.
”If you are to love,
love freely and unburdened
by the tombstones
of past miscalculated regrets.”

But the heart
inadvertently beats
to the mismatched rhythms
of a hundred
caged doves’ wings.

HALF SICK WITH SHADOWS



The Lady of Shallot
sat on my sofa and sobbed

begging me for
poetical asylum

despite Patel's crackdown
on poetry refugees.

I made her a nice
cup of Earl Grey tea

slice of lemon
no sugar.

I enquired of her
"But why me?"

"You have loved me
all your life

letting me live
inside your head

free to roam
around your mind

any old time
no questions asked.

I thought of you as
you thought of me.

We are of one mind now
...are we not?"

She explained her name was Elaine
and had been a time traveller and that

when her 'mirror' cracked
(as she called her machine)

Tennyson trapped her
in that poem of his

words to the left of her
words to the right of her

into the volume
of his verse

she found herself
all of a sudden.

God how she hated
dead Victorian poets.

And it was all a pack of lies
and Lance a Lot was a ****.

She had constantly turned down
his incessant facebook friend requests.

And as for facebook
that was just a big yuk.

Oh and she hated shallots
( and green onions )

although she thought
Booker T. and the MG's

groovy and such fun
to dance to.

"Tennyson was so morose
and such a class 1 bore."

But now she had broken free
and had come to me.

No more teens made at me
for having to learn me off by heart.

I fixed her 'mirror.
It was only cracked.

She could have escaped
at any time but I hadn't

the heart
to tell her that.

Fixed her up with a new
facebook page LoS777.

And in a twinkling she
had vanished into where ever?

"I'll leave a door open
always in my mind!"

I shouted to the shadows
and the nothingness.

The willows whitened.
The aspens quivered.

bury me with spirits i betrayed

ill fall wherever your name is laid

every second that I breathe

i will chip my life away.

i will drink

i will smoke

holding words never spoke.

redemption, ascension always slow.

self harm like a mark on a stone,

im proficient in being alone,

loving walls like my life's on a reel,

but all that's real is already done.

In the cold of night

It was added to me this sweet scent of summer that accompanies random days when the thought  of your smile makes me smile and cry simultaneously
reverence for life means
to hold in your arms the painful and soft

resignation that smells of a stagnant room fills and so does love and so does sorrow as does loss as does self respect as does truth