My belly
Among ***** made silhouettes
Shedding (the outside of) my breath
Sudden body shakes makeover the silence of
Days
Wrapped in ***** stained dreams
Without an end to my bleeding
The smell of **** is evident
In the same ways that
Blame is kept in tact
A muffled voice is heard through the air
Giant particles grasping at the face of my dawn clocktower
Simulation in the evergreen hands
The very odd feel that denies faith
An old familiar disgust that overflows from my pores
Instant
Glorified
Pure
Sanctity
The calling of angels ******* on a downward spiral
Towards my vascular thoughts
Like a disease which interrupts the collision between planets and words
My pixie movement through the ice parade
An unlikely sorrow from you
What is that distilled sound coming from your hands?
And if the traces of heroine on my breath are mine alone

I once had it.
It was in my hand.
The moment I went to close my tattered fingers around it, to keep it in my grasp, they began to oxidize.
Not only was it as if the caretaker had forgotten to properly oil the cogs of the clock in the tower in the center of the town, he had also forgotten where he had hid the skeletal key.
The fingers began to crumble, what was once hovering within nanoseconds of my grasp had slipped eons away.
I once had it.
I let it go.

Go.

Go.

The great clocktower stand dilapidated
Grinding, churning, clicking and creaking
As the thick black clouds cover the dim moon

The evening is silent
Save for the calls
Of distant treacherous birds

The bell tolls at midnight
Gently swaying the flames of candles
Within the upper rooms of the tower

As the bell slows
The candles go out one by one
As if a sentient breeze passed through

Until they were but wisps of smoke
Swirling beneath a fading moon
Never to be lit again

The music in the library was you,
My saving symphony, a silent movie,
That Jason Reeves song which
Never fails to wow me,
A whisper,
     A ***** whisper,
The ancient sound of a page's
Turning, a bell-ringing
From the ***** icecream vendors
Of my humble Homeland,
Or the comfy sound
      Of an oven-toaster.

I was enchanted
     To meet you.

Had you not come to me, love-ling,
And fling the old cobwebs away
From the bore of a book called
Moby ****
     Which my life was,
Then all the dust of the Earth,
Of the shelf, of my flesh
Would have gathered
In me, burying the papyrus,
The scroll, a fragility—
     My heart,
          My ever-lost.

Time ticked like a man clambering,
An ambulance, a clocktower
     Pierced through the chest, the soul,
          The spirit.

But your eyes sang, songstress.
My spirit hoped.
Your body leaned,
     Communed.
        
     Your ear
          Touched my ear—
           A melody, a harmony,
               An embrace.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Like the gears of time, the moon’s ocean moves endlessly

When the crowds started their own Kristallnact
in the big smoke, it seemed Smaller
when tracing danger zones on maps, more and more
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-
(Warning, X marks the spots that are burning)
It was a stampede of hooves money was lost on,
shattering windows and smashing streetlamps
and all the same, shrubs and roses were stormed on.
The horses don't have names anymore.
There are beings almost human
trapped in hospitals, trapped inside the women
not yet hampered by the world,
and those who created the women,
three decades before, sometimes
only a dozen years ago, somehow
still waiting and still wanting
another human being to be born.
If I could dream, I'd dance in my sleep,
but I am in the same stillness,
in the same uniform,
in search of footprints to follow,
for hunger, for scorn,
for dying flowers and an unknowable moon,
and the babies now laughing
and terrified and bored and the good ones
who fell in love with the wrong ones
or had too much, of the good or bad, too soon.
The only secret I've been let in on
is that it's the same when you die
as it was when you were born, but
all of a sudden, something small
in the churches and their clocktower clouds,
in the wires of a telephone,
in laughter in the sun,
is enough to allow sleep to come,
dreamlessly but peacefully,
inside knowing that even if we feel alone
we will always belong
to everything, everybody, everyone.

You keep your ghosts well hidden
Such an important place you’ve been
All the histories you helped in the making
Their secrets you hold unseen

Your baronial beauty and grandeur
Are what entrances and enslaves
Your image, which you don’t mind sharing,
Has them coming here in waves

You gave students a home to protest
And glory to those racing your strikes
You’re a place for staff to feel proud of
Even your twitter feed got likes

Your loyal chimes keep us moving
They’re heard through the campus widely
Otago wouldn’t be the same without them
So thank you Summertime Sidey

You fought off threats of demolition
And dared us to be wise
Became a symbol of higher learning
And helped make excellence our prize.

Orion
Part III


The staircase has fallen between them,
And longings for love were dispersed.
But only one force lay against them;
The Phaneron, Man was diverse.
The souls of the elders were thought of as weak,
The mountains became flat as land.
Our spirits believed to have conjured an owner,
The thieves falling out of the plan.
The makers are meeting atop the clocktower;
Without hands.
My mind is their plan.

sun-swords and their respective sun-warriors
hack away at the ogreish clouds.
among the towering daisies
flowering into their artful form,
we smile a little too deliberately.

the clocktower strikes thirteen.
before the day is through,
we will have faded.

Like a clocktower, I
Shudder thudthudthudthud
The second hand races
Beyond itself, beating
Out an uneven rhythm
On tired masonry
Whose brittle mortar cracks
Under the strain of the sky
Waiting for a bird or
A breeze to knock me down
Telling me it's okay.

Mother, I'm sorry you birthed a ghost
Mother there is a song of mourning rising from the streets but I'm not sure I know how to cry anymore
Mother they're calling for me, at the gallows, at the sermon, at the university, at the madhouse,
and maybe they're right, but my voice is too weak to tell them that
Mother you know I'll have to go to them, sooner rather than later
Mother I am praying to a clocktower for the end,
I am on my knees speaking in tongues between twin pillars of apathy and boredom,
I am tying my tongue to nooses to hang my shame from the trees where I carved my switchblade prophecy when I was young and angry,
Younger and angrier, anyway
I am singing with the homeless & the dogs on the street corner, burnt out anthems of heartland heartbreak too ******* sad to be classics
I am with the junkies, the proof of their gospel is tagged on the walls of my sinus cavity
I am with the anarchists, they put a pen in my hand like a rifle and told me aim for the head
I am king of nothing on a throne of empty words
Don't pray for me mother, I won't hear it
Mother I can barely hear you speak
From behind salty seraphim eyes you speak
"Where are you?"
And I speak
Where were you when the enemy was at the gates?
When the bombs fell like rain?
When the world went silent and I woke with my crown soaked in blood?
When I was a lion backed into a corner by the wolves?
You knew I was strong, mother
But you also knew the wolves would never ******* rest
And that one day they'd tear me apart
So you spent that time stitching my epitaph together from caved in walls and shattered glass,
From rage and love and rage again
Blowing the dust off your grandfather's Bible,
"Forgive him Father, he knows not what he does"
I know not what I do, Mother
My ruin is mine alone
Do not let me destroy you, Mother
Scatter my ashes in your garden and sing my praise to the congregation
For you brought me the Gold which made me grey too early,
and it is for me that your gold will be made grey,
Too ******* early
Mother, look at me
It is for you I am restless, for you I am discontent, for you I am burning out my nervous system seeking a ******* answer
And for that, Mother,
I will thank you to my grave

A vaguely lit lampshade
Pictures the streets
Where tiny crickets and fireflies
Awaken from their slumber

As many a number cannot tell
The livelihood of the suburbs
Where owls fly and wolves howl
In a sea of light emitting from the lockets

And at dawn the bumblebee flutters
In an elongated mantra
The day awakens, the night rests
And the puppets emerge from their cases

The city where hearts beat and break
Where the puppets dance to the clocktower in the west
But tonight I forgot my key
And remained at peace in my locket

This was meant to be a haibun. After the
first sentence, I folded the list of rules into a sparrow.                   I go for a walk,
pass by the place where people write haiku
and roll juxtaposition into irony
as they eat their meals with the wrong
ends of their chopsticks.

he lifts gari with his left hand—
a slot machine jangles

A patron’s nearly full dish of wasabi sits amongst sushi platters that, except
for the left behind rice-explosions,
have been emptied. Around the corner,
a shaman stands near the clocktower
where the grass has died from a winter’s salting. The shadow of a ginkgo leaf flutters on his face like the wings of Buson’s moth. I want to turn off all the lights so that it can see.

The systems are broken. ****. The systems are failing.

Further up Beverly St., an autistic boy
plays with Lego on a front porch. I try to remember his true name, and hope that
he can help break down the foundations, raindance his mind around the blocks’
angles and lines to solve an equation with a variable that is the shaman understanding
why the boy pretends to not see us.

Turn off the lights so that we can see.

And I write these words like I'm talking to you in person.
Like you'll somehow hear me.
Like when it rains you forget your umbrella and embrace my secrets like tiny droplets that brace your skin.
And all I want is for my words to take a physical form.
Because I've never been beautiful but with you I felt like so much more.
And you'll never know that.
I didn't even try that day it snowed.
I didn't need a coat cause you shielded me from the cold.
And that blizzard seemed like a sunshine followed by a rainbow.
I just wanted you to remove these holes in my soul like I removed that empty space between your smile.
Because I could always tell when you were faking it or when you knew we wouldn't last a while.
And I'm writing this poem because I couldn't find another way to say I love you.
Because when I see your face I fall for you.
Again
Again
Again
Again.
And I've never been so sane until I knew you.
You were like the nector from honeydew.
You were like every reason I made an excuse for forgetting my car keys.
So I could make an excuse for our time together to never end.
But I guess that was my fault.
Should've known you can't buy time with a pen.
I can't rewrite the end
I can't even write a love letter to you without making it seem like I'm making amends.
Like creating a sense of writers block will cast a shadow long enough to outcast my ambitions.
And I wish I could offer you more than my love.
I wish I could offer you my being.
Maybe that would be enough.
A collection of memories spawned in my head.
Like shifting gears to a clocktower that was long past dead.
And this grandfather clock was rigged from the start.
It chose to rip out pieces of my heart
When the dial striked 12.
And just like I knew every night I'd go to bed loving you the same.
But never have that in return.
I wrote this because I don't know how to say I'm in love with you without being straight forward.
I wish I could say it in these words.
And then maybe you'd fall forward.
And I'd catch you not looking for a reward but so my heart would leap out of my chest. And maybe you'd feel my love when it left.

If home is where the heart is then so help me god, I’m going to need a map and a fast car cause I think my heart fell out my chest at a gas station at midnight
or in my hometown park,
possibly above the clocktower on New Years eve and almost certainly one of the countless nights when I danced with fairies and ghosts.
I promise the music will be incredible
and i won't stop driving unless I'm beside the ocean.
I won't start crying unless the sun is rising.

the waves and the sky break every day with no apologies or shame.
I will finally realize why broken hearts are the most beautiful of them all.

- I'm going home

The starlight on my ceiling
And the silence in the air
Echoes like an untouched ocean,
quivering in absolute stagnation.

The wings of an angel,
The kiss of loneliness.
Life’s palpitating heartbeat
Brings Anxiety to its knees.

Drifting into an opal iridescence,
my subtle starlight turns to faded dreams.
The wistful echoes of my ocean
Turn like the amber gears in a sunset clocktower.
A timeless, transient frame becomes our reference,
and our stardust turns to amber shards once more.

The chimneys sighed;
A silent suicide

Nearby cemetery - familiar
To villagers
Enslaved to the wage
Engraved to the plague

Green, green grass of home
Rolling Downs goes on and on
Behind the place, I call home.

Home knows nothing
Rotting 4th July bunting
Is so grostesque
A papermill not that picturesque

Distant ships
Dockyard mist
Churchyard steeples
Choir of the working people
Amongst tenements, needles
Clocking their hours
Drinking their giro

A class of our own
A class we were born

For a future by the clocktower.

walking Prague, ancient bell
      Chapel Hill clocktower does tell
               my love in vain - but I wish her well...


                                       soundings.

farewell and be kind
     my advice to my own mind
               midnight's broken toll to find...


                            clocktower blues

plainchant's bell,

heavier than

a village's earshot.

spins like a clocktower.

whose candle snuffer

is a widower.

overgiven to pause.

once in longhand, twice

in shorthand.

twice in longhand--once

in shorthand.

familiarities destinate,

right there.