To hold a pen, all trembling nib and leaking tip,
At your mercy, supple in your hands,
Over the skin of soon-to-be words, people and places:
Gently exploding ink bombs of which I cherish total control –
Until I have to let them go -
until they are released and left to their own free will.
They bend and curl
And I bend and curl with them – through a place of rubble and debris,
Of clear water on emeralds and grey, creamy smoke.
A wasteland – but far from empty – a silvery mire filled with all the things of this earth.
Something both post and pre-apocalyptic that smells of old wood and heady incense,
Nostalgia and new memories.
Accidentally, messily, flawlessly crafted.
I wait for more sporadic dark poolings,
And they happen within quick succession of one another;
Splaying,
Isolated limbs and drops of a purple chemical
Spreading, bleeding, dissolving
Over the grainy paper.
The page is torn and frayed at the edges
Where almost fabric-like fibres
Were unable to withstand the impact of a knife’s blade,
Ripping all the tiny seams which bind them together,
Coming apart,
Undone,
Strand by dusty strand.
What is finished, what is done –
Is what has been given kindness,
And settled to rest.
As if drunk, sleepy, disorientated but somehow acutely aware of exactly where you are.
The feeling of dizziness where everything is hazy, fuzzy, blurry –
Inducing a comfortable, ***** slumber
In an old *** and vanilla shop.
Aureate, bronze pearls slide over each other, silky and luke-warm,
As you peer through glass and lace,
The spheres chinking together, a thousand times over.
A pen held above the paper, now still and impassive.
It is mine and I am its,
And we stand alone on the corner of a pavement,
A streetlamp
Rendering the scene golden in the rain.