Catch the one
You beckoned to fall
Down to you.
It came easily then
Out of the deep black sky.

Too hot, unless you played it
Quickly from hand-to-hand.
Too bright
As it glowed and sparkled.
Too beautiful;
Blinding, rare and exotic.

Quickly, you find,
You cannot find a ladder soon enough
Nor tall enough
To replace the jewel
Back from whence it came.

It was better there
If only you had known.

the fiery ember-glow of the appointed hour
beckons the hour-hand closer

starchy, stiffened footsteps
of the structured ticktock routine
fracture first then crumble into powder
swept away by stampede winds

forget it then
the charred and brittle caress
of the silver-for-chains bargain

instead there will be
lemon and lilac-flower music
sand dune and landslide gestures
and heavy maple-syrup glances
deep into a crude-oil quicksand night.

Roses are red
Red as the whistling howl of fiery winds
As we stumbled into a crowd
Of rusty desert sandstone boulders
Sitting parched and abraded by time.

We'd baked all day
Surviving bouts of blowing sand
And so we crouched as thermal refugees
In the scant shadow of the boulders
Hopeful for an extra hour of life
Before the wind and sand and heat
Would claim us to our last drop.

Red.
Our skin too was red
Burnt like paper set alight
That never really catches flame
But is consumed by a glowing linear ember
Under the relentless sun.

Somehow we remained there
Against hot red sandstone
Saying nary a word
Greedy for the moisture
That would escape on our breath
Moving only to track the patch of shadow
As it moved methodically around the boulders.

When finally the murderous sun
Gave up and slunk away
The sky turned deep red with twilight.
The only words anyone spoke
When someone said
"Roses are Red"
But nobody had a tendril of energy
Left to extend beyond pure survival
To do anything with it.

"I'm changing my name" she said
"I've just met my father for the first time"
She said
Payment rings through
In transaction for a *** of tea
The gathered paraphernalia handed over in exchange.
I had little to offer in return
To my smiling young barista
A friendly tendril for a familiar face in the shop
An eagerness to share some part of her life
Even though time and place
Offer little option for elaboration
For sating her need to say it to herself again
The enthusiasm around a momentous life event
A few kind words the final part of the transaction
Then the scoop of tea leaves
And some hot water
And a fragile white porcelain cup.

There are no words today
The shopkeeper told his patrons.

They gathered bereft seeking sublime phrases
Poems of love and loss
But he could offer them none.

There are no words today
He told them.
No typeset letters upon the page
No phrases crafted of sinew and strength
Or of weakness and failing.

They pressed on with their day then
Without their fix of crafted words
To scribble waxen-colour inside their lines
They were left to contour their own imagery
And look about them for hue and tone and rhyme.

Lost then in clichés and quotations
For day after subsequent day
Used words were read over and again
Off ***** or torn sheets
Or passed hand-to-hand on gritty streets
And stapled and taped
To telephone poles and fences.

There were no words for the patrons
On that day and since
And their unspent coins
Brought them no respite
For the disquiet in their hearts.

Wending my way through the work week
Wearily, Wednesday washes away
Wise to our whistful wishes
While weary as we wander towards the weekend
Without wisdom of why we are waiting
Rather than wrestling our woes into submission.

Slap slap slap
Bare feet upon the path of stones
Cool and smooth and grey
Ephemeral condensate footprints
Vanish within a heartbeat
Of each foot lifted