You should be here with me
My heart is as empty as the side of the bed that you used to sleep on
And my life's crashing harder than the waves on the shore like when you first kissed me
And I'm falling harder and faster into loneliness than I was when I fell for you
And I know there's no stopping this
But you should be next to me
Kissing each freckle on my arm and tracing "I love you" into my palm because each letter deserved it's own recognition for it made up a larger picture
And you should be next to me
With my head leaning onto the very shoulder I spent entire nights crying into
You should be beside me
But I guess this was all besides the point
And now you're next in line for a new girl
I just wish you would give me a next chance

i.
three in the afternoon, he
sees himself in clumsy knots
of nerves running from hook to
pole fishing close to murky
strands of lakeweed cloudy and
soft like his memories of her.
ii.
three in the afternoon, she
traces patterns in the bracelet
on her arm he placed gently moons
ago firm like painful memories
seeping through the beads
she can’t seem to remove.
iii.
he doesn’t know who
who he's fishing for anymore
she doesn’t know what
what she's waiting for anymore
carry on, darling
carry on.

Guarding the Gate

I said to the Old Man by the gate
Please let me pass to the field beyond
Where flowers lift their blooms to sky
That glimmers the flush of hopeful dawn.

The Old Man paused and said to me
Pass, pass please to your destiny
That comes to all but once this way
Beyond the gate where I stay.

To guard the hopes of those who’ve passed
And those to come
Their hopes, your hopes
Will come to be
Through the gate to eternity.

David Applin
February 2012

blade enticed soft skin
coldness violate the warmth
crimson tears come forth

clouds of lilac blossom
thick in the blue air.

day unwraps in slow
whispers and the wind
is more lonely than am i.

the sky is a broken
vase, little
pathways of the sun,
her strange loads,
her happy voice.

the lilacs were our love song
may swept into our hair and eyes
little pieces of me scattering
like breaking waves.

dipped in the magical ink
of flowers
the garden cries
for its wilderness
its withering of sky
its blossoming of twig
until you can’t see the sky
and it becomes softly an impression,
a fine mist of golds.

no song now,
only the death of the
wind and a new road
that winds from the silver distances
of the moon.

only a harbour where i
rest for a while, a little
boat bobbing where the waves lap,
waiting for you...