
Much larger than life, and me,
Before me, far from me, unlike me,
Are magnificent,
Sweaty sweet,
Systematic and
Symptomatic,
Making a difference to the universe.
While I sit here,
Waiting for the world
To make a difference to me,
Making excuses that everything I'm thinking
Has been thought already.
*
This is an account of my reflections on first looking into Mikhail Bakhtin.
Continue reading...
529 · May 2015
Gardening
the Sandman May 2015
Gardening
The cradle that joins
your rough throat of stubbled skin
to the flesh of your clavicle
holds in it the earth's ends,
                                            (and the universe is contained
in the lengths of your arms).

It was dry and barren
when first we met, but
I have watered it
                            gently, c a r e f u l l y
every day, with my eyes,
and buried my nose in your chest.

It has grown, a lush
garden. Now, fuller than ever before.
             But it is my garden,
             do not forget-
I will twist its vines 'round your
                                             heart.
Continue reading...
526 · May 2015
Teas;
the Sandman May 2015
Teas;
Or, I Loved You.

The clouds did not look in any way oppressed that morning
when a table held teacups and saucers all scattered about,
Staining light brown on the fine bone china.
Scraping cutlery, cutting deep.
Leaves of a crisping newspaper thumbed through.
Polite guffaws and 'gentle' conversation.
A man lay out a map
at the table and smoothed it down.

Slurp, clink, ah.

Whips lash, sweat breaks.
     Backs break.
Skin glistens, brown grunts muffle into screams across millions of miles.
Lakhs of kilometres?
It's the weather that's oppressive, I'm sure.
     while: "Spices and gold b y  t h e  f i s t f u l,
                  get your bags of gold and spices here!"

Tea, poured into saucers from cups.
Thickly accented words, in a foreign dialect,
sitting oddly on strange, dark tongues.
Men that, years later, were imprisoned for keeping silent
Hanged those that did not.
What are we aping?, echoing in the streets.

Shattered cups and splintered saucers,
strewn neglected on the ground.
A heel crushes out a stub of ashy clove
and the bitter smell of stale coffee
lingers overheard.
Continue reading...
504 · Apr 2015
Untitled
the Sandman Apr 2015
Untitled
Okay, deep breaths. I can handle this. People do it all the
Time. And I'm a people. Alright, I've got to now enter-
God, oh god. Why, why did I even come here? Okay,,
Maybe no one will notice me if I'm away from centre.
I'll go sit in that corner. Maybe I should go talk to
People; maybe I should get up. No, it's too late.
I'm going to die here. I'm going to throw up.
Oh **** it someone's coming this way.
Maybe I'll just pretend I don't see him.
Wait, oh no. He's saying something.
Oh god, what did he say?
Okay, I'll just nod along.
Smile. Nod. I hope that
There isn't something
In my teeth.
Oh god,,
breathe.
Breathe
-Why
won't my legs stop twitching?
Oh **** it. It's in my fingers now, too.
Maybe I can just peel them away. Maybe
I can peel away my whole finger.
I could peel all the skin right off my body.
I just want to run away. My legs
ache
To run till there aren't any people around anymore.
I wish the world would
give way beneath me and swallow me whole.
If I press my feet down hard enough, maybe..
Maybe the ground will shift and
sink under my feet,
and I can go inside and never have to talk to these people again.
Oh crap when did he stop talking!?
He's just looking at me now; did he ask a question?
I should say something. He thinks I'm an idiot,
I'm sure of it.
I'll just say "yeah." Or no, wait, I'll say "cool."
<<Yool.>>
Oh great. Just **** me.
#social #anxiety
Continue reading...
492 · Apr 2015
Whisp
the Sandman Apr 2015
Whisp
Yourhandsyourfingersyourpalms,
Twined, a vine, delicate and proper
-The one point of softness in you,
I swear-
Around a cigarette that whispers its
Spiral tower wisps
Before it sizzles when you bite it
By accident (you say)
Before it whimpers, and gives-
The best way to die, surely,
To die on the pad of the tip of your
Finger protruding out your
Lovely balmy palm-
Look pretty fab I think! I want
To jump into them
So you can hold me so close
And I can crawl over, unsteady
On new, shortened (further!) legs
To the point on your wrist where
Your heart throbs the most
(And set up camp there).
In other words,
Be mine.
Continue reading...
483 · Apr 2015
Poetry
the Sandman Apr 2015
Poetry
And we left faery rings where we danced
And giggled, in old classrooms.
And what we spoke, in soft murmurs,
Was poetry. More than the ramblings
Of our teacher could be called.
Every word we whispered
In uncertainty, up on tree branches,
Was poetry.
Poetry was the words we mumbled into each other's mouths
On balmy, rooftop evenings
Following our days in labyrinth-like malls
And each time he caresses my face
And tangles his skinny fingers in my hair
All I can think about is you
All I hear is whisperings of your name
Even when i sit with pen and paper
And write with conviction and structure about his dusky caramelness
Your eyes break through in my words
And your face seems plainly written,
Hidden between lines,
Mocking me till I spot it.
The rustly pages whisper your name to me.
And the words about him
Change slowly their meaning
And evolve into adjectives
Singing about the sugar in your voice
And the warm love of your arms.
It is a slow transfiguration/ a transformation
Like a children's flip book
With the torso of a ***-bellied clown
And bottom half of Adonis
In the way that, slowly,
The lines become about you.
Giggling secretly to each other
In disjointed horizontals.
Continue reading...
473 · May 2015
Gate
the Sandman May 2015
Gate
When I was younger I thought
These bars, they keep out something fearful.
What lurks out there?

Now I'm older and I know
They're to keep the monsters inside, this side.
I'm trapped, held in.

I was born and I will die
In this red bricked prison.
Dungeon/Playground
Continue reading...
466 · Apr 2015
They talk of beauty.
the Sandman Apr 2015
They talk of beauty.
The taller kids told her, fevered, in math,
Like they'd been telling everyone all day,
That if you swing all the way 'round a swing
It turns you inside out, the legends say.
She grew more and more excited
As every slow second passed
She could hardly count the moments
Until recess would come at last
She ran right out to the swing set
Didn't stop- she was almost there; she cried,
She screamed, with joy and fruition,
"Now my beauty will be on the outside!"
Continue reading...
465 · Apr 2015
Luce I
the Sandman Apr 2015
Luce I
I see the sun drip from the ends of your hair.
I leap to catch it but your towel soaks it first,
beating me to it.
~
Continue reading...
460 · Nov 2015
token
the Sandman Nov 2015
token
I can never bring myself
to tell you goodbye, so I
will carve into small, blue stones
My farewells and Promises,
and leave them behind at forts
and cinemas:

All the places that were ours
Will continue so to be.
Slumbering, undisturbed,
obedient stones will lie
until one of us, through brooding,
goes where so often we used to be;
or, oh forbid, the other
chances on them, with another,
fresh-picked love.
Continue reading...
459 · Sep 2015
Disgraceful & Disoriented.
the Sandman Sep 2015
Disgraceful & Disoriented.
I like the way your name
Fits inside my mouth
When it rolls around,
Swishing gainst my
teeth, like a forbidden
candy kept, in younger
days, tightly pressed in
under my tongue, melting
there- into caramelised bliss.
It fits so perfectly behind my
Curtain lips that screen it off-
for one Clumsy moment only
-and then it is unleashed,
Lost, released. like you
and me, as teenagers,
Looking awkwardly
at each other- For
One uneasy beat,
frozen- and then
Leaping,
A pair
of
giddy frogs.
Continue reading...
452 · Apr 2015
Luce II
the Sandman Apr 2015
Luce II
The crystals and diamonds
Drop and dangle, delicately
From the ends of your disheveled hair.
They Carry the sun inside them,
Holding the fragile star
close
In the split-ended hands of
The tangles in your locks.

My rain before leaf in the sunshine
•weeps, my
Love. Fierce love.
~
Continue reading...
449 · Apr 2015
Lïve
the Sandman Apr 2015
Lïve
There's an alternate dimension beneath my left eye lid
And a parallel universe under the right.
They stick and cling as they swing
From lash to lash like twisted vines.
I see them behind my lids each time I blink
And enter their world for a moment
Continue reading...
428 · Nov 2015
Shower Thoughts
the Sandman Nov 2015
Shower Thoughts
She says
Let's go
Live in a big city
And make art and change the world.
She can say this; she is art.
But my hands are bound
With ***** hair;
They cannot make.
He says
Come, run with me
We will live on the beach
And watch films and all will be love.
He can say this; he is love.
But my heart is strapped
With suds that wrap 'round it;
I cannot love.
They say
They are leaving
To live on the hills
And sit and think about life.
They can do this; they are life.
But mine is whirring and swirling
And whirlpooling
In a black drain.
Mother says
Get a good job, and marry someone
Who thinks like you and earns like you,
Eat, and breed, so your rabbits, too,
Can eat.
She can say this; she has bred, and earned, and eaten.
But I am held
By threads that catch
And tear on the jagged edges of my body:
Shoulders and eyebrows (sinking and rising,
in submission and rebellion).
Apartments constrict and choke;
Beaches drown me;
Hills are voyeurs with sharp surveillance;
And mansions
Have golden bars, that cling too tight.
For now though
— Shampoo, soap, drain, dry —
Monotony holds comfort
And museless function runs the key that jolts me
Onwards.
museless- uninspired and uncontemplated
Continue reading...
425 · Aug 2015
Sykl
the Sandman Aug 2015
Sykl
We will drive
In fast cars, and climb over fences;
But when you and I ride bikes
Down speedy hills, we feel
The wind in our brains
And our arms and your fingers,
Wrapped tightly around the handlebars,
Will be red and blue and brown
And I will love you
Like mountaintops
And rolling wheels running languidly,
Round after rubber round,
My love, oh
Tender Love.
When we are doing nothing
And your fingers are
Drawing circles on my palms
-And then they're in my hair
And then they're everywhere
All at once, and fast and strong-
I will love you wholly, quickly,
On roaring hilltops, and shout
In the vacuum of our
eternity,
My tender Love.
Continue reading...
420 · Nov 2015
CC:
the Sandman Nov 2015
CC:
My cup creaks of ceramic
And you walk up smelling like cigarettes
While I'm smelling of coffee
That someone else spilled on me
And that's all I can think of-
Of how well we go together;
And how I want to go with you to
Your next haircut
So I can scoop up
All the fallen flecks
To remember by them the days
When They'd curl into your eyes
And you'd lift toned arms to brush them back

You are so different
From what Desnos and I imagined
But you're better still
Than that that You could be,
For you exist
                       -in my reality.
Each cup of coffee
Reveals more distinctions
And with each cup
I love you better.
Continue reading...
370 · Apr 2015
Luce III
the Sandman Apr 2015
Luce III
Every one of your droplets
Plopping onto the ground
Carries in itself a different world
Of untold delights and fancies
And horrors. And I choose
Which one I will sink in,
Which one I will unfold,
                                            today.
~
Continue reading...
364 · Feb 2016
phantasmic
the Sandman Feb 2016
phantasmic
never am i a pessimist
but you could never be
quite as dear and lovely
as you are to me,
and have been for each year
i have dreamed in wake of you,
without certain conviction or
form, for i never saw or knew.

Desnos and i have dreamed,
and spoiled you.
early 2015
Continue reading...
362 · Nov 2015
films; conversations
the Sandman Nov 2015
films; conversations
I will tell you
                        inane fun facts
That I'm over-brimmed with
About what you didn't notice in the film
The first time you saw it,
Because you suspended your disbelief;
But *what I want to tell you
Is that when you're entirely suspended
Is when you look most beautiful
Because you are entirely you then,
Unconscious of what you want to be.
I contemplate telling you when
You tell me
                      this is your new favourite film
And I'm crushed
Because if we don't have the same favourite films,
We have nothing,
And so I keep silent.

And
         I will never tell you
What I want to tell you
Because you told me then, that your favourite films
Are always the ones you watch
On your favourite days,
And made me decide that the film
Wasn't so bad after all.
Continue reading...

— The End —