lay your hands
on my body
where you left
an indelible mark
where you sculpted and chiselled
this now inert
block

at night
i cannot wait
to fall into
the phantom arms of you
wispy limbs
given substance only
by memory

then
close my eyes
and have my mind
play reels of colourful dream


i drank in the night
the fermented fruit
of fantasy

i woke to the sight
of blinds guarding me
from the harshest of lights
sober
stale
reality

so i see

our words were vacant
our thoughts brimmed
our words
only
empty clauses
filled with pregnant pauses

Her arms semaphore fat triangles,
Pudgy HANDS bunched on layered hips
Where bones idle under years of fatback
And lima beans.

Her jowls shiver in accusation
Of crimes cliched by Repetition.
Her children, strangers
To childhood's TOYS, play
Best the games of darkened doorways,
Rooftop tag, and know the slick feel of
Other people's property.

Too fat to *****,
Too mad to work,
Searches her dreams for the
Lucky sign and walks bare-handed
Into a den of bereaucrats for her portion.

'They don't give me welfare.
I take it.'

I first tasted under Apollo's lips,
love and love sweetness,
I, Evadne;
my hair is made of crisp violets
or hyacinth which the wind combs back
across some rock shelf;
I, Evadne,
was made of the god of light.

His hair was crisp to my mouth,
as the flower of the crocus,
across my cheek,
cool as the silver-cress
on Erotos bank;
between my chin and throat,
his mouth slipped over and over.

Still between my arm and shoulder,
I feel the brush of his hair,
and my hands keep the gold they took,
as they wandered over and over,
that great arm-full of yellow flowers.

they were a gift,
unwanted, the first
of their kind,
a lonely reminder.
they needed life,
water and a vase,
maybe a jug or jar.

so they sat there,
on the dresser,
wrapped in plastic,
bound in ugly rubber--
condemned, like me.
they did not rot,
not as i had hoped.
instead, the petals
browned under the
artificial light,
wrinkled and shriveled.

i let them fester the
way my heart does,
but, as if in spite,
they did not dry up.
they stole moisture--
though i cannot
imagine how--
and from their death
emerged life.
life in the form of
a fuzzy white fungus.

The novelty of it all
Something for nothing
After busting yourself for years
The satisfaction of getting
Something back wears off
Your patience wears thin as
Boredom absorbs all ambitions
The novel lies unrealised
The lust for new language and adventure
Lost
Nothing will come of nothing
Empty.
Fatigue.
Wasted time.
Begets begets begotten
Surviving but not living.

I guess it's time to move on.
Because this is that
and that is this.
Without words, there's a shift.
Our disposition sways.

The sentiments and gestures
it all festers
in the small space between us
because it just doesn't
have anywhere else to go.

No matter how busy I make myself,
it's still there.
Pounding on the cage
in the back of my mind.

I never wanted to let slip
the anguish
which was breathing through my pores.
But it's there.
Emanating around me.
In the small space between us.