I emerged from the thicket with leaves in my hands.
They were the colour of dead grass and lions
And crumbled softly.
There was the view from the dreamlands
That I had sown in my mind’s eye,
Threading dull needles.
The cycles of breathing and focus breezed past -
The weightlessness didn’t hurry me
after each eternal second.
The safe place was untouched by the dreary forecast
Just as I had left it. The untidy nest
Of hushed thoughts
Invited my aching self into the comforts of a home
I could never find elsewhere –
Out there.

The best thing was the bed – clouds of foam
Framed by shadow and paced by birdsong.
The décor was unclear
But somewhere near, I heard the spell of a flute
Reeling me from the promise of sleep,
Matching my sigh,
And soon enough, you had left your boots
And your silhouette by the door,
Keeping away the storm.

It is only seconds after you leave that I hear the bells ring
Calling me back to the duff path,
Through the undergrowth.
Another day of feeling the rot of mundane living
As I now settle in the soil and wait for the leaves
To grow.

It all feels so unreal
The barrage and war is still the same, old ***** conflict.
And in this quiet moment
All I hear is the empty city and the ringing of my ear -
Nothing more. Release, reform, repose.
I started the new year in a cloud above you all
The gall.
But still fits inside the mould
I can never escape.

  I dreamt I was a king
  And all the little things
  Were condensed in two
  Finding me and finding you
  Amidst it all, three furry clues
  Saw me sinking into the blues.

They tore my limbs down
With those wicked metal teeth
The horror of the amputation’s aftermath hasn’t settled in
The cold keeps me numb, they shaved me to the ground
There go my little dancing curls, goodbye.

I hope this is my time; that I’ll die
I don’t want to know how I’ll turn out
Without those chunks stolen, pieces I grew out
So lovingly, so tenderly,
Now mangled haphazardly into grotesque copies
How will I touch them now, my friends the magpies.

I cannot scream, I cannot cry
My blood will dry
Out
They keep me alive
For what? Their view?
Do they imagine what I go through?
In
But I cannot feel, I’m not alive
Dreams of rat-kings congeal below
They killed us all long ago.

I guess it speaks of the love I had
That in those small, tired, sorry moments
I think of what we shared
And I place myself in your arms again.

In that hazy bliss
I imagine other timelines where we would still be together
Hand in hand
Living and loving
And then the moment is gone

Turning that new leaf
        over and over
    like wrinkled paper – so soft

Are those eggs in its underwing?
  Minuscule, little dreaming larvae
sunlight spears you
What do you do when it hits the bottom?
        face   up
  A platter for ***** beaks

They wake up and eat
   hiding and eating, growing

  until you miss that leaf so much
        your organs melt
   writhing goops of self
     you make your own

Later, you’ll turn
  briefly
     but so spectacularly
Your little dreams will find their deaths
    unnoticed little sleeps
while the leaves turn still

Doesn't it call, so sweetly,
The promise of eternal sleep
of mindless silence
of distant grief
It calls and slithers in deep
Then it calls from within

When the pressure overtakes
That song plays in the back
destitute tunes
of drowsy deaths
That arrive unannounced and lack
Any fault whatsoever

Intrusive thoughts peek through broken minds
a crashed car
a step
        off
A laugh so twisted it pains afterthought
Do we live with it? With that choice
Suffering through in silence

The bulb fizzled out above us –streetlamp
Half-lights painted abstract art instead. We
Lay in bed, half asleep ourselves, in damp
Sheets and heavy limbs, unable to see
The ceiling display unfolding above.
We spent our time asleep, dreaming in sync,
To the beat of your twitching. Is this love?
Because I swear I saw it in the brink
Of now and then, as the little death won:
The heavens opened and the singing spheres
danced wild through your eyes. A trinity spun
into a song that only I could hear.
Stirring, you saw none of that, while the lights
Of the streetlamps hummed softly in the night.

Midsummer chill is a call-back.
Struck cold, the bodies congregate in the breeze,
not quite believing the sting of frost
unaccustomed to the weight of clothes, they wait.

when I saw you I was cold
I touched my absent calluses
your beard was rough and my skin brushed red

The trek up the cliff smelled of ash -
the blacked trunks paved the way through the clay
and a moments silence sang of little deaths,
little burnt wings and tails.

you bought a litre of water and gave it to me
but after two swallows I was freezing
you finished the whole thing

In the changeling hour, the domestic rabbit waits
for the world to stop moving, nystagmic eyes wide.
Hearing into the next world, it wonders where
the wailing winds come from, and where they'll go next.

we had met in winter and, frozen in place
didn't see the thaw until it was too late
your eyes were still ice, beckoning

The peak was idyllic green and brook blue.
Winds and sea forgotten they jumped into the pool
shaking the mud away and summoning the summer storms
they prayed for a quick forgiving end.

in a state of half dreaming little death
5.05 AM woke us and clothed us
bugs waved from the shower floors as they drowned

The flatlands had called the unknowing away from sin
only some were left behind in beds of expectation,
of sweat and love
of breath and lust

a taxi found you fast
but your arms found me faster
I was warm the whole way back

It was doomed from the start.
Deadlines don't make for happy endings
or happy beginnings, but we made do,
the trickling sands tickling sans cesse
and the seasons passing by and waving
(good practice for tonight, I guess).
You'll be gone tomorrow.

What season would you be, then?
Midwinter spring, as Eliot said
or a Fall chill fighting summer?
One that makes us stay in bed
with the rain at our doorstep.
But seasons come back-
You'll be gone tomorrow.

I'll pray to the god of small moments
for the silences and your hands
for the absentminded kisses
-like that time we floated in a pool
under a cave, surrounded by oranges
and i thought: this is it-
You'll be gone tomorrow.

I did know what was coming
and I've tried to prepare
even though I'd have to stifle tears
when I made my way back home
skirting glances from strangers,
I did try. Will it be enough, I wonder.
You'll be gone tomorrow,

and yet.

I hope I’ll think back to those days unchecked:
When we didn’t stray too far from our den
In the Latin Eden, we were ship-wrecked,
In love, or in something unnamed, unpenned
When the cold winds were the perfect excuse
To touch each other, besotted, bemused -
As if we were the first. Lost in your blues
Or grey stares, one with the red duvet, fused.

I hope when spring comes we’ll still be frozen,
Together, despite the thaw. The garden
Overgrows with ****-like worries, swollen
And over-ripe. But I am stranded in
Too deep to feel the pull of dreams of spring.

I would melt for one more chance to be with him.

It was raining –as it is wont to do
in Autumn. Drenched, in search for refuge
I wandered streetlamp lit Madrid with you
with closed umbrellas. We liked the deluge,
and our hands were warming up each other.
The city quiet started to settle
closing in, shivering – so we smothered
ourselves inside, clinging and dishevelled,
the only open café, laughing when
you spilt your tea and then your lips on mine.
We were laughing still when the drunkards spent
our time, hostages drunk with no wine.
It was raining when I left, early dawn
and raining when I saw you, smiling on.

That day his world ended in fire,
Not in ice.
Only when earth was scorched and tired
Air burnt with screaming pyres
Would you wish for this advice:
When it's darkness' time to reap
Hope your world will end in ice,
To make you sleep,
But never twice.

Should-haves* are dangerous words in my ears –
They’ll side with the season’s expectations
Weaving thoughts in absent dreams where my fears
Take shape, conquering pulses’ vibrations.
Might is not a word that speaks reliance
Paired with fits of unrequited musings.
Alas it’s through my stubborn defiance
That I predict the eventual choosing
By an uninformed heart of another.
Greater signs I should read for me to see
This storybook ending in love – rather
Your indifference speaks harsh truths, agreed.
But sharp pangs still dumbfound me, ripping tears
In a heart that should have loved, did not dare.

I stutter you -
Lips fumbling,
Blushing,
Tongue-startled
When you hurdle
Past, gone.

I utter you -
Whispering,
Gushing,
Open-mouthed
Syllable housed
Sighs, stretched long.

I said you -
Trembling
While hoping,
Fist clenched,
In defiance, quenched
The fear of no.

I answered you -
and this time
you heard

"Who do you love?"

You.

You answered with a synapse
Startling my resolve with unrest
As I felt the change in the make-up of our ties
To each other. We'd built our nest
With texts and forgotten half-smiles -
Layered them with shadows unkempt
Leaking from our darkest sides.
It was an approximation to love, an attempt
By unwilling donors with unhurt prides,
To win the privilege of touch
Without losing sight of the lines.
Gossip didn't bother us much
We'd focus instead on the sighs,
Beats for our particular choreography.
But you've cut short our supply
With this silence, and now, awkwardly,
We fumble words, waiting for each other's turn.
In synapses like these, I ask myself what are we
When the memory of your skin still burns
And I miss your shadow on me.

it's the disconnection between sight and touch
when I knew your hands were brushing my shoulders
but I swear I saw them holding my breath out
into your eyes.

I was told
   by a pair of pity-filled stares
   that simmered frantic shock and dared
That I could not have him. I rebelled,
   furrowing mutterings of what is fair
   while hope suspended me in whirling air,
Picturing
    scenes of hush
    and quiet laughs.
Ironic, then,
  how indifference settled into his expression
  and met my joy with sarcastic aggressions.
Ironic, still,
   that I catch myself delving
     not in the sea-bound winds unravelling
     over the coasts of mythical lands,
But in the shape of your hands
on mine.

thick shackles broken,
lashing curved
together. moons
vanish in those wells,
intent on drying.

suddenly inside
             him

and out, shut
in one second
by stairs unfolded.

left looking, again,
at the warmest hue of chocolate.

So it passes without you
windflows dancing on the places you had been
trying to fill the empty with silent music
and never quite filling


I still feel you

I fought hard and saw my skin peel back
From blows that thundered, screamed attack
Sweat poured and mixed with blood and mud
It fed the thirst with gore and crud.

I felt the rips of tendon springs
With fainting pain that numbed my limbs
I burnt, beating down my fists
Drummed the knuckles, broke the wrists.

I heard the whisper of a song
That burst from anguish, from every wrong
I heard it and nursed a growing laugh
I heard it: I am free at last.

The tundra forgave me with watered ice
And cold, I cracked my lips and smiled
Dancing in circles around no hearth
Frozen blisters thawed with death.

I sung to her, I sung to myself
and promised I'd never be silent again.

*And I am free at last
Winter comes dark and I laugh
I fought long, I fought hard
And I am free at last.

Shower me with your smiles, muse of my heart,
Armored with loyalty perhaps, and still
Your stare does make my lust suggest a part
In a two-piece game. Prohibited thrills,
Your voice plucks and plays with no strings attached
-Can't you see there must be nothing between-
You pay no mind with newly freed sighs hatched
From an innocent enough looking screen,
Hiding dark. Be content, muse of my eye,
Knowing not one dream has ever come true
There's no danger in my thoughts. But I lie:
I will pillage any chance to win you.
     Taken, why did you have to take me too,
     I wish no harm, except I might love you.




Take me, little death, in your sweet embrace,
Tell Hypnos it’s his time to carry me
From the lit plains of sunflower faces
And lay me to rest under moon lilies.
Shower me with your kiss – I’ll drink it all
And parched will start dreaming. Let us be shy,
Your blush will meet mine, caress, we will fall
As others have in life’s greatest lie –
But we, we will lie otherwise, ourselves
As one, in two, evermore intimate.
Under the lightless pillows we must delve,
Hide me, little death, for the sun is late.
     I will sleep, and dream with you, always true,
     Always true, and till the morrow, love you.

I hooked my eyes on you,
Sun-boy from the dark precincts,
Fighting the stream of tunes
With your dashing accent.
But the sun doesn’t pick:
It casts and we all take you in
Equally, always with the same tricks,
The same for all the doting grins.
Another sun-child fooled me once
(A teaspoonful of sunlight, spilt and done)
And you do it again, as if by chance,
Just being yourself in a strange land of sun.
I had to panic, scream –
Fled for the nearest storm,
Got caught in the thunder streams
lost, hopeless, unborn –
But your smile unwavering
Ever shining, casting shadows as it
dances, shadows that remind me, again,
That the sun has no favourite.
I have the wax glued, the feathers done
Waiting to take off into the land of sun,
Seeing the settling dust
– sunset is upon us.
You’ll soon wander back
To the shadows you were born in
While I’ll be alone, dark,
In the land of sun
Sunless.

Tick hour, I'm not afraid of you.
The courtyard's grey and full of silence,
Maybe someone will cross in your time,
But I already made my way to my towerlet,
Perched inside the treasure holder, letter shelves,
Deep within the library.
Others have come, inmobile in you
Typing, eyes skitting, nestled feathers on sofas,
Just like me, but ignoring you.
Tick then! Who am I to care,
The morning's mine to flirt with
And you don't even know about the afternoon.
There are no clocks here except the ones
We choose to see, and no one makes that choice
Here, except accidental numbers on a computer screen.
So tick, fearless warrior,
I'm a vestige of speed in distance
- I'm scurrying away with thoughts
And you have no power here.

I will come to you through the fields,
Golden waves of wheat like the epitaph read,
Another walker in a brook of deals.
I will walk for you are
Load less heavy on my back but dancing -
Belly full, bottle ready, sun quenched.
I chose the destination, but destiny chose it
And the roads all lead, and all take and give
Every step vibrating, plucking
Dry tunes but sweat drenched.

Walker, walking friend, was this it?
A winding road towards a heartfelt end?
When we walked we were alive
But when you stopped to look back,
I was already on my way.

Forgive me, because I stood on your grave and cried.
You weren’t there. You died.
And where are you off to, coz?
What paths will choose you to be their walker?
The pavements in our hearts are covered in your footsteps.
There’s still no sign of you.
We can still hear your laughter, if we sit tight and listen –
And we miss you, coz.

But I understand, you’re off somewhere, wandering far from our grief. You’re on the other side of the world, living still, living always. You do, because we carry your memories with us. But we’ll let you wander away – just promise me you’ll come back.

I stood at your grave and wept,
That promise none of us kept,
Although the blowing wind tried to tear the tears away.
Summer gave way to winter that day,
And the cold bit us in late July
– but the flowers paid no mind –
They piled on you, so I could only see the smallest slab of marble at my feet.

But I wept coz, there was nothing else to do as we held on to each other in familiar disbelief. I am not that strong, I don’t have faith in the heavens. But you were part of the sunshine that lit our downcast faces. I haven’t ventured far enough to look for you in the night and spot your constellation.

I still know you’re out there though – riding winds and playing sweet light strings on cloud guitars – playing music for our hearts. I hear you all the time now.

Forgive me when I stood on your grave and cried,
Because you were there. You died.

And where are you off to now, coz?

It looks to the overcast sun
Missing from the scene,
But this audience never wavers.
A flower for one
Peering over the green,
For the sky’s favour.
Stone centre and clay crowned
Held by the touch of metal
And yet growing with seed.
It needs no water, no ground
Forever open petals
Looking, yearning, a need
For the only one that gives
The only sun, the only one,
That knew how to grieve.

What’s help for if we’re not allowed to ask for it?
The disquiet head turns and eye shifts
Of people who have never felt
Have never endured
The anxiety of short breaths and wide eye whites
Wanting to sob and stuttering on silence
– shunning non-believers.
Did they know muscles choke?
They try to sink the lungs into giving them no oxygen, no relief,
When every new breath is a fresh
Batch of sewer water clogging throats.
What to do with these torments,
Better hidden still than cuts
On wrists (those cries for help),
The ones that show only in the rifts
Of a discarded soul, a stepped self,
An undervalued confidence.
Help? I cried my cry for help,
And was rewarded with one very
Awkward
Silence.

I was born –
The horizon leaked me, a slivering line
Choking the azure, circling the Sun
Bleeding light

From his corner,
Colours poured forth: meat pink and red wine
From melted spectres. A solar-shunned
Final fight

I rejoiced
In the silence of it all – the glorious quiet
Of black void, of absence, of the dark
Dark night

Though angels voiced
To souls through holes, singing disquiet
Using stars as windows to mark
Constant sight,

I ignored the heavens.
With a slowly blinking eye
I, Night, moved above the sublunary
Displaying a Borealis here or there
Singing my silence in frosty airs
Living on shadows, breathing earth
I ignored the heavens.

My death arrived
With supple sparks of changing tones
In the fabric of my widowed veil
Sun woke up, made dust to bones
And sliced my sky with a fire sail

I disappeared, let him reign
Over and over and over again.

I have become numb
Cold in comparison to the lighter days
Those days where the sun shone and the winds blew
And I only saw the beauty of the universe.
Chiseled too much, there are rifts in my soul
Too deep to be filled with sorry words
Too sharp to be wrapped by black silk,
Winding and knotted at my wrist.
But for all of these iced sorrows
There are springs of salt waters
Rooted in my ducts, gushing, flowing
Remembering all too soon, and by themselves
Past tears, past cries and sobs.
Did I challenge the fates
To see how much I could take without breaking?
I am far too bent to come back now.
I am not the person I once was
Too much has been lost, loss.
But I am broken now
I am cold now
When I see the sun shining and the winds blowing
I only see him

Choosy, contemplating all options,
or even disdainfully passing
by without so much as a look,

Is how they see her, laughing
awkwardly, when they suggest
spells and love potions.

All is in jest.
But why is she alone?

Always quiet, unfathomable gaze.
Hides worlds in her sighs
when she shields neath a book.

If they knew of the thirst
the fire
bursts

Love is a stranger to her
Daftly escaping everyone's tries
of introduction, under
pressure, nimble lies
when they fail.

Is that why
she is alone?