there is a tourniquet on his tongue.

he is a risqué bloke
with alkaloid fingers,
they are wearing
yellow asylum jackets
yet he calls me
mad-


emoiselle, his, in between the lines
he cuts with razorblades and mirrors.
i find myself in between legs
of a stanza (not standing),
pale femurs and inner thighs
french-kissing into
surpine ampersands
where the first word
is a proclaimed ugly disease    -- perhaps 'love.'
and the other, its escapade   -- perhaps 'tuberculosis.'
but i must be the period:
oxidised bones.  


within the eyes
of a stanza (still not standing)
abides no fancy lines
no avarice for contemplative meanings
there is but space and void
and i've filled his femur marrows
with metaphors
to the verge of the patella.
he writes poetry for me
with a needle
and an eight-ball.



there is a tourniquet on his tongue
and his spine fits my stocking


seamlessly.

patella moons
scapula wings
little plant, were you born in the clouds?
protect yourself from gravity
it will crush you into stardust

The girls, the dames,
every petty thing.
The skirt, dress,
every pretty scene.

The way they tap toes
at the throws on the floor.
How bobbing their head
plucks doubt into the rhythm,
they miss the point,
but their clothing dons precision.

I'm up on stage.
They watch me from below.
Like the kneed posture pleated jeans,
patella to the floorboards.

“I saw your show.”
“No you didn't.”
But people saw you staring blankly
past.
hands me a drum stick.
“Can I have your autograph?”
“I'll do you one better.”
I stick the drumstick 6 inches in my ***.

“You sounded great...”
“No I looked like I was fake”
I acted, I stressed, I posed,
and I played.

“Lets have ***”
I say “No.”
It was just a show.
The act is done now the curtains
boast.
I don't bow.
I walk on out.
Through every living zombie
permanently in the crowd.

Put your ******* back on.
You will never mean anything to any of those stupid ******* girls.
Instead they will put your nudes on the internet and ruin your life.
You will think you did something great.

You were used.

i am

i. made of convergence of words, stems & ink.

never one to love geography but knowledgeable enough to know of the convergence of twenty six letters, wilted life givers and pigments that forms my skin. you can keep the feather light secrets resting on the petals―i only want the stem, the xylem, the phloem; to support my fragile state. you can be the pigment that stains my skin like the sun rise and sun sets i entrapped from Mother Nature. it is unfortunate the light has lost its way amongst the maze that is my veins, but i can be your light at the end of the tunnel if you don’t mind a flickering hesitant radiator. when you have mastered Taking Things Apart Without Killing, come to me and unpick the threads in my skin. maybe you’ll learn more about the words that latched upon me and if you’re lucky enough, you may uncover a raw portion i’ve hidden away. don’t forget the Lock N Lock container.

ii. held together by creaky cartilage

never one to study human anatomy but interested enough to read up and find out that i am held together by two hundred and six bones. the clavicle cradles liquefied pieces of you and the patella locks to allow the world to rest its burden on my shoulders. the sternum pieces itself and encases the lump of muscle that keeps me breathing, and cranium holds the Boss of my body. you can pick my spine and play it like a flute but please be careful for nothing resides in them. nothingness clots up my veins; nothingness fills the space between my bones; nothingness slowly taking over my senses. your October poetry piece stings me like the harsh winter wind, blows across the land and reduces my cartilage to dust. hold me like you would a newborn baby for i do not take supplement pills and i am the result of several fractured wrists & hips.

iii. harboring galaxies & objects inside

never one to take up Astronomy but aware that i harbor several milky ways and universes among the frantic chaos of every *****. flowers blossom in the crevices of my wrist bones and butterflies and birds of unnamed species flutter around in the comfort of my rib cage, just as pixies and sprites sleep and sing Church songs in the palms of my hands. sequinned galaxies swirl around in microscopic areas and i will expand until my seams burst only for me to bleed gold dust and crumpled stars. these tidal waves inside of my head won’t stop crashing until someone wakes me up to make sense of what i am and the meaning of lif

I saw old friend Bogart awhile ago
in pieces and fragments
of old, preserved bones
I’ve tried to put him back together
by assembling him, and I did
but there’s so many pieces missing.
His skull is gone, his hyoid and clavicle
his humerus and ulna on the right side of his arms
and even his phalanges.
He has no coccyx on his pelvis and
on his right leg, no tibia and fibula,
on his knee, there’s no patella
yet there’s some pieces of tarsals on his feet.
Incomplete and useless,eh?
Though old, he’s still beautiful,
a perfect masterpiece of the Heavens,
the strength of his bones measure eons
and will you believe me if I say
that because of him, my mom graduated?
He’s been responsible for the success
of students who became doctors and biologists
as old as his bones are,
were the knowledge imparted to the children
of many generations.
Bogart is amazing, a (non)living teacher
that tells me, that there’s beauty
and essence  in fragments of something that
once was complete and that one who
will always remain alive in the lives of many
and now, in mine too.

It's dying you know.
In a scary dark dirge.
It's falling fast.

Was feeling mediocre.
Ages fly past.
From childhood to menopause.
Hell what a blast.
Some kind of supersonic speed.

Looking into the dark world of periods past.
Just took a breath.
Oops there went another.
One second closer.

Patella aches.
Legs are veined.
Decorated ornately.
Threads sewn.
Embroidered, but not by needles.
Hair has gone all funny.
Killed it with my dye.
This hormones it's falling out.
Really don't know why.

Guess I should age naturally.
But I don't know why I should.
(c) Olivia Kent 20/11/2013

In anatomy class I took notes for you,
while 3am still had it’s way with your bones.
While labeling the patella on a diagram,
I remembered your skinned knees from last Friday
and the way you tricked everyone into forgetting
that you ever had a favorite pair of jeans.
As I jotted down the word ‘femur,’ I imagined
your own shadow straddled over you in
an endless edge of streetlight and crooked blinds.
The way you shuddered each time the teacher said
the word ‘coccyx’ reminded me of the night
you lost your virginity in the back of the library, and the
fact that your ***** stamp was the only thing
that your ******* ex ever loved. A car engine
from somewhere near-by muffled your moans.
Remember how the classics romanticized them
back there? Remember how they also lamented
over the fact that you bombed your midterms?

On split finger webbing,
blistered metatarsal pads,
catlike: left left, right right.
You're just over there?
You call this chasm just?
On split, sore patella,
charred hands,
the head hanged loosely,
as dead: left left, right right.
My head down, eyes up, right?
Compensation has been tendered
for the services rendered, right?

                          Right?

Chariots spinning on snake wrapped wheels fly forth through his fiery shins
The horses have sitar faces
Ancestor voices vocalize with ethereal hymns
The imperial rims shall want but have no get
Flung forth into hypnotic dishes of nets
Gasping for water in heightened air

Trickle with spirit and deadly measures
With morality a broken metronome
A boulder smeared with clumps of pulp of mango
Flamingo bends in the fiery knees
Seven arms
Nine heads

Existed from oceans beatings
Lightning of wrathful suns
Tears shed skinned and dappled face of brimming whim

Orangutan spiked fur
Perfumed of jungles’ musk and fleas
Pinkish hand with crevice knuckles
To no king he bends the patella gates

He leads the ravaging conquests
Endless horse and bird
A Danube of feathers
Sterling melting herd
To no king he hands the scepter

He is pouting child
Devil wig and fist
Sprinting in red abyss amidst the hands of slaves
To no king shall he relinquish the ribcage trophy

The only studying we ever got done
together was anatomy,

you whispering the names of bones into
my skin, each followed with a kiss-

clavicle

sternum

ilium

patella

Each word sparking through my skin
and into the blood coursing around my
body.
Making alpines of my skin with each of
your exhales.

It's much warmer here beneath the sheets
than between the pages of your books.

I’ve always thought that buildings are like graveyards for memories;
The dead preserved between walls like flowers pressed in pages,
The lost parts of our selves hung up like portraits or calendars; Reminding us of our lives.

I’ve taken to wondering about why we got our kitchen re-done
While we let the rest of our house fall apart
And I think I’ve found the answer.

We don’t want to remember our dead.

Over the summer we striped back the tiles
And painted the walls with sunshine;
The washing machine and the microwave migrated
And the floor space receded
To make way for all our cupboards to be empty.
We dragged the evidence out into the yard
And scribbled over it like it was a spelling mistake.

The kitchen was the room where we’d all died several times over
And so the cemetery had to be uprooted and annihilated
Before we began to smell the decay of the past versions of ourselves.
We had to prise mould from the corners
And resolutely redecorate the place where Anorexia had been most prominent.

It was ironic really

That this purge was to rid ourselves of Anorexia When purging had, so frequently, been a means of feeding it.

It was pointless really

Because the kitchen might have been the part of the house that got bombed the most heavily by my brother’s eating disorder
But it was not the only room with bullet holes punching through the paintwork.
Each wall is avalanched away by postcards and snapshots and letters home
That my fourteen-year-old -self framed with fear and anger and hate.

What my home means to me is the bed I saw my mother howling on
And the scales my brother teetered on
And the doorway my father swore from.
When I see the painting on my brother’s wall
I think not of art but of a children’s hospital
And when I see my blue bean bag
I think not of film-watching but of the practise of crying tearlessly.

We know a family who lived in the same little Mental-Illness-Bubble that we did.
“We’ve still got the lamp shade that she threw her plate of tomato pasta at,”
They say whenever we see them.
“We have a good laugh about that,”
And they explain the way they deal with their history
Like the person who taught them optimism did a better job with them than ours did with us.
We’re four cynics crouching under one roof
Like we’d rust in the rain that we miser over.
Unable to move on.
We attempt but it is too hard, too rigid, too stiff.
My joints have more titanium than my grandmother’s –
No, not titanium; lead.
Every time I try to step away from anorexia
I find that there is too much grit behind my patella,
Too much debris lodged between my brittled bones.
Debris that’s left over from all the toxins and dirt and tears that I couldn’t manage to cry.

I hug myself on the staircase and wonder
How many years it will be before I can watch the front door without watching for dying Crane Flies.
How many times must I sit opposite my brother before I can forget sitting opposite a skeleton?
How long will it take to stop seeing ***** stains in the toilet and the writhing veins in my brother’s arms?

I’m waiting for the day when we can throw away blood-stained lampshades
And remember instead how, as children, we threw paper aeroplanes down these stairs.

It was always my brother’s plane that flew the furthest.

SPEECHLESS
( for B. B. )

The page looked at me
blankly.

The words gathered
inside my head

but refused to
come out.

'Sorry mate...
we're on strike! '

'But why...? '
I cried.

'Do I have to spell it out
for you? '

'Write...write...write! '
'That's all you do! '

'You 'ave us up
all ****** night
it just ain't right! '

'No...I...don't! '
I lied...blatantly.

'Oh...who was that sentence
I saw you with last night? '

'That was no sentence...that was
my haiku! '

'And those poor vowels
...the howls! '

'Look, mate...we're consonants
so we can take it but

...a vowel's a vowel! '

'Now, it's just
our luck
that we're gone & got
ourselves an Irish poet

who is prone
to a little

internal vowel
rhyme! '

'Assonance! '
I said.

'Bless you Guv but
I don't cares wot you'se call it! '

'All we hear all night long is
O...E...I...U! '

And with that
they left

the whole ******
alphabet

absailing out of my head

marching down
my forearm

the whole ****** platoon
now on my patella

now turning at the door
saying: 'See ya fella! '

'Call yourself...call yourself
a ****** poet! '
they jeered

'We're off to Bryan Baker's
head! '

'Now...there's a poet! '

Slam!

The door was silent.

They were gone.

I was...
...I was

...speech-less!

I subject myself,
My will
Unto your caring hands.

My spinal cord
Is simply a
Pedestal for your patella.

Let the grains of sand
Slip between your fingers,
My time runs on your own accord.

How can I be of assistance,
All I want is to be yours.

MOTHERING INSTINCT

Tears...tears well but don't fall.

Bottom lip. . .trembles.

Top lip. . . quivers

& just before she can begin
to howl...

...I howl!

I open my mouth
& - bawl!

Stunned
she stares at my open mouth

with nothing but
sobs coming out.

'I'm...cryin'...'cos...you were..
...gonna...cry! '

I manage to blurt out
(trying not to laugh behind my crocodile tears) .

She climbs up on my lap
(a sturdy little foot on each patella)

wipes my fake tears
away with her hair.

'Ah...Dónall Dónal...not cry! '
'Big boy not cry! Sillly...Dónall cry! '

'Shhhhhhhh! 'she sushes me
kissing a me(guilty)

of unleashing my four year olds
mothering instinct.

seven.
it was at this point
I started running
because there was no way
three more numbers
were going to get
his temper/ rage
back into the box

eleven
that was the age
that I learnt the effect
of a fast moving patella
aimed at a *******

twenty nine
the number if times
that story has been told

forty three
that's  where he caught up
with me with a crash tackle
splitting his lip and my eyebrow
in the completion of it

thirty two
the number of stitches we got
me 14, him 18

fourteen
the number if days
we where grounded
no tv, no visitors

five
the times
I have used
that manoeuvre
since then

two
the visable scars
we still have.....

If I could curl back up into my mother’s womb
And find comfort in her heartbeat
To nurse off the cereal I made her crave
And get lost in her dreams,
Instead of mine
If I could be swaddled in soft cotton
And shushed to sleep
My only vision-- a dream catcher mobile
Warding off the demons
That sat at my crib, licking their fingers
Hungry for my years
If I could disappear into the color of something
Or someone
The olive in the fir
The amber in my brother’s cheeks
The milk in the snow
The yellow in the breeze
If I could climb down within myself
Trudge through esophagus
Down to my tangled gut
I’d lay there, use my web as a hammock
Finally find rest from you, my dear
Then I would trek south
and dig under patella,
sheltered by a knee cap cave
If I could precipitate
Go from a solid to a molecule
And rest on the back of blue bird feathers
I would drip down to the earth
For you to step on and soak up the rest of my softness
I would finally disappear and let your light
Seep back to you.

And I passed people on the highway
in front of a pile of their belongings
spilled upon the shoulder
from a bloated pickup bed
At church someone told the tale
and added
that motorists honked at the owners
when they tried to walk back to where the spill began
and collect their mattress love seat
lamp shade stuffed giraffe
"like they ain't already got enough problems"
one sagely concluded

And when I walked by
no one honked at the arm leg
kidney ear patella
fourth metatarsal shattered soul
ejected at high speed
as I fell apart
parts dropped like breadcrumbs
too something to stop and pick them up
No one gaped
no one braked
I suppose no one was inconvenienced
by my disintegration

Some days I'd rather be a problem
four tires facing up
rolled over in a ditch
beyond the mangled guard rail
honking cars audience to my broadcast indignation
desperation
loneliness
regret
I'd rather be a byword some days
as kind church ladies tut-tutted over my predicament
and shushed the busy, impatient drivers
Yeah -- like I ain't already got enough problems
Right?  See?

SHALL WE DANCE. . .

take the skeleton
by the hand and
we dance

it is a gloriously
sunny day
of childhood

the skeleton
just grins and
I sing I'm all shock up

mmm mmm
yeah yeah
yeah

can tell
Mr. Skelton is
well into Elvis

swings its pelvis
rattles its bones
"Go Skeletoney goooo!"

my da yells
"Donall son
leave the ****** skeleton alone!"

"Plant ya now
dig ya later!"
I jive talk him

the skeleton
comes to a stand still
dangles from a wire

out of his skull
I leave my Da's
army sports stores

I always amazed
that this
skeleton was once

a man
as alive
as me

years later
the army
thinks the same

and plastic
replaces
bone

he's finally buried
with full military honours
flag draped coffin

3 volley salutes
scattering the crows
a future he

could never know
become human
for the last time

then the boy
I was
becomes the man I am

lighting a candle
for my former dancing partner
"Rest easy Mr. Bones...rest easy!"


I wrote of 'him' way back in 2007 and then lost the poem so this year. remembering the lost poem, I wrote this version. Then I lost this version. And then I found the old version and finally the new version again! I found it interesting to see the different ways of coming into a poem...same facts but a different trajectory as one enters the emotional atmosphere of the poem.

*

COME DANCING


I take the skeleton’s hand
& man...do we dance?

I clasp his bony hand in mine
give him a high five and dude...we jive!

No one can touch us now
(we’re in a world of our own) .

We shake, rattle ‘n’ roll...yeah!
Shake, rattle ‘n’ roll
(then we)
*** into dat kitchen ‘n’ rattle ‘em pots ‘n’ pans
Den den den...den den den!

The skeleton flashes me a toothy grin.

“Man...you the one...you the one...what a groove...we’re in! ”

The transistorised air is alive as song after song drives me on.

The skeleton don’t break sweat!
Me...my scalp prickles...sweat trickles down my spine.

Sunlight spills in the window
& the dust motes go wild.

The skeleton places a bony hand on my clavicle
& I place my hand on his sacroiliac.

We waltz eye socket to eye socket
& patella to patella.

Gene Kelly sings:

"What a great day it’s been... what a rare mood I’m in
Why it’s... almost like being in love!"

He’s a fine medical specimen.

He dangles from a thread in his head
& the slightest breeze moves him
...gets him going.

I call him Mr. Bo Jangles.

He lives in my Dad’s army sport stores.

From the inner sanctum of his room
my Dad’s army voice booms:

”Donall...leave that ****** skeleton alone! ”

And goes back to counting his *****.

The ledger grows & grows.
(He mutters & mumbles to himself) .

“*****...soccer...50? ...50! ”
“*****... rugby...50? ...50! ”
“*****...medicine...50? ...50! ”

he intones as if chanting a mantra.

I shuffle out...trying to be cool
(in this heat?)

“Yo, see ya later Bo! ”

Years later I see him
in a tiny newspaper article.

Apparently the Army
realise they’ve got a real life skeleton on their hands

& decide to do the decent thing
(remembering the man he’d been)

& bury him

with full military honours

flag draped coffin
& shots fired into the air to scare the crows away.

I wish I could have...been there.

Say my goodbyes.

I smile & whisper
a little prayer:


”Yo, see ya later...Bo! ”

i think i messed up. incomplete contentment, nothing’s the same but there’s nothing different. life’s becoming blurry again. emotion is lacking in situations that call for sympathy. a trachea not in midline and veins that pulsate, fractured patella and dislocated wrists. how do i explain my leaking, stapled wounds? you would only laugh if you saw how disheveled i was. how am i supposed to fix myself when everyone thinks i’m perfect except you? do i value their opinions over someone that doesn’t know me?  in reality, i am an artificial ghost. no one even sees me. i have no desire to be alongside a body other than my own, the one i lost when i was stupidly vulnerable (what did you expect for me to say?). once fearful of letting myself go, now i’m ridding this desolate place. how nostalgic.

you hit me and my knuckles feel sore. i’m on my knees when there’s a knot in your shoelace. missed me? your whimpers sound more desperate than before. didn’t think you could want me this badly. take this hand to serve yourself, take this leg as a cane, and take this rib to construct the instrument that plays the sound of my cries. maybe i do exist for others, but you exist for me. your venom only makes my cuts sting, not the bites.

it's complicated. i’d prefer the rusted fountain to the broken bird cage. arms are intertwined, but i wish they were someone else’s. backs splayed on the ground, feet planted on the side of the building. “it looks like an endless road,” but it’s finite to me. shortening the distance is as simple as pulling the trigger (who said it was easy?). i clean his skin out from under my nails. who does he even like? he doesn’t even know who i am. nonetheless, i hope you’re jealous knowing i look prettier for him. i’m chasing the sun on a treadmill, my teeth are grinding on glass; such an euphoric feeling. the what could’ve been never tasted so good. "let’s take advantage of everything in every way” (myself included but i don’t think he likes the thought of that as much as i do).

Snapchatrilla looking for a fella
In her dilemma with cashapp antenna
Her sugar like vanilla with a location with a red umbrella
She prefers Godzilla or gorillas for the weather that gives deh the leather
She is the seller looking for the fella to have ice cream Sunday like a triller
Having a shower on her face or on her patella
Double face gal acting like her girlfriend Priscilla
****** gal that smokes act like Annabella
The smile like Godzilla
Money of 150 from the bank teller
The prince That had once loved her
Because she ain’t Cinderella
He’s now looking for bella to satisfy her

SPEECH LESS
(for B. B.)

The page looked at me
blankly.

The words gathered
inside my head

but refused to
come out.

'Sorry mate...
we're on strike! '

'But why...? '
I cried.

'Do I have to spell it out
for you? '

'Write...write...write! '
'That's all you do! '

'You 'ave us up
all ****** night
it just ain't right! '

'No...I...don't! '
I lied...blantly.

'Oh...who was that scentence
I saw you with last night? '

'That was no sentence...that was
my haiku! '

'And those poor vowels
...the howls! '

'Look, mate...we're consonants
so we can take it but

...a vowel's a vowel! '

'Now, it's just
our luck
that we're gone & got
ourselves an Irish poet

who is prone
to a little

internal vowel
rhyme! '

'Assonance! '
I said.

'Bless you Guv but
I don't cares wot you'se call it! '

'All we hear all night long is
O...E...I...U! '

And with that
they left

the whole ******
alphabet

abseiling out of my head
marching down
my forearm

the whole ****** platoon
now on my patella

now turning at the door
saying: 'See ya fella! '

'Call yourself...call yourself
a ****** poet! '
they jeered

'We're off to Bryan Baker's
head! '

'Now...there's a poet! '

Slam!

The door was silent.

They were gone.

I was... ...I was

...speech-less!

SPEECH LESS
(for B. B.)

the page looked
at me
blankly

the words
gathered
inside my head

but refused
to come
out

'Sorry mate...
we're on
strike! '

'But why...? '
I cried.
"Why!"

'Do we have to
spell it out
for you? '

'Write...write...write! '
'That's all
you do! '

'You 'ave us up
all ****** night
it just ain't right! '

'No...I...don't! '
I lied...
blatantly

'Oh...who was that
sentence I saw you
with last night? '

'That was no sentence...
that was
my haiku! '

'And those
poor vowels
...the howls! '

'Look, mate...
we're consonants
so we can take it

but
...a vowel's
a vowel! '

'Now, it's just our luck
that we've gone & got
ourselves an Irish poet

who is prone
to a little
internal vowel rhyme! '

'Assonance! '
I said.
'Bless you Guv but

I don't cares wot
you'se call it! '
all we hear

all night long is
O...E...
I...U! '

and with
that
they left

the whole ****** alphabet
abseiling out of my head
marching down my forearm

the whole ****** platoon
now on my patella
now turning at the door

saying: 'See ya fella!
Call yourself.. a ****** poet! '
they jeered

we're off to
Bryan Baker's head!
Now...there's a poet!'

slam!
the door was silent
they were gone

I was...
...I was
...speech-less!