all the city’s a womb, a constant buzz,
a dim blue night that a river bisects.
you huddle
around the window
and gaze
at the faint traces of the sun
left in the sky’s retina.
midnight is just a suggestion
that lingers in the back
of your filament brain. the
wordless candle, its aura. ask
the dawn for a kiss.
the bed
is your doom. the night’s black
mist bleeds.

when the sun has regained some
confidence, its reach on the land
reestablished, its lucid eye alert,
you hide from its gaze. you cower
from the great daisy in the recesses
of inverted sleep; 6 in the morning
to 3 in the afternoon. rising out
of your slumber is like
challenging a rip tide,
only to find
the shore exposes
your naked body.

I have not loved anyone since the spring.
I'm beginning to have my doubts that I will ever find that perfect matchstick moment again.
But I'm throwing myself into everything,
trying to scare myself into love again.
What we had wasn't love but god
in the movies that's everything that love was made of.
I don't mind being a bad memory.
I don't mind being that Katy girl.
Because I ******* know we had something special
and I could have loved you forever.
Let me be that complicated girl.

I'm sure she's beautiful, Hubble.

let's sit on top of the building
kiss under the lights of the city
look me in the eyes and tell me i'm pretty

take my hand and we'll walk along the edge
forget the day that we met
stay together no matter what we get

crowns of steel and headlights
we know we'll be alright
stay with me tonight

wind and hands in my hair
shining stars everywhere
running up the stairs

dancing on the fire escape
get it all on tape
buildings fade into blurry shapes

The page this was written on
has rain drop stains.
Something about all that falling water
gets a brain going.
A jogger bobs along,
only rain walkers remain,
the rest are gone
back to their homes.
Something about all that falling water
really gets to them.
The wetness does end folks,
it's a cycle.
Missing out on a whole.

I wander through the city,
skipping every crack.


It never feels as real,
hearing it from your lips.

When you write it,
I’m elated.
It’s warm honey daubing
crusty sourdough
as I sip a cup of joe
and gaze out the window
at the ocean mist
under a toasty sunset.

Yet, when I listen to you speak,
hear your tone
as I gaze into your eyes,
the glow just isn’t there.

I want to believe
you have just lost it,
but I really can’t remember.


I stop to scrape gum off my sole.

-
by Aleksander Mielnikow | Alek the Poet

You finking you higher than
                Tower blocks.
King of no castle
                  Is what I think.


We laid seige to this fairy tale
                        That you lived in.
And the nightmare of your reality
     Began to sink in.

Quicker than sand, it swallowed
                             You deep.

And you didn't die, na that's
Way to easy, I got friends in places.
   A voice box cut out, stitches to
   Remember,  think what you
Say quietly to yourself cos
                        The walls have ears..

And you talk like a ***** on heat,  
******* others,
          with big man talk.


You ain't no king,  you ain't even
A porper..
          You alone and no ones
Backing up your words.

    Cos the street listens, and you got
   No voice, you were silenced even
Before you tried to be street.

You were  trod on more
than the pavement,
  *** holes are your weakness.
As you tripped over your own ****.

You tried to climb but then you fell.
Ain't no rapunsal,

                      ain't no queen.

   You were curb stomped and all those
Words you tried to speak just bleed
              All over an uncaring street.

Everything on my wrist is real,
            the scares from my youth

to the stitches cut out of me on the street.

         But none of you will cut me further than


                                   I fell in the past, I rose up..
  

And now my heads up high..

You'll never put this fire out, the smoke
                  smoothing you..

Getting closer to the ground so my words
             don't suffocate you.
      but my foot greets your words cos that's where
            your words had worth on the ground.

The audacity that you could even raise above,
                          to think that you ever had a cut
that was deeper than I'd self-inflicted.

I'll stand under the lamp posts in the dark,
       easy target, but I'll see you coming.

Thinking I'm alone, but I have friends in the dark.
            you never had no moment to rise,
  you got swallowed in the dark.
                    Tied to a chair, coldness held to a temple
that you never prayed to, but you wish you had now..


You walk out a new man, respecting that
             I'm the  fire and the smoke,
                            and if you want to breath
                    
                               you better **** the ground and make

sure your words stay down.
I'm in the light
                           but I have friends in the dark.
        I'm on probation but shades have different
                               pockets that I fill deep..

Know pardon my words I have things on my
                  wrist that are life lessons,
    you ain't nothing but something to burn at my bequest.

1.
the architecture of waves, pelicans in adagio
but a tempo slower, the silver-colored fish, streaks
of light, like conversations out of reach, counting
waves, the soft and hard ones …

the sun-reflected surface makes me sleepy
as if a hypnotist at work: my thoughts resisting
this sleep that feels like the final dust of
existence …

starfish ******* the life out of clams,
the weight of the ocean …

2.
the frail branches of an old tree, an old woman
an old dog, a city that’s outbuilding itself, straight
up from Hell, straight into the atmosphere, across
the sky, across the universe …

at sunset, the challenge the sun has to stay alive,
as if a magician at work: darkness falls, like the dead
flame of life, several seconds pass, then several more,
I collect the darkness …

time flies, like a harbinger of bad news, like
an awkward simile that needs explaining …

3.
of all of my loves, of those who were actually
lovers, either married or single, you were the one
who drew me in, against our will, both hearts fell,
bodies withered and ****** …

at sunrise everything reshaped, our bodies felt
alien to each other: nothing has changed but  
the distance between us, always these forbidden
remains …

how our voices grew hoarse, outside it was raining,
everything had rusted …

=========================================

from my unpublished manuscript: Fragmented

©dah / dahlusion 2019 all rights reserved

first published in Fishbowl Poetry, Germany