In a tornado of flags and smudged faces
You carry a white rifle
It twists and slithers around your neck
Your torso
Your legs
Swift as a snake
You're a blur of grey and black
Barefoot and pale as dawn
As papery and long as a willow tree
Spinning and twirling
Graceful and strong
You dance amongst the women
But you're stronger than most men
Then in unision
You all fall in a heap on the floor
Legs twisted in your flags
Completley still
They eye of the storm has never been more beautiful

There’s a stain on the floor
I can’t get out.
I put a rug over it, but it peeked over the edge.
I made the dog sleep on it, but he wouldn’t stay.
I drew a face on it and called it Frank.

There’s a stain on the floor
I can’t get out.
It screams at me when I sit visiting with friends.
It waves its arms at me when I try to read my book.
F*ck you, Frank.

There’s a stain on the floor
I can’t get out.
It keeps me company when rains come.
It listens to my midnight rants about politics and war and hemlines.
Frank and I are very happy.

A worn out segment sliced from the cake of life
Raging candles burned down to nothing, wax
Parting company, blazing wick no longer cares
Hot and fiery, flames deny their existence
Forgetting the meaning of life as they fade away
Burning episode....they’d waited all their lives
For, dissolved, quick and painful, heat searing
Cake sliced open to spill its contents, only
To be munched and mulched into oesophablivion
Short and sweet, guaranteed to be swallowed
With no regard for the time and toil of preparation
Of melting moments, whisking wildly, meeting
New partners, shaking hands magnificently to
Encourage the flavours to follow through...as if
They should know who they are, what they’re for
Is life a cake or a gateau coated in whipped double
Cream?  Next to my lips the cream melts splendidly
A cake connoisseur I’m not, neither do I eat the same
Slice, mundanity slipping away with each mouthful, no
Point in rubbing salt into the wounds, cram in the
Fullness that is living, bloated out with your cake
                                                            ­         .......and eat it!

You’ve never been on quite the right side
Breathing too deeply, turning too wide
Eying you there as you recline in your space
Never looking me full in the face

Your place there is held by a tightly clenched fist
Your casual smile loosing a hiss
This bitter hate looks at home in your soul
How long has it been since you have felt whole?

Wishing is something you can no more afford
Betraying your pain you pretend that you’re bored
I sit over here and I watch how you try
You say you don’t care, but there’s fear in your eye.

I wonder if you’ve ever had a soft touch
I wonder if anyone’s cared all that much
Would you welcome one now through your hard, bitter shell?
Could you let yourself climb from your self-imposed hell?

I don’t know where you went after I walked away
But I’ve often thought of you there on that day
I saw my own heart as you stung with your eyes
And I know, just like me, your heart told only lies

Curious Spaces
Crumbling Places
Everyone Paces
Behind the closed door

I was so desperate to believe you I fed my gnawing gut a decorated lie.
I sat fidgeting in the hard place,
pretending to watch tv, glancing instead back toward you
tinted blue-electric, shadows dancing on your socks where they held down the floor.
I wanted to be sure, to let it go, to be anywhere else but here. To be someone different.
But I had no voice.
It was the dream I couldn’t wash out. It scratched me from then inside when I tried to smile and entertain you with my tricks.
It did not help when you told me to look next to the bed, where it lay. How could a Bible live here? I wondered.