you were a sailor of the stars
who scooped me up into your arms
from cosmic whales you rescued me
and plucked me from their sleepy sea
I was a damsel in distress
the common living human mess
I was too much for you to bear
and so you tossed me back with care

Nothing lulls to sleep quite like concrete waves
of endless tarmac roads,
the car christened Frau Marienkäfer by raindrops
of a passing thundercloud.
Baby butterfly whose pigments are smeared across
the windshield –
were you chasing the ‘Big City’ dream like
all the rest?

I am a nymph, caged in a greenhouse,
arms overgrown by white orchids;
my lover has hidden me away from the world.
Little goats keep me company,
nipping the orchids which cover my arms.
I dream of the forest, the babbling brook,
the laughter of rain,
hungering for freedom, the touch of the moon.
Like in a desert do I feel here,
this love suffocates me, drying my roots
until I wilt from this illusion.
And when he comes to water me at dawn
greeted is he by my frail still body,
a coffin spun by diamond spiders.

I put light bulbs into roses
And I tried to make them grow,
But no further than my workbench
Would they ever even go.
I connected them with wires, clips –
I’ve tried it all:
Drew out diagrams on yellowed paper,
Labelled in my chicken scrawl.
Once the electrician came to look.
“What have you been doing girl?”
It was then that at my workbench
A bag of fertilizer did he hurl.
Gone then were the wires, clips;
Gone the ashes on the floor.
All that’s left were wilted roses
Piled up right by the door.

make me a gramophone – sew
it from the scraps of our shattered past,
the vinyl  our memories that play
‘round on repeat. to them
we’ll dance around in animal masks like
the beasts we are.
a lion purrs,
a walrus roars,
a seahorse crushes bone,
and when we’re done we’ll rip apart
our fickle gramophone.

Twinkle twinkle little fish,
How sad you look in my dish.
You've ignored my warning so
Now I'll never let you go.
Can't you tell my heart is pure?
Of you I have the utmost sure.
Your bones I'll bury close to here
So everyday your ghost is near,
For I'm a cat and you're a fish
That ended up right in my dish.

I can’t forgot those
butterfly eyes filled up with
caterpillar lies

The time we met would be
allegro, a boisterous time when
I unlearned how to
breath. It became an
allegretto, the
crescendo long behind,
awaiting the
diminuendo with an
alto near the end. It
was like all great
compositions,
feverish until the
fall and
when we fell, oh
how we tumbled,
mesto,
lacrisomo,
con dolore.

a world was hidden,
one in one,
a water layer in-between. those
within dreamed of swimming
up, the waves partial to those
above. I loved to sit at my
world’s edge, gazing longingly
below. my mind and feet
would often fight of diving
through the depths. the day the two had
had enough I pierced the ocean’s
blue, my skin kissed by the water slugs,
air bubbles like crystal eyes.


their world was like a hovering jellyfish awaiting
to strike. he was there, the one I cannot name,
thrashing thirstily to get out; I
loved him in one glance. only when my
oxygen ran out I swam up and
left the trapped world behind, prey
to be devoured. I loved him less as I climbed out,
and loved him naught back at the shore.


I sat at my world’s edge, once gazing longingly
below. my mind and feet got softer
with their fighting. the waves bore down on those below,
washing over those on top. a water layer
covered the top world, a world
below swallowing the one
above. what good was knowing how to swim
when miserable rage was fed, a sea urchin gobbling
the whale; it did not wait to
be served.

One stormy autumn afternoon
A question was asked by my philosophy prof:
"Does life have a smell or taste?"
The girl in the back,
The one with the bruises,
Started laughing.
Must have been an inside joke.
"Life smells of ***** when you're sure
Your lover has left you."
Her voice was a rasp,
Probably nights of endless screaming.
"It tastes like blood and broken promises.
It's beautiful and poisonous,
Sugar and morphine rolled up in a joint
That we all smoke to die."
My prof asked the others for answers
But every time he tried to say whose was best
The thunder screamed its protest,
The lightning flashing and illuminating
The sad and broken shell
With her lover's name etched in her skin.

"Inside the box is
Man's greatest enemy"; in
It was a mirror.

Instead of waves the
Japanese should paint your face
on cups, *koishii

She had a black cat
On her neck and still questioned
Why she had bad luck.