On a spring day, Emelia soared through the field, like a baby robin learning to fly, running in diagonals with her hands brushing against every shrub and leaf she saw.

Mud drenched pink overalls
and a bright blonde bowl cut.

She ran like a bumble bee on a mission
to pick the freshest, prettiest flower.

Stepping over bugs and playing tag with chipmunks,
she giggled uncontrollably and was a friend to all that walked nature's green carpet, tripping over wild, wispy grasses.

She looks up with innocent eyes, beaming like two sunflowers,
"We have to share," she announced to the big tree
that resembled Grandmother Willow.

She had just seen Pocahontas for the first time
and wanted nothing more than to become a color of the wind.

The wind blew the leaves in a nodding fashion,
showing agreeance to the young sprites statement.

She whipped and whirled her arms toward the sun
as it danced on her skin through the branches of her friends.

"I want to do this forever," she squealed.
So, she did.

20 years later, the girl grew
But with a dimmer light
Weaker legs
And a hole in her chest.

On a cold night, Emelia staggered through the barren field, fueled by a magic dust that made her feel like a crashing plane
Running in diagonals with her hands
Brushing against her watery eyes, keeping them from flooding.

Mud drenched ripped jeans
and a long, shaggy haircut mirroring the bark on the trees.

She ran like she was being chased by a vicious monster
trying to find the safest space for her to vent after feeling her brain bleed from her nose and heart deflate in its cage.

Stumbling over broken bottles and playing tag with her inner demons, she was a slave to all that walked nature's casket, tripping over roots and graves, smashing against a tree.

She looks up with innocent eyes, welling with painful tears,
"We have to share," she whispered to the big tree
that resembled Grandmother Willow.

She felt an unbearable pain that no one should live with and wanted nothing more than to be numb.

The wind stopped in it tracks, the leaves stagnant on their branches, showing heart wrenching dismay to the old skeleton's statement.

She sobbed and heaved with her arms wrapped tight to her torso
as her skin danced with her shuttering bones and tightening muscles.

"I don't want to do this forever," she helplessly breathed.
But, she did.

I wish I could love my life and love myself
a little bit more,
fall on my hands and knees at every chance
and praise the life I lead.
I wish I didn't hate myself quite as much
and I wish I didn't recoil at the idea of my life,
the Grimm's fairy tale where Hansel and Gretel got eaten,
Rapunzel never threw down her hair
and Snow White was never kissed by Prince Charming.
The hatred burns hotter when I think of myself,
poor little rich girl,
sat in luxury in front of a warm fire,
belly full,
as thousands of kids in Africa bloat to death with paper thin limbs,
families in the Middle East are massacred and scattered across their countries barren landscapes,
innocent, too soon nearly corpses whither away in hospital beds,
sinking their teeth into whatever life they have left, clinging on.
I'm stable on the mountainside.
My family have never even seen a gun.
I haven't missed a meal in my entire nineteen years.
What the hell do I have to complain about?
My unhappiness disgusts me nearly as much as I disgust myself.

Sitting on a damp bus,
watching beads of rain rush down the dusty windows in diagonals,
like meteors crashing into Earth,
I curse.
I curse the vehicle,
I curse the safe home it's taking me back to,
the three course meal it's taking me from.
It's ******* sick.

I wish I could smile and mean it.
I wish I could love and not hate.
I wish I could love myself.
I'm so sorry for not being able to fully appreciate my life,
for taking it for granted,
for sounding like a spoiled brat.
You probably hate me as much as I hate myself.

I.
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
*******
I.
That's a vowel I'm going to try and use less of
(at least after this poem),
I promise.
Oh the irony.

I am not looking for sympathy.
I am not looking to be compared to a dying child on the street.
I am not asking for a single kind word.
I just ask for a bit of forgiveness.
I don't blame you if you can't seem to find any.
Just know I'm sorry
and I'm going to try.

Now.
A
E
-
O
**U

One day, you'll awaken,
with blood shot eyes,
scratching at a five o'clock shadow,
even though it's seven o'clock
in the morning, and
wonder where it all went wrong. Where she all went wrong.

When the arches of her feet stopped
tiptoeing across the room
to kiss you good morning.
When the parallels of her calves
started making diagonals
when laying on the bed.
When the crook of her elbows
no longer wrapped around you
like the beautiful ribbon on the present you gave to her last Christmas.

Do you even know where that present is?
It's there,
up there on the shelf collecting dust
along with all the "I love yous"
and other promises that you stash away for cold winters nights,
when you crave her warmth,
and long to feel the chill of her sapphire-painted fingernails.

But somewhere between the cicadas of summer and the apples of autumn, you lost her along the way.
You lost the way her hair finds its way onto every surface of your house.
You can't find the way her nose wrinkles when she laughs,
even if you turn over all the couch cushions,
and look under the rug.

You check your file cabinets for the way her chest heaves when she sleeps,
and check in the pantry for the memories of her propped up on her elbows,
looking out the window sill at the rain,

But all that's left are phantoms of her amber scent,
and ghost-smiles that have all but gone stale.

I: Hypocritical Accusations of a Jealous Knave
I could have sworn the Queen winked at me as
I laid my Royal Flush on the table
Clubs
She was always the prettiest
Hers is my suit:
I imagine myself as the Jack
Who turns her from Monarchess to
Adulteress in the Royal Garden
Maybe slip her a stolen **** or two
To spite the King for he always
Outranked me
The chances of being dealt it are
Sixty four thousand, nine hundred and seventy (ish) to
One,
If my luck is running out,
Why must it be wasted
In the gaining of ethereal money?
Why not conserved for the selling of my soul to
A queen who is not ink on laminate
Card?
Or at least not here in an
Imagined Vegas or Montecarlo where
Neon, though colourless in nature,
Forms a blinding parody of a hell, hooded
In green and pink and orange and yellow or more
To pass as a heaven for
The wannabe vagrants of brat nations
Who may weep pennies for a disaster,
Remove the split onion, retake the shining knife
And bleed brass, nickel, copper and
Slaughtered tree (more ink) into
An impossible lottery
Hoping for a transfusion with
Monetary hepatitis and all from
The blind benefactors
Apply a plaster and
Reabsorb oneself into the mirror
I too am guilty of all this

II: Inside the Dreams of a Madman to Be
Checkmate.
Oh how the intellectuals do duel
Yet spill not one drop of blood;
Like the bishops of old before they were
Confined to diagonals
Who would carry clubs instead
Of blades to preserve their
Sanctity:
Keep it white, not stain it red
Or brown, dotted with congealed black;
It is a wonder to paint
But not to see or to feel
This was before the days when
Bleach could hide one’s
Breaking of the LORD’s commandments
And before the harnessed
Lightning strike
Killed the LORD himself in his creation’s (Midnight)
Eyes
And so the bleach was not needed
Yet still it sold because
Grass stained trousers:
The fruits of a hard summer afternoon’s
Labour in the sun
An atom of wasted
Childhood well spent
Could not be called a sin

III: Nonsensical Ramblings of the Recently Awakened**
The eyes of an ivory cubic
Snake in two parts leer up at me
Does this mean defeat at the hands of fate?
Nonsense! I am the hand of fate
The left, disused one to be exact;
It is not chivalrous to use me
Yet I am the hand of many things
I know nothing of hands or of dice
I tell lies instead

all that you are;

is all that you?

this is all that,

and that is all.

The soldiers stand in straight, straight lines,
ranks straight, files straight,
diagonals perfect;
white and black and every tone between,
dressed in olive green,
they are young,
they are ready.

* * *

The stones stand in straight , straight lines,
ranks straight, files straight,
diagonals perfect on the rolling hills,
every one as white as new paper,
standing in spring's greenest grass
on a Monday in May in the rain.

The people stand in huddled clumps,
spring dresses and rumpled suits
beneath black umbrellas,
the little flags red, white and blue,
the mason jars filled with fresh-cut lilacs.

The rain sifts down, and a few tears,
soft talk and memories;
then, the closing doors of cars
and going home,
winding roads and tangled thoughts
a little sad,
a little proud,
a little free.

go to a brothel, you won't feel anything about what's considered the teenage atypical damning of events that make violins of us all.

now i know why i prefer bourbon to whiskey,
my usual stock went missing today
at the supermarket, i was thinking prior
recycling a plastic bottle of coca cola and a glass
bottle of whiskey... three Buds on offer for
£5 and then a bottle of Scots' Club at £11 (and
a bottle of coke): for the extra walk to buy
£5.99 Chesterfields at the Bangladeshi outlet?
hmm, that's a tough one... solved, Scots' Club
dried up, they've been watching my predictable
pattern on c.c.t.v., either that or i honed
on ant-mentality - which is far worse than
what Nietzsche described as herd mentality -
post-Nietzsche post-religion existentialism?
ants... not oxen, not sheep, not wildebeest -
simple, ants... compactness perfectó!
the antonym of deus ex machina, i.e.
the deus in machina - we all have our roles,
plumber electrician poet... cashier drill sergeant
bus driver... with me i imagine a Michelin star
kitchen... yes chef... yes chef... what is this ****?!
throw that under-cooked scallop away!
if it ain't perfect throw it away!
most would beg to cry and run out of the tense
environment - ooh look at me, bourbon makes
me rosy cheeked - the smell of it makes me summon
the gluttonous honey thickness of a prostitutes
lubricated **** - in Amsterdam with the laws
being lenient they call them sanitation workers
from Bolivia, this plump one told me her life story,
****** into bucket in front of me, told her
child minion to get beers for me, laughed
when i wanted to lick her out - opened the window
to fish the punters into her abode - true story -
i have absolutely no imagination, experience
counts - Amsterdam is fun - you should go there
some time... it's so much freer without
this Victorian-like theatre of courtship in England,
20 years in England, never ****** a swan -
she's too into her feminism away from the "naughty parts" -
darling... and what does your lover call you during
******* while you're drooling on the Ajax?
hmm? sloppy Samantha... or just ****?
***** words during arousal makes the geek take
the noble toilet paper given to them by the maidens...
(psst... they think it's a hanky)...
and with all that space, poets have a phobia with
punctuation, hence verses, hence missing colon (or alter
italics), semi-colon - maybe a full-stop along the way...
and the most annoying part, thus examples:
Prose writers speak a lot,
They draw the matchsticks by the lot - (oh hell, forget the hyphen,
that's reserved for Oxford acceptance of new words
requiring agility and optometry's rediscovery of origin:
Saxons in Istanbul running a sausage stand -
no no, ****'s Halal, we promise!)
But when they speak, they speak to the grey matter -
Never quiet the sparkler parts of the brain...
CAPITAL WITH EACH NEW LINE...
toss-up between learning punctuation and not using it -
i doesn't matter if poetry is the opposite of the claustrophobia
of prose's skeletal rigidity of a paragraph -
poets could become less tedious by using punctuation,
i'd begin with an exercise - count to one-hundred -
ensuring the space between one and ninety-nine
is uniform, i.e. a second apart - can't happen
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
| | | | | | | | | |
   11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
    |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
         22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
          |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |;
when in Edinburgh i had a mental implant, the compass,
mostly thanks to the locality, and the Firth of Forth -
i knew my west and my east, esp. looking at Prince's
Street (scoot-ish Manhattan - squares and linear
and diagonals, picture perfect) from just off the Royal
Mile - honestly, from the old city i could see America
don't below. but bourbon really does have a brothels'
perfumery feel about it - it really hits the cheeks and
warms them up... whiskey oddly enough doesn't...
that's what ****** her off... high-brow ******* -
a boy a girl a ******* - not romantic Marcel Schwob's
Monelle* - harsh realism of de Sadé (who also
wore the t-shirt with the slogan: I'M A FEMINIST!
while cursing from his cell window in the Bastille) -
the Saudi oil billionaires will run out at some point,
last days of the **** - i know, i prefer de Sadé -
adds a bit of spice - and if i'm going to be brutally
honest as his critics are, well, i'll be honest
about one of his works - ****** - crispy mint.
debates on the Man Booker prize - old guard and new
guard - that's the problem with the English...
they pretend to read on their Summer holiday...
who the hell reads in summer? they spend
their Winters in front of the television - i thought
that winter suited reading as it does writing?
the long nights, esp. the long nights -
the Russians said: our future is in your reading public -
the Americans said: our future is in the pulverise(d)
by images public - iconoclasm of words, trademark
logos (telegrams from time to time) - just recently
an advert at a bus-stop by some Asian car manufacturer -
no nuance, but definitely nuanced: GO FUN YOURSELF -
also called the state of literacy rates in England,
a girl writes her G.C.S.E. English exam paper
in text acronym (UR v. you're); so they locked up the Marquis
for obscenity, but Anaïs Nin walked free to everyone's
applause - the part where you tell me Kierkegaard
made a meal from the tree of good and evil
with his work either / or attached to Nietzsche's
beyond... muddles muddles and pumpernickel troubles;
sure, call it word salad - but i hardly think you're
a vegetarian; going to a brothel makes all this
****** warfare seem rather obsolete - esp. when it's prompt
for books and debates and serious action -
all the prostitutes of France came out in protest when
the government wanted to punish the pundits -
hey! do a Jesus! side with the "filth"!
these girls aren't going to be nuns, the feminists won't
save them, not one of them will be a star in a real-life
adaptation of pretty woman - and not, a, single, one
will buy the feminist arguments of the bourgeoisie actresses -
me? i will not ever have a girlfriend who experiments
with her child niece in a theme park imagining me in a
daddy role... or reads me a questionnaire about complimenting
differences from a Cosmopolitan magazine.

I loved watching  
your body light up
the first time
you felt me up

The medal
against my *******,
sit in diagonals
painted silver
they've found the perfect home  
against my soft skin
and your perfect lips

I want you
to feel them,
admire my art
and know this is not
what everyone sees

They are
lessons I have learned
in ***  
and love
the more your fingertips
explore
you will learn my mistakes
and heartbreak

When your tongue travels,
you are tasting everything
I pour
into my art
and feeling
all of my humanness
you are seducing
all of my dreams
and living
in my fantasy

Give me
the touch
I crave
tie me up
in your arms
and wrap me
in your skin
kiss me
with all the colors
of fire
let me feel
your kinda love
and allow me
to give you mine.

The raindrops felt refreshing
As they splattered gently
Down my arms
That loosely gripped
My half-busted umbrella.
My shoes splished and
Splashed,
Not even bothering to
Avoid
The puddles,
Ruby red of my moccasins
Dyeing the skin on my feet
As the liquid
Soaked in.
The rainwater felt cool,
But my flannel hugged me tightly,
Breaking up the
Onset of goosebumps.
The trees and grassy lawns
Illuminated a bright green,
Lapping up the raindrops
Thirstily into their wide mouths.
With no guide,
My dampened feet lead their
Own way
Down streets and roads,
Diagonals, bobbing and
Weaving
Through the city limits.
No fear, stomach dropping,
For I knew
I would find my way.
Peaceful afternoon,
Rain dancing down from
The cloud-filled sky;
I wandered deep into a
Blissful promenade.

burned into the paths we tread
are these dots, big and black
drag your feet, and they are
connected but your continuous tracks
you never really cared for change
unless you made it happen
the zig zags, the diagonals, the dips and plunges
the robotic transformations
it's all lines and points
a graphic view of these phases
take it back to the origin, trace the way to the present
and pray you don't get lost in the nostalgic vines that encumber you on the way

-cj

Forgotten forests old and dark,
Diagonals of light
Ancient as the days that were
Forsaken by the night.

I know what it was before
it became what it is
I’m at a disadvantage perhaps
and must forget its ****** state
its absolute condition of whiteness
the purity of snow untrodden
unmarked except for the lines
woven in warp and weft

I don’t know how to look at this piece
if I had it in my hands I’d turn it about
this way that way upside down
even to lie on its diagonals perhaps
otherwise it appears like newsprint
smudged but I think for me its best
on its side so there are columns
not stories floors horizontal separators

There - now it has something of that
Annie Albers City Skyline
a tapestry seen together
on a January day you
blue-skirted with winter boots
grey-cloaked with stripy tights
a sketching bag on the shoulder
a camera in hand and I entranced
by every move you made

As though seeking an image
in a cloudscape I view a quintet
of panels on a painted screen
a Chinese landscape Han dynasty
stark trees slow fields low hills
rising to a darkening horizon then
a river flows a valley forms and I am
smitten by the accident of invention
as always my love as always
gathering myself into the pleasure
of it all dear artist of weave and print

This nearly autumn time
and a field set aside,
grassed green and partly shadowed.

Late afternoon, evening almost:
a confluence, a convergence
there of nature’s diagonals.

A house and home
hide under a darkened wood,

in the light trees stand *****
with leaves for a while yet

before those September storms
and wet October’s mists arrive.

There will be
no scheme, no rhyme, and no reason.

There will be
no rules to abide by
during the production of the artwork
intended to be presented
on the Calling Day,
when all and every
who are to proceed with the ceremony
have guns pointed at their backs
and saber-long thorns dropped,
point-first,
on the tips of their toes.

There will be
no way to tell the difference
between the lines stenciled on the walls,
which wrap from corner-to-ceiling
in spiraled diagonals,
and the blood on the carpet
sprayed out from bullet holes in the flora
that knelt below the windowsill.

There will be
no murmurs of triumph on the Calling Day,
just thoughts escaping the stratosphere
from those who will witness
the living unconsciousness.

Prayers will be
seen scattered
upon the surfaces of stars.
Our lives burnt outward
though our overcast skies,
projected up and up and up,
imprinted as shades
on that day,
the Calling Day.

I remember the day we left Southern California,
Dad hurried as fast as he could
While he loaded the moving truck.
Seven hours later
We arrived in a town I couldn't pronounce
To this day I'm not sure if either of us can say it right...

I remember our new house
It arrived several hours after we did on the back of a flatbed truck
I remember the front door swinging open and slamming shut
As the truck rolled over the curb and across the yard
The house was long like a shotgun
And left us bruised

I can remember the time I ran away.
Do you remember what Dad said to me?
"If you don't want to be a part of this family,
You can sleep in the garage!"
That night I wet the bed [sleeping bag]
I remember waking up feeling cold and
Hiding myself so he couldn't see

Can you remember the days when Uncle Al rolled his tobacco
And Aunt Beulah snipped roses in diagonals?
You loved being in their flower boutique
More than I did; You hated the smoke though
But now you can't quit

Do you remember when Chris came home
Covered in blood and tried not to cry?
I do; you were to young
He said they did it because he was 'different'
I remember feeling scared.
If he could bleed like that
Anyone could, especially you

I remember that time we rode our bikes
To go fishing in the pond but never found it
We swam in the river instead and hid in the reeds
I can still smell the lilac flowers that peppered the bank.
I remember thinking how water always runs downhill
But never understood how close we were

I remember when the house burnt down.
I can smell the smoke and feel the heat
You warned me, but I didn't believe you
I just wanted to finish watching TV
I believed you when we stood on the street and watched as
Our long white house burned at one end
Like one of Al's cigarettes

I remember when Dad rebuilt the house
We never saw him
It looked the same on the outside
But the inside was different
Then he got sick
He looked the same on the outside
But his insides were deficient

I remember the back porch
Do you remember when we walked all the way
From the back porch to the highway?
It seemed so far away
We watched the cars as they passed us
I remember wishing so badly that I could go with them
Even if that meant
Leaving you behind

At a young age they teach us that lightning looks like a geometrical line.
It's shape is a perfect kind of disaster with diagonals defined.
but when we grow up
and we're stuck in the storm
we find it impossible
To measure
A light so worn.

face down
back of her head
before me

the part in her hair
almost
oracular
jagged line of white scalp
a lexicon i alone will never know

i palm it and push down
activating some strange fate

and with much trembling
i carve up into her

unknown rune
lit
spell of ruin
flushed
consumes our us
the crush begun

quickened flesh fiends the bone
and wipes the faces
we wear

inside the creases of us
lies bending curses that will purge
diagonals crisscross
ivy writhing
growing bolder

a swarm of form
shape-shifting tor

torn and torn and will
no more

And we
both become
transfigured
spent
two loosed beings again

my elbows are all tangled up and jagged
and i am not gentle,
but sandpaper, rough and coarse
eroding your skin until there is nothing left
i am sharp edges and serrated knives,
cutting myself open bone to bone
i am not pleasant or a summer's eve
but frigidity and mocking stares
whenever you walk
i am the concrete beneath your feet
with holes and cracks that break your mother's back
with no colors, just grey and monotonous black and white
i am a harsh line on soft paper
all diagonals and wrong turns
right angles and cut in two

*(a.m.c.)

You are too distracting.
I’ll stop to take a look. Then turn back for a second look.
I’ll stop to smile and soak in the feels.

You are too correct.
The lines. The curves. The diagonals.
The colours. The smells. The timing and pace.
Simply nothing I want changed.

There you are and then you’re gone.
I thought I saw you, but I did not.
At least I saw you in my mind even if I did not.

Why are you so seldom.
Never around enough.
Yet appearing when I’ve no time for you.
Just a little beyond reach.

Beauty my vice.

When everything goes sideways,
it's the diagonals that make the most sense,
But whether they're rising or falling -
well hey, what's the difference?

Separated from the outside,
The world of masculinity
And paid labour
The mother and child
Seemingly secure.
Only the sky, glimpsed between
Overhanging branches, lights
This secluded kitchen plot
Where vegetables are washed
And the broom sweeps clean
The tiled yard.
The space between diagonals
Creates triangles of intimacy
Here the little Dutch girl
Looks tenderly upwards
At the female figure
In white apron and cap.
The foreground is reversed
For this activity is a hidden
Place
Where the warmth of yellow
Echoes the harmony
Of a domestic idyll.


Love Mary ***

In Scotland painters favor plaid
Though tartans are likely just a fad.  
When dabbing on the wall
The hand can’t slant at all.  
Glaswegians think diagonals bad.

Headless hens think
                        laterally and run in
                      molecular diagonals
                        like schizophrenic
                    butterflies crisscrossing
                     tangents with intricate
                     weaves before finally
                  coming to the conclusion
                  that the hypotenuse is no
                 different to any of the other
                squares in the chicken wire.

We held hands
as we approached it,
the pink, black,
orange monument.
We stood as if we expected
something from it,
but it failed us,
an indifferent oracle.
Your hand slipped from mine
as you stepped closer,
for a second you were
inside it, eaten whole
by its hide glue mouth,
before you drifted
in diagonals
to other colors.