Tom McCone

Tom McCone Jul 2014

this reflexive soul- how readily
i spurn another misery. yours
sat watching from the fenceline.
and me, oh, i get mine in swathes,
and, oh, of course it's over you. i'll
never be over you. i hope this fact
crosses your mind as i dissolve out
of your everyday, everyfortnightly,
every-now-and-then, and, finally,
impresent thought patterns. some
cruel sequence. just come keep me
warm. just a little while. for once, i
won't write it out cryptic:

but you'll be warmer without me. you've no need to apologise. i
don't know what i'd do with you,
anyway. you'll never come over.

i can't read the future, but this pattern, in particular, persists throughout my days.

Tom McCone Jul 2014

maybe not, maybe so.

i scatter breadcrumbs pre-dawn as
your light draws into
this empty hemisphere: full of
life, lack of the
sweetness dwelling behind eyelid's
closure i
was awake to monitor the slivered
rim, the same stars as glow
soft around your engorging pupils.
gutterwork about fingertip traces.
i can almost see
your ghost. no smoke entices
my lips, not yet. i've
no need to any longer sing
of meaningless vices. i've
got bigger things hefting
weight over my shoulders. i'm
running short of endlessness.
yet, from the guts of this library
some lie dissolves.
my body vanishes through painted
concourse. the finer points scatter.
the big picture rushes to shake
hands, to distil spine. between
us, there ain't nothin' new
anywhere. so, i throw back
some mineral-heavy water to
wade back out of the ocean:
a slow headache, a continual loss
i drown myself in. i could
get outta here and increasingly want to.
increasingly want (well, this part is easy).

Tom McCone Jul 2014

passage i

lost, one rung out through the scrub.
nothing i didn't need
anymore. matagouri beneath
heavy soles, the speargrass gave
me new skin. evenings
glazed over quick. dreams
curled up in my sleeping bag,
never touching me, dragged
'em to the tops, shook
'em out. i can sleep fine, now.
even in retreat, bathed in city
lights, foraging without snow,
gulping down the same old
chlorine i had lived with. oh,
antiquated i, now so deep in the
murk of this tunnel passed. i'll
make sure to miss you, albeit
minimally.

the cairn crop will spread out,
encompass frivolous dust-clouds;
from lowlands i shall stamp up
out of this trench i've so
meticulously hollowed. taste of
new victory fresh on tongue,
knuckles torn, eyes bright.

oh, new skeleton. nothing will
halt these unfurling wings.

Tom McCone Jun 2014

open page, i

from heaving waves i emerge
and wander, hapless, forward,
to shallows, to piled sand and
grasses like thickened tongue.
sallow and saltbreak, this heart
has set to mend.

across field and timberline,
teeth gnash; but now they
belong to i. now, the proud
stretches of tussock weave
song through my chest. now,
lonely is an auxiliary quantity:
heart in hand, my very own,
soft clay to mould.

let us get drunk on
the stars and burdock tea.
let me find your fingers
across a chasm i clamber
up out of, only to breathe and
kiss you. i ask not for long-
desired salvation. i have
poured my own. i've enough
left to bathe you in light,
or at least to pry open your
leaf-litter eyelashes. i can
separate want and caprice.
i can want you.
let my desire
face west and cast to bush,
to flint, to corrals of snowfall.

i've dined in all great halls, but
i'd rather sit in your room,
for now.

Tom McCone Jun 2014

symmetry

sugar, you know
i hurt just as
much.

Tom McCone Jun 2014

floodbite

all at once, things come crumbling
together. a step in every direction,
rightful empty dissolves to leave,
in stationary hollow, itself:
presented representation. no
point left unscathed. the exact
same moment the water started
leaking down and out the walls. a
series of equicardinal trackmarks in
the snow. over the bridge we shift
momenta. wheels turn. nerves
coupling. a flood laps at my
unfurling fingerprints. water
rises like swallows nesting in the
marsh of my throat. try as we might,
turn of position, matched glance, precession
after next, the swell silently engulfs the woodwork.

blood curls through these beds, as beautiful as the water running over;
waves distill through smaller wash.

a larger scheme spreads its lips. the teeth
play quotient to tree limbs. a schedule unwound.
caught the sun with smooth hooks.
everything changes from here, or stagnates at a
shifting viewpoint. but, from this glowing angle,
i could mistake you for ordinality or
plain daylight. i could
fall a little
further
down.

instead, all translates in bold motion,
binding fibers of dissolution,
morning hues
through the dark.

more nothing.

Tom McCone May 2014

30.5

lights precesses against smoothing-out
concrete, dawns like these. red runs
down and out my twitching strings,
puddles on the brickwork gathering
about every footstep. trying to make
myself a little more like you. a little
further away. a little less dizzy.
a small crown of wilted lilies.
woke up feelin' somethin' similar, taking
a collection of successive moments
erasing all wishes my lips could ever
graze pastures you stitch between
snowmelt watercolour blinks and the
sugar in your navel and (well, you
get the idea). glacially, i converge to
some semblance of divergence. stop
wishing a second to next. what good
are wishes? what good am i to you,
at least yet? with heavy linen, i'll
mend. i hope you see me, beautiful
as dawn, wide-eyed, mauled by
no icicle; and increasingly lament what
you could
have had, honey

(not knowing you still
can)