let's all hold hands, dearly loved ones
and express gratitude for those living..
        as if..
the table high-decked with every sweet-meat
        fennel-sprigs clipped and hazelnut-oil on roast
        a mixed-salad of vivacity and touch of chili in sauce
        a dose of pesto and a dash of chopped-chive
        a pinch of salt on cut sweet-pepper
and so much more....
        means that much

but do they remember..?
surely they do



1.
there was a time when she needed you
but your harsh-judgment turned its back in stiff-penalty
which later led the flow of her life in slow-drip out
on the filthy-floor of a public restroom
as she pushed out her legacy
alone and no friend
                 to grip her departing-hands
                 to clean up the red-mess
                 to wipe down the bawling new-blob
surviving its necessary-squirm on the cracked-tiles

you heard the knock-of-need at your Hellenic-door
and the pillow you flattened and stuffed further in
    you couldn't offer a slit of time
    you wouldn't open that wretched-door
    you could not stop choking back old-tears
and when you checked your porch in the evening
your recently-scraped leukocytes blew a green-fuse
a small white-cat in a corner sat pondering your move
as a pile of singed-feathers lay in neat-disorder

now, here you are, grimacing with her crying-babe in arms
this poor orphan will be at bitter-play with some coarse-baubles
just like her scraggly mother, but she'll outlive that false *stain


2.
you swallow two blue-ones
        lose track of yourself
you never remember what you forgot
while you glibly insult those who pass by
belittling their big-arses and blue mini-purses
until the cycle goes round that beguiling-circuit once more
and you can't open a paxity-envelope with arthritic-heart
'cause you'd endure anything not to relive..
until tinkling-coins are all you hear falling
from your grandfather's endless-pocket


3.
appearing at the side of the latest arrival
we all welcome the burly-figure yet with tapered-fingers
who sits next to me and we try a smile, comes out dry
    I lost my grandchild to an accident last spring
    and he lost his daughter (we learn)
hello, Ixion.. yes, so sorry to hear..

he recounts his open-horror and mouth-dropping hell-tale
of his sweet-kin's blind-search for escape
he acknowledges what he never could.. at home
his final gin-soaked treachery against humanity

I am silent in here
I am at odds with this circle of strangers
          who pour out laden-things, some getting their catharsis
          everyone talks of how they loved and who was lost
but who remembers the broken-lives left behind
on the rickety and twisted conveyor-belt of life?

     my daughter now believes she sees her child's face in trees
     and has taken to counting each and every new-leaf she sees
                                                            ­                              fall
                              ­                                                            fall
­     when she remembers to open her eyes (in her morning)
                                         to step off her bed
                                         to go to the toilet
                                         to blot out the sun
                      to count the leaves on windy-days
she ends up re-counting and I have no heart
                      to correct her
                      to fix the frustrations that fate fuel-flung her way

I wonder.. where she learnt this habit?
they do say all behaviour is learned..

daylight beckons again in gentle, yellow slants
and I recall the two silver-marbles in my pocket
       on its secret-bed of old-leaves, some soft and some crunchy
       thirsty for the soothing-touch of my fidgety-fingers
count.. one, two..
                      one, two..
                               one, two..
yes, one for her.. and  w-w-w-w.. one
for me

one two.......

(oh, one too many a disaster - perhaps perdition has a friendly-face
and I sit with her 'neath
the three trees in the alcove-garden)





some things don't escape the sheer drop
of.. resultant excess-distress
in dark-parched mind-tunnels
untrod for fear of slipping..
in the mess



(now, everyone.. it grows cold
let's eat)






S T - 22 nov 2013

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine

You think the thick blackness under my eyes looks like
War paint.
Like I am going out to battle the world and defeat one and all
that dare stand before me.
You think this thick darkness under my eyes looks like
Attention seeking.
Like I am silently screaming for people to notice me
and come closer.
I only draw in those
enchanted by demons
in love with darkness
at home in the night.
You say that eyes are the window to the soul. You are right.
And I am shuttering mine.
But my war paint does not help me battle
the world
My war paint helps me hide the battles that rage
inside me.
I could cry
Wash it away.
Let it go and surrender
and then let you in.
But when you see me
I see myself, reflected
in your eyes
and my own verdict
is damning.

that feeling you get when you can't stand something
where you resent every moment of your existence
living misunderstood throughout life
that feeling of resentment towards one whose hurt you deeply
where it feels like your heart has been ripped out
replaced by a knife ever so slowly growing larger as time goes by
like a hand around my heart squeezing until every drop drains away
that feeling of looking in the mirror and hating what you see
the being stuck in your mind with no clear path out
the point where you punch holes in the wall
trying to mimic what its like inside your head
to the point of a pen on paper and text on this screen

I spent today reeling you in.
                     threads of your silk love
fluttered through the air  
                     like broken, escaped spider webs

                                                  how can you be at once everywhere and nowhere?
                                                        ­            on an old voyage moment
                                                        yo­u rebuked me:
            “You’re looking with the wrong eyes,
my dear”
              But my eyes don’t dart differently.

                            I sit with the innumerable knots of your
                                                                ­         miscellaneous elations.
                                                       I sift for the ends to start
                                    unraveling, adapting
                         but maybe you are just one continuous
Idea

             as lo
ng as we’
     re
tan
         gled,

                              Bind
                the­ fibers of my physical being
                              catch
                   ­       the flapping petals
                                         falling from my
          composed mannerisms

                      stitch
                 your whimsy
                                          into each atom
                                     of my salient figure-

fuse your feathered fabric
into my most raw elements.

                               My life is a matted disarray
                                  of your truest notions-

A yarn Mount choreographed from
the diminutive strands
of your blinking captured freedom

                                    I spent today reeling you in-

So- entwine me, Love,
net me forever, Sweet,
my dearest jumble to disentangle

I still feel you,
You're tattooed in my soul
I'd still bleed for you,
Pull me up from this hole

Your touch lies just beyond my fingers
I till walk the rooms, where your scent doth linger
Remnants of a time that's gone away
The wildflowers have withered at the doorstep of decay

The photographs are driving me insane
Tears catch in my throat as the frame,
Shatters,
Under my fist, the blood on my knuckles
Brings me laughter
You, the master crafter of my lifes biggest disaster
You were the love of my life,
Burned down to nothing but ashes to scatter
I still hold you in my dreams, but in deaths eyes my pain
Does not matter..

I'll be with you soon, and we can dance,
Out to the moon in a dead lovers wonderland
As this razor glides across my veins
I'll pass through those blackened gates
And hold you in eternal rain
I'm coming back love, today's the day
I feel the rain, disolve the pain,
The pain, the pain,
The pain has gone away

I remember once when I was small
I’d cut the strands of my hair because they were too long

I’d used to paint my ****** features with waxy substances
But found that too tiresome
Words pained them instead.

I remember turning fear into a form of anger
For every creepy crawly that walced into my door
Deserved every shoe I could toss on the floor

I remember turning a very innocent crush
Into multiple stories that I’d tell myself once the night settled in

And I remember the feel of disappointment when I grew older
To know those stories never came into fruition

And I remember the feel of sadness when I lost myself into that imaginative world.
That knowledge that place wasn’t real
That knowledge that they weren’t real

I remember not so long ago someone once said the mad dreamed up a place
Because they ran away from what they did not want to face
Because the strange understood the way of the world

So perhaps all those strands I tossed out in the beginning
Were the strands that could lead me
To the world that could be