That sight of the scars
Painting her young wrists
Shook me with with disbelief
Yet overtook me with jealousy

I'd never be able to express pain
Like she did in her poetry

The crispest of papers
The finest of inks would falter
In front of that beautiful, mangled mess
Her smudged, blood-tinged words would author

I am angry in the way that
bubbles in champagne
rocket towards air.
I am pretty-
in that beige and golden way.
That heat paints my face,
Scolds my cheeks-
like an iron to the crispest collar
of a well-dressed man.
And I am virile in the hot.
Lovely reds and pinks and
eyes that catch-
LaCross nets that
will not meet your gaze
lest you see the squall
I work so hard to hide.
I am breathless with my rage,
and oh, so beautiful! Finally.
In my pain,
I am dry and fragile
brittle leaves crunching underfoot,
the salt left careless by the sea.
Nothing grows in me-
nothing grows in me.
I am dead sea
and beauty floats boastful where
love cannot swim.
For I carry this grief
in the way a river stone
bears the weight of the rushing water.
The lovely
and the ruthless.
The heinous
and the clean....
the very worst of me
is the prettiest to see...
Naked before the judges table
I have no shame.
"Such a pity", they'll say.
"Such a beautiful girl,
all that anger in such a beautiful girl."

Sahn
3/24/15

You're the heaviest rain to ever soak my skin,
And I'm drenched to the bone
But you're not giving in.

You're the crispest air to ever slash my wrists.
And it burns but I love you still,
Only now, with clenched fists.

You're the poorest soil to ever grow my heart,
I'm left to rot but I love you still,
Like I have from the start.

You're the most toxic man I've ever met,
And so you took too many pills
To even out your head.
You left the ones who loved you
With all this **** regret.
And the worst part is that to this day,
I haven't stopped loving you yet.

As of yet, untitled.

“Hometime!”
The hue and cry is raised
and with it, I am gone, losing
my winding way down leafy lanes that
glitter cold and golden, soft and sapphire
in the crispest spring.
Down pen, down paper, down tools!
- the streets are much more tempting
with their silver promises made
in the emerald afternoon glow.
I huff and pant (cheeks
ruby-red) round the
rolling hills that hide
the treasures of this city…

…(looking back, older - wiser? -
I realise that I
would give it all away.
All the coins and chests and
jewels and gold and crowns
and sceptres and stars and coronets
that you could care to mention -
surrender my kingdom
for just one more day:
One more afternoon of youth,
carelessly wasted
in the cold and golden streets
of yesterday)…

…But that
comes later
and this
is now;
and I
am young
and
golden
in my promise.

when i've tripped a star
whole over night
the silver flinging
of its crispest muting has

a daughter shed
of lightness
eyes its
their
teetering upon
perfectly easy winking

and her hands are so
they feel like
like when
night is so long
and hot it
stifles moving into
a pinch of stillness contained

by the exactness of my square room
struggles to retain

that lovely burning
o' 'er
splendor splitting

wings so gentle
i painful pinning

have neatly to keep
their body's wonder
to my sheets

sweat so glowing
as like the yowl
of dying day
it cleaves easily
darkness

and it rises 'pon
love after
love it
soars

father-watching
faraway
triggered sweet by
memory plucked
from twinge of
heart at
husband whiskers
sprinkled in
the sink

​
father
slow transforming
out of sight
whisker white
a-creep through
long-time
beard of boyish
blondish-brown
​

sprouting
scraggled out from
ear and nose
and knuckle
round
​

eyes a-cave
and sunken deep
in shaded-over
cavities
​

for inward looking
more than
out


with no more
footballs
flung
about
​

and no more
children yanking
on the waking hours'
daggy trousers


for weeping
over old-time
music secret
in the dark


up with the
birds
down with
the sun


midlife
rush at last
a-hush and
calm in its
surrender
done


bones exposed
of parenthood
held frail a-clung
by gristle grey of
simple habits


coffee thick
and silky
run with
milk


and crispest
crusty bread
torn up
for dipping into
hearty stock


with olives
cheese and
ham on top


a drop
of something
oaky sipped
and languished


a-crawl with
thoughts of
father own
disintegrating


boyhood memories
coddled close
and satiating


with daughter
unbeknownst
father-watching
faraway


© 2017 Adelaide Heathfield

In winter, we went.
Clandestine, beneath the crispest sky,
Armed with carrier bags and clippers
Undisturbed by passers-by.
And frosty twigs cracked underfoot,
The trees around were starved of life.
A landscape drained of colour, and you alike,
As you looked at us, but saw your wife.
We strode through greying groups of bushes
Hems caught on outstretched arms of thorns.
I struggled; how could we three seem together
Yet underneath, I knew we'd torn.
We talked of life, and things before
Our time, we talked of war.
You grappled through the crunchy, ashen leaves
To find the perfect stick to whittle.
Kicking 'round carcasses of trees once grand
Now dusty gray, worn and brittle.

And there! In clusters, what we'd sought
Had ****** the life blood from the day
And would release a drop for nought
Trapped in bursting beads so gay.
Them voluptuous, glowing knots
Crowned by pointed varnished leaves
Would shine clipped to a lady's breast
But would do instead for our wreaths.

what if i destroy you
what if i put you between heaven
and hurting
what if i love you
what if you find me dreaming
some morning and lushly
fold me in your crispest singe

                ?

Why is it
That when the world
Is quiet
My thoughts are
Loudest.

There is a boy sleeping
In my bed.
I should lay with him
I want to lay with him.
But I am so restless
So full of purpose
During these dark hours
Of the day

Every word that I type
Brings with it a release
Like a breath
Of the coolest,
Crispest
Winter air

Oh how I’ve missed this feeling…
The keyboard
Calls out to me
Like an old friend
In the night.

I greet her
With open arms
And
A pounding in my
Chest
These words keep me
Going
These words are my legacy
These words are my own.

I hope that one day
You will read these words
Too
And find some
Solace in your own
Heart.

neatly performed life
between a girls thighs

             a boy

i knew last summer

                who

loved a fairy with
a piece of steel in her
nose
            got

caught in the cut
of her
downy sable
and

            gentle

sweep of eyes
where crispest jade
spent a rounded chip
of beautiful
                         pain

I write to you in my mind
on beautiful crisp white parchment

I write sacred things
disguised as daily minutiae
things of magnitude only
because of mundanity

small glimpses of the vast empty
hidden in the overgrown wastelands
milestone markers to nowhere
to a land inhabited by ephemera
daliesque in it's discrepancies
in relation to the current realities

i write mile after mile of dragging letters
a breadcrumb trail eaten by carrion birds
that grow fat on both joy and misery

i am like a plough horse, in a field
overused and crumbling,  but still
i work the rows, for no one has
released me from the harness

my words are mud, on crispest snow
turned to water and frozen to rime

my words are finest gibberish

bedlamese, sublime,

vapour in a hurricane

a cry in a bottle

the salt in a tear

my words....are the ellipses
of my understanding of your life.

I write to you in my mind
and post the letters to you memory.

The snow was falling thick that night
like tiny feathers to the ground
while stiff white fossil-coral trees
Stood still as statues all around


And in their midst a mansion rose
with towers and frozen weather-vane
Where sparkling pavé diamond snows
encrusted every window pane

The match-girl shivered in the cold
then made a spy-hole in the ice
And peered into a golden realm,
an ante-room to paradise

But all the velvets and brocades,
the glowing fir-tree there inside
Appeared to her like pictures painted
on a magic lantern slide

For in her world these plush divans
with cushions bursting at the seams
The draperies and tapestries
would always be the stuff of dreams


Two cats with buttonholes for eyes
and fur that shone like watered silk
Were purring by an open fire
no doubt with bellies full of milk

While what our little match girl ate
was scarce enough to feed a fly
Though she was told by men in gold
her feast was waiting in the sky

No, here on earth, these coddled cats
like pharaohs basking in the heat,
Or padding round on velvet paws,
had choicer food than her to eat

So when she saw the gingerbread,
the frosted fruit, the marzipan
She wondered how this hunger could
be part of the Almighty's plan

And then, beside two girls, a youth
with dreamy gaze and rippling hair
Came in and hardly seemed to see
the many treasures waiting there

The  match-girl watched him button-eyed
as if he were a fire-plumed bird
Or some chimeric creature from
a fairy tale that she had heard

And as she dreamt she felt such joy
though hunger gnawed her like a mouse
For now she stood with him right there
inside that warm, ancestral house

They danced a sweeping ballroom waltz
while she was draped in crispest white
With diamonds sprinkled in her hair
like stars upon a cloudless night

Then as the lilting music swelled
he picked her up and twirled her round
Until, just like a swan in flight,
her feet were lifted off the ground

A swan who'd left her murky pond
with all the fetters lurking there
To reach up for the firmament
and taste its sweet, untainted air
                      ii
Next day as she was hard at work
she passed the house and there they were,
Her prince dressed all in powder-blue
the sisters swathed in sable fur

They'd flown down from their iv'ry tower
to tread with serfs upon the street!
Oh how she longed to be in silk
with buckled shoes upon her feet!

But as she blushed and stepped aside
to let the "dvoryanstvo".pass
The boy stared through her sallow face
as if it were a pane of glass

Dvoryanstvo=Russian nobility

My life was sweet as honey once
it was a sun-filled garden where
The roses blossomed as I passed
and seed hung thick upon the air

While trees from some enchanted realm
were laden with the golden peach
And every fruit was ripe but firm
and hanging just within my reach

With plumes of crispest ivory
on wings of silk. the swans all flew
But then the autumn brought her morning
mists of gauze and pearls of dew

The swans went south, and winter came
to turn the streams and lakes to glass
To **** the flowers with bitter frosts
and freeze each tiny thread of grass

The flowers would never bloom again
nor would the gold-beaked linnet sing
And so I chose my inner world
where I am God of Everything

No need to sit and weep or sigh
for any God from the Machine
'Tis I who writes the storyline
Who shines the light, who sets each scene

I am the Great All-Seeing Eye
Afloat above this painted stage
And here my actors mouthe each line
that I scrawl down upon the page

I've bent the Cosmos to my will
and there is only Summer now
The lakes are full of silken swans
and peaches hang on every bough.

It’s shaped like other irons, but                                                                                                                                         there all comparisons end.                                                                                                                                              Heavy steel, encased in chrome,                                                                                                                                                                                like a ’53 Buick or our navy-blue Caddy                                                                                                                             with the white leather seats.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               It’s authoritative – requires                                                                                                                                                        a sure hand and perfect attention.
No pushing, pulling, or sudden jerks.                                                                                                                                  You must drive Mother’s iron as if                                                                                                                                    your life depended on it.

If you practiced (a 1000 Saturday mornings)                                                                                                                   and learned the rhythm of touch,                                                                                                                                   and speed, and turning,                                                                                                                                                    your precision would be rewarded with                                                                                                                          the crispest linens, smoothest satins,                                                                                                                                and creases that could slice bread.                                                                                                                                    
I was only 10 when it all began –                                                                                                                                  when I knew my work had to be perfect.

I managed Mother’s expectations as best I could, but                                                                                                            slowly our town, our world, began to change.                                                                                                                       Sharp pleats gave way to polyester, and
the clean hay smell of linen succumbed to                                                                                                                  linoleum-scented Wash and Wear.                                                                                                                                
It was about that time that Mum painted over                                                                                                                the knotty pine walls Dad had planed by hand,                                                                                                         encasing us all in Cool Aquamarine latex.

Before long, it seemed that everything was synthetic  
and Mother’s iron became harder to handle.                                                                                                                            If you weren’t careful, or rushed to make your ride to                                                                                                                          a one o’clock movie or a football game,                                                                                                                           the power, intensity, and weight of the burning steel                                                                                               would melt silk blouses into gluey clumps,                                                                                                                   and turn summer dresses into parchment paper,                                                                                                  leaving crazy brown sunflowers where daisies used to be.                                                                                                  

But the iron wasn’t traded in or tossed away –  
it wasn’t part of the Great Planned Obsolescence.                                                                                                          Of course by then I didn’t care about any of it.                                                                                                                                                I was a teenager,
overwhelmed with self loathing                                                                                                           and a dull ache you could call lust.  

While the days wore on like a sentence to me,                                                                                                                           there were milestones, markers, on our journey                                                                                                           to this upwardly mobile American Middle Class.                                                                                                                                                Friends and relatives stopped coming,  
and Mums’s fancy aprons were the next to go.                                                                                                             Back then, she had dozens of them –                                                                                                                           one for every holiday or function.
But gin and jealousy ruined most of our parties,
and Mother’s iron became dangerous,                                                                                                                                      as Time and Memory seemed to flatten out                                                                                                                       and accelerate without us.

Our Cool Aquamarine home gradually went dark,                                                                                                           and we observed the new automation as if at a picture show.                                                                                        But the motion was all herky-jerky,                                                                                                                                      and our brains began to stick, and                                                                                                                                      our bodies began to burn,                                                                                                                                                         as we fell shrink-wrapped onto the neon-lit stage,                                                                                                                        half human, half machine, still smelling
of Mother’s household helpers.