you came to me in the first dewdrops of spring
with the scent of newleaf lingering on your lips
and the taste of fresh rosebuds and honeysuckle
a mere whisper on my tongue
your kiss the heat of summer sunlight blistering against my skin
and ripping my throat open in a blaze of inferno
heaven knows how you quell the flames
with the same brush of lips against mine
you dance forever in my mind’s eye on dappled autumn leaves
with the swirl of the breeze tousling in your hair
a symphony of red yellow brown and glittering eyes
footsteps going crunch crunch crunch over the carpet of my heart
your goodbye is the wind that whips through my eternal winter
as the snow settles in the silent solstice
i crave crave crave crave the fervent heat once more just once more
REPEAT.
cyclic cyclic cyclic
as i fall in love with you all over again.
(like the mist that rolls in with the first snow that tumbles like waves from the sky/like the budding of the flowers in the garden and the fallen petals beneath your soles/like the gradual melt of ice cream onto sticky fingers and stained flip-flops/like the green fading into a myriad of blossoming colour the facade of beauty disguising slow death)
baby, you break my heart slow

old makeup spilled on my floor
***** clothes strewn on my floor

You can hardly see the carpet for all the clothes carelessly being trodden on.

Blue holiday lights are strung around the mirror.

I am watching Andy Warhol eating a hamburger
I am watching Andy Warhol eating a hamburger
on a new, thousand dollar laptop, slick-as-a-whistle, paid with a magnetic swipe.

For the past six months,
I have had less than four hundred $
combined in checking and savings,
and that number dwindles by the day.

I have no groceries,
but I've got fistfuls of orange prescription bottles,
and I was handing pills out like treats and candy.

(but they are needed, much and every day)

Where did all these bills come from?
Money is paper, but it means things.
Suddenly, it costs money to breathe.

Eating? Oh pshaw, that costs money, time, and the store's six blocks away.
We can subside on government cheese, beans, and the fiery licks of whiskey.

I pout on my throne of ***** cotton, thinking
"I get what I ask for, when I ask, and it always comes--at a price!" I sigh.

It's always over a hundred dollars more than I could spare
and brings bad luck, moreso than a couple broken mirrors would,
smashed over a the front of your mother's blackest cat.

"Quick! Let's do designer drugs with the paltry change given by our parents, given as allowance!
I wouldn't feel like I wasn't nothing, nothing at all," I say, batting my eyelashes, "Wouldn't they feel proud of our feelings of entitlement to the greater things in life and consciously responsible adult-like decisions?"

I crack open my father's checking account with that swipe of a magnetic strip,
it makes me seem responsible when he sees I just use it for pills and foodstuff.

(I prove I love him, and he loves me in this way)

Now, together, we will buy strawberries with his money, until our lips are pink.
They must be four dollars, at the very least, then we eat like the bourgeoisie (!)

I kiss the cheeks of my reflection in the bathroom
"Como ca va, darling? Comme si comme sa. . ."
I lick my lips, put on red lipstick and then blot,
tousling my hair, tipsy, as I touch up my face by
licking the tips of eyeliner up like a cat's little tail,
the ends of eyes, coated with eyeliner as black as
my tightest velvet pants and dark, dark heart.

We go together. You and me.

Lying on the floor, holding hands, in vinyl bliss
listening to the crooning of sweet Francoise Hardy,
and the addictions of the near-dead soul of Lou Reed

You should move to a big city
and I'll come call, prepaid, with
a voice that is thick and ripped,
from expensive French cigarettes
chattering of sugar-white beaches
as I cross the seas all on a plane,
burning money all along the way
all the while drunk on red wine,
twirling my fingers around, with
bags under eyes, a little anemic

(I think it adds to the glamour)

We will go out to a dimly lit place
We will go out dancing then after

I will put on dab perfume under my ears and on my wrists,
I will wear black tights for pants, but first, do a little *******
and you will fasten the clasp on my silver necklace tonight,
while I smoke, before helping me put on my favorite fur

And we will go see Andy, at the factory
I hear he's doing something
with that Basquiat fellow (!)

I will go follow false luxuries, come with me.
I will gamble with you in Monte Carlo or Las Vegas,

just as long as you pay my rent at $695 per month,
and keep pretending,
until I die, or overdose, or something.

The sound was switched off
to my  imagination
but you sauntered in that cascade silk of light
with sure steps,touching this,
tousling your hair, touching that
resplendent. Seductive in the setting.

You knew I was watching the sun dance
through the shadows
causing your smile
and mischief to glow brighter.

It was when you leaned over the balcony
my pulse raced with fear
and my heart stopped racing anymore.

Its only when you switched the sound back on
did I realise
your heart was also beating
between 'the agony and the ecstasy'
of the distance between us.

I take a  step forward.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 3 days ago

The empty air has a bitter tone
When it bites at my fingers
And yells profanities in an unrecognizable tongue.

It stings when it sings.

It has an aberrant gait
And a detached mien,
This lack-of being.

The tempest’s strides jounce its overly-wide shoulders;
Its prominent brow sends an antagonistic shadow
Cascading down its lip and jaw.

This active silence whispers age-old secrets
Its fingers tousling the amber leaves
Of my autumn’s long-dead trees.

The sound resonates,

And this taunting, all-knowing,
Omnipresent, nonexistent-but-still-there wind
Smiles at my naïveté.

Weary under the weight of the world
And the smog of self-importance.
Its eyes are clouded with grey rain,
Its teeth sharp with a bitter resentment;

“I’ve disliked you since the 1700s,” it breathes,
Throwing an airy, acrid gaze at humanity.
(“I’m sorry, but it is you who made me this way,
With your scornful industrialization.”)

Its eyes are frigid, piercing,
Wicked, yet reserved.
Cruel in their taunting assumptions,

Yet,

In those forget-me-not eyes

I found the sky.

It's like being stuck on the same simple simile
something or other about the sunshine and your smile
waking up to a single sheet
bare feet, frozen
black coffee, scalding
Sweeping winds tousling hair just like
  someone.

What to do, what to do,
when even dreams are not a refuge?
What are you, what are you,
another smoking pile of refuse?

What's new with you?
Don't look so confused.

I'm sticking around like dead leaves in gutters
A sudden remembrance about something or other
Waking up to a single light
bare hands, sweaty
open mouth, dry
Pouring rain drenching clothes just like
  somewhere.

What to do, what to do,
when even dreams are not a refuge?
What are you, what are you,
another smoking pile of refuse?

And you haven't got a clue.
Don't be so amused.

I saw the rest of my kind scour against the streets, hands calloused-laden,
wizened by erratic explosions – nondescript music analogous to silence;
terse sleep stiff in wind, homes filled with tension, arrow-headed men
quiver through the busy streets as tatterdemalion as stray dogs.

inverted triangle, sidereal vertigo, mutilated rose and the beheaded tulip.
the ambiguous spiral of the downcast climb. I see all men maddened
by wine over the rooftops.

                   choking in dank light – the night exudes its flayed machinery.
           an empty bottle of whiskey and a body stripped of skin melded with fright
        raised higher than the maladroit sky.

I, whose name is but an algorithm of formlessness. I, whose silence is but the contemplation of stone. I,
whose voice toboggans like a tender ramshackle of incantations
                                   filling tubercular pockets with spare hope yet none are we but only poorer.
    whose fingers are but tired girls tousling in bed lacquered by sunsets – whose nails are paler
    than a ****** of moonlight, whose homes are inflamed hemmed in by petticoats,
             whose eyes set affixed to no avatars in juxtaposition of parks
                                  falling madly in love with everything that glints.

A few drivers,
mid-summer afternoon

lean against the divider,
paint peeling

some perch on it lightly---
indulge in hot group-talk;

the waltzing-shadow
of a banyan tree
opposite side of the
auto-rickshaw stand---

a street-art, delicate, dark-hued;

the phantom arms
hug
the disparate crew
in a tight family-embrace,
its breath tousling their hair

and it---
protects them from
the Mumbai heat!
@Sunil Sharma

i cannot wait to see you again
to feel the peaceful marks of your existence
the wind, tousling your mane, mixing it with mine
your face, your presence, your heart
beating strongly beside mine
as we run through bright fields of embers
our past glowing in the distant background

when all that is left here is us
we will go to that spot
where we were separated
and dig up my heart together
you will return it to me
so that i may fill it with my essence, my love

and i will gladly return it to you once more
for it is yours
forever branded by you

it is the only thing i can give to you while you're gone
please, be comforted
i gave you my whole to protect you until i can find you again

and when i find you
i will sacrifice myself to keep you safe

this time
i can stay with you

*forever

Set apart from the world
On this little gravel road
I’m hidden away
By dancing leaves
On swaying trees.
The sun shifts
Shade lifts and falls,
And I am alone but free.

The wind blows
Tousling my hair.
And days are spent
Without care.
Country roads
Carry me along,
The beaten path
I travel alone.

When I go back
To where I’ve been
I will think of the road
And soon visit again.
Gravel roads, they call out to me—
I will always long to be
Beneath the trees
Feeling that shady breeze.

The stars are beautiful from the beach-
Especially on this moonless night
Bright and sparkling, every pinpoint
Reflected on the black water,
Dancing with the soft motion
Of windswept waves
The same sea breeze tousling my hair

They look almost close enough to touch
To reach out and pluck
Right from the inky black bay
To hold like some errant firefly
Far from home

Standing upon the silken sand
Feeling it work its way between my toes
I begin to walk toward the lights
A siren call beating within my brain

Just a little closer…

Quickly
The waves lap at my feet
The soft caress of the water
Gentle and welcoming

Another step, another step
My intrusion rippling against the break
Stars dancing farther from my fingers
Still so tantalizingly close

Just a little closer…

Farther, deeper
The warm silk of the bay
Enveloping me like
A lover’s arms
A mother’s hug
Comforting and calming

Almost there, just a little more…

My feet no longer touch
The shifting sands below
Yet still
I move forward
Borne away by the tide

Floating, fighting to grasp
Just one burning pinprick
Of starlight
To feel its warmth within my palm

Just a little closer…

Floundering, fishing for
One final, futile touch
(I’m sinking)
Arms outstretched
Reaching toward those
Teasing
Tantalizing
Stars
No longer sure where they lie
(And oh, they lie)
Surf or sky
And still they sing

Just a little closer…

Beginning in a night,
and lasting through.
Shock.
Bitterness.
Few bursts of anger.
Talking,
sharing,
secrets told.
Sadness,
tears,
and longing.
"Why?" Rained down with other questions.
To the point,
of dismissive.

"I don't want to be a girl,
I want to be a turtle."

There were happy notes,
permitted as they were.
Amongst,
Friends.
Family.
Myself.

Back.
Up.
Beautiful was/is:
butterflies,
overturned and stuck,
ocean water confining them,
to a shorter life,
when the waves wash,
higher, higher,
plucked away.
From the wet sand,
lifted into the sky,
brought to a plant,
two,
maybe three, made it.

Of cats,
strays though they were,
with food and beds under the pier.
Of the lady,
who shared her lunch,
crawling under the deteriorating boards,
to fill their bowls.

Fast-forward.
To friends,
rejoined with smile.
Though sad with an emotional pain,
of laying there,
in self.
Best friend-talks.
Friend-talks.
Family-talks.
Person-to-dog talks.
All these.

Seventy,
in the dark,
with no music.

Then July.
Fireworks,
on the seventh,
shared on the third.
A slight battle for a chair,
settled with laughter as half went to one,
and other to other.

Of walking,
in the rain,
after and before,
not during.
The ground is damp,
music pulsates.
Removed,
then off.
Birds,
the name of the wind,
two ways,
beautiful.
The sounds,
remembrance,
of home,
of before,
of the present,
of the during that became the past.
A deep pit,
opened,
also happiness.

Beautiful things are,
the wind tousling short hair: present,
thunder and lightning rolling in: present,
wrestling on the floor: past,
filled with a sudden joy as soon as a presence (his) was spotted: past,
shooting games: past
first kiss: past,
first love: past.

Of remembering,
the good and the bad,
the tough ways of learning,
of forgiveness,
of a new experience,
of tears for new reasons,
of the word "olive,"
of messing up,
of being,
of beautiful things.

"In the sky,
above the clouds,
are more clouds."

(and release)

She was
a shy, sensitive
young woman,
with small
hands and
lean, long
fingers that
beautifully
graced the
pencil as
she wrote
poetry, or
rather, the
whispers of
her heart
within her
small leather
notebook,
whenever
she became
curious, her
dark, lustrous
brown eyes
would glimmer
in fascination,
her entire world
would become you,
she was not
particularly
beautiful
but her heart
was pure,
she would
remain hidden
through her
poetry
as though
she was
listening to
classical
music,
the streams
of violins
are the
winds
tousling
her midnight
hair,
she was
a dreamer
of the night,
though
quiet
In her
demeanor,
always
deep
In thought,
perhaps
trying to
understand
and shape
you, or
thinking
about the
simple
beauty
of the
moment,
she would
see the stars
when everyone
walked past,
to appreciate
what others
could not see,
as a light
hidden
among the
leaves,
she was
the depth
once unseen,
now clear to
the one who
came closer,
she would
place her
palm on
her fair
face when
deep in
listening,
as if it
was, the
painted
portrait of a
poet,
she always
held a cup
of warm tea,
being content
In her recluse,
until she would
look into your
eyes, and
you saw
through
her
soul

INTO THE INELUCTABLE MODALITY OF THE INELUCTABLE VISUALITY

Leopold Bloom
tousles my hair.

Tells me I'm a
"...grand little fella altogether!"

His large black eyebrows
look as if they will leap

off his face and land on mine
chew my mind.

Of course he is
only Milo O'Shea.

Actor extraordinaire
from Strick's ULYSSES.

Some concert in the girl's gym
has mad him appear here

before me
quaking in fear.

He is the first man I see
in a tux.

Our class is to recite
THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

Was I not nervous?
Jaysus I was so I was!

The spotlight a Medusa
turning us to stone.

An audience a many
headed monster.

I...I...I
petrified.

I throw my voice
out into the dark

like throwing a mad dog
a bone.

"As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle mount to the sky."

Guy beside me starts to cry
wee running down his left knee.

Now it's over and I
am returned to myself again.

Meeting Mr. Milo
is just a happenstance.

Later he will will become
Durand Durand

trying to **** Barbarella
with sheer pleasure.

Now,  Zeffirelli's kind friar
in ROMEO AND JULIET.

But for me
he always blossoms

into Bloom
tousling my many many curls.

"A wink of his eye and
a toss his head.

soon gave me to know
I had nothing to dread."

I got my hair cut
Again
Yesterday
In a small salon the filthy streets of Philadelphia's Chinatown;
The golden eagle
Appropriately named as I always feel wings lift me when I leave
Though the streets are grey and black with dirt and grime,
The salon is clean, chic, and welcoming
First one young lady with limited English swept me up to be dropped into the care of a second who washed my hair and luxuriously massaged my scalp with exquisitely long nails
Then I was led over to a swivel chair to ponder my reflection and bat my legs as a little child, waiting on Kelly for my grown up haircut
At last Kelly was free, and she too whisked me over to her mirror
In her most exceptional care she cut and thinned and cut and razored and thinned and cut some more
Her fingers flew, running through my hair and seeming to drop pieces of hair by magic
At last she styled and stepped back nervously asking if I liked it
Quickly scrutinising it, running my fingertips over the much-shortened hair, I looked up
And grinned
I love it
The bangs barely long enough to brush my eyebrows
The back as short as a boys, bristling when I rub it the wrong way
The front long and soft enough for tousling but short enough to stay out of my way
If I envelope my head in my hands I can easily trace the contours of my scalp
As though a couple silk scarves were draped over a barren skull
I was told I look like Emma Watson or Audrey Hepburn or a boy
But I love this
They're both stunning women
And I don't mind shocking a few old ladies with the surprise that this "strong young man" is I'm fact a girl

The sun sets the world aglow,
fire on the sand
and glitter on the sea.
It sends kisses down my spine.
The wind is its messenger,
tousling my hair--
it was neat once upon a time
this morning.
Now that is just a distant memory,
my hair is a mess
of fine yarn upon
my forehead,
mussed by sea water and running through rainbows,
where colors meld to my skin
and glow bright
in the dying sunlight.
My back and legs are burning
like onions frying
in a pan,
but I don't care
because my cheek
is pressed into the warm sand,
and my hair
is a fan round my head,
and the wind
whistles merry songs from over the sea,
and they reach me,
a shouted echo in an empty cave,
and I will stay here forever,
with my feet in the sand
and the waves in my blood.
I shall sleep beneath the moon,
and hold hands with
the constellations.
I shall float in the midst of the vast green ocean
whose waves are forest creatures,
rising up high
to kiss my neck
before crashing upon the shore
and stroking my feet.
I shall build here a home,
of sand
and sand alone.
I shall spend every waking hour
building my small beautiful home,
only to watch it dry out
and collapse
at the end of each day.
I shall start anew with the rising sun.

grandmother’s pond never moves

it’s alive, preserved inside her like a bubble.

an unknown aquifer, dreaming of us

no birds, no insects, no worms there

with a consistent season-less breeze

perpetually tousling the tangled grass,

her silver quivering hairs,

slow love rises from her porch perch

that chair rocks her into another time.

The Feather-fines hold the fences in place

a crown of thorns protects her herb garden,

she watches over those young, certain mountains

unaware of their Appalachian ancestors,

The Maple trees huddle, coveting their oldest memories

grandmother’s a stone, listening, under it all.

Nervous chewing college kids circle above her,

they think about this ancient perfect stillness,

this is her own        the morning of the grandmother

her pond remains frozen glacier still,

her chair cradles the illness

we remember her well, the owl of the anonymous valley

Love is the weirdest emotion, a person can feel for another person. It's something you have to experience, and something you shouldn't experience. Being in a relationship forces you to think about someone else other than yourself, which is good, but in the process it's easy to lose a piece of yourself.

Before you even enter a relationship, you're alone and doing your own thing. But when you meet someone for the first time and get to know that person on a deep level, it affects you greatly.

Sometimes these moments are brief, sometimes they are extended and you end up becoming attached and connected to them for a long time. It's crazy, months go by, even years, and you don't know where the time went. You can either have regrets for past, or have fond memories of the experiences you've shared with that person.

When a relationship is a sinking boat and you're looking for a life vest, as the waves crash around your feet, it's easy to forget how you got there in the first place.

Maybe you met her at a bar on a Friday Night and you had too much to drink, causing you to talk to the only person sitting at the bar. You strike up a conversation and talk about movies, say you saw Michelle Williams in Synecdoche, New York and how it really made you see her in a different light, because she showed acting range that was different from Dawson's Creek.

She perks up, smiling, and touches her brown hair, tousling it. She says she didn't really like Dawson's Creek, but that she's always been fascinated with Andy Kaufman movies. Her eyes sparkle with a vibrant green like seeing peas washed under a faucet.

And that's the moment, you buy her a jack and coke, and you have one yourself and in the back ground music plays from an iPod. Something like Billy Holiday, but you can't place the sound. So, you just listen to the music while listening to her speak about how her dad passed away the last weekend. You want to ask her how he died, but you don't want to ask her something personal, even though she brought up something personal.

It's last call, you try to figure out your plans for the rest of the night.
She says, "Wanna get out of here?"

You know that means she wants to hang out with you, but you don't know what you two will do. You've seen characters in movies say things like, "Wanna get out of here?" and you know what happens next. But life isn't like the movies.

"Where do you wanna go?" you ask.

"I don't know, but somewhere exciting. It's still early and I'm not tired yet."

The Billy Holiday sounding song switches into this Mac DeMarcoish type of tune. An upbeat, energetic beat howls from the speakers and you get into the groove, take her hand, and walk out the bar.

The stars are starting to shine and the streets are filled with people, just like you and her. But for some reason, you feel unique in your situation, though this story is bound to happen again and again, even after you've departed from the living.

Air swirled by the force of the opening door,
Tousling my chestnut curls,
As I breathe in the stale air,

I am faced with dust coated boxes,
Filled to their brims,
With old memories hidden long ago,

Chills run down my spine,
Coursing through my blood,
I do not want to go back,
I do not want to remember,

But I know it's the only way,
To get over the distant, fading past

I met a man with treetops for eyes
The sun shone out of his mouth when he smiled
Angels swooned when he laughed
Babbling brooks rushed when he spoke
His words crashing in my ears like waves
Like waterfalls.

I liked his vastness
The respect the winds had for him
Never blowing too strongly when he was near
Whispering cautiously by his ears
Tousling  his feathered hair softly, gently.

He sat still as the mountains
But thundered and roared when I trod on his toes.
He shook the foundations of home, heart, life.

He wanted me to sit still at his feet
Drown in his voice, his words
Be carried along by the current of his commands.
I forgot how to swim.

Joey sees her strolling
up the beach, young girl,
smoking a cigarette, been

in for a dip, her legs all wet,
aged 9 or 10, scanning the
sands and crowds, hair

blowing across her face,
her eyes dark, scowling,
he follows her barefoot

track wondering where
her parents are, where
she’d got the smoke,

the stance, the stare of
her giving the beach a glare.
Joey ponders as she turns

and looks back towards the
sea, the cigarette held between
fingers, the smoke rising,

then she waves a hand,
puts her head to one side,
and then Joey spots them,

the parents, he presumes,
the woman a long haired,
sun kissed ***** swaying

her hips and broad *** along
the sands, and the man,
holding hands, a beefcake,

suntanned, puffing a cigar,
gazing at the young girl,
presumably his daughter,

like one sizing up a gift horse,
letting out language and
words loud and course.

Joey watches them meet
up and walk up the beach,
each one kissing each,

then the older woman
goes off alone, as girl
and beefcake stroll to

the sidewalk and go off
and out of sight, leaving
Joey to sit and muse

and watch the sands
and sea, a slight breeze
tousling his hair, thinking

of the girl’s fate, her life,
although she isn’t there.

Staring at the sky
One of my favorite pastimes
Watching the world go by

The crisp air
Biting my cheek
Wind tousling my hair

The grass is damp
Running my fingers through the soil
Forever leaving my stamp

Searching for my identity
Amongst the stars
This is where I find serenity

Twinkling Christmas lights
Brighten up December nights

Freezing cold air
Wind tousling my hair

Raindrops turn to snow
Putting on a beautiful show

Curled up by a fire ablaze
My favorite way to end each day

Music, laughter, and Christmas cheer
Hustle and bustle as the holidays near

He was a good boyfriend. You could tell by the way he smiled when he was around her--cherry blossoms and good music and the pink glow of a June sunset. His skin was brighter, his face softer, and if you peeked under the desk you’d find their bare ankles intertwined.

A mop of curly red hair--the kind of hair that confuses you at first. The kind that calls for tousling. Darker eyebrows, straight and strong on his forehead.

She had the tip of her thumb in her mouth, resting between her teeth. Aqua nail polish bright against her tanned skin. Her glasses were small and rectangular, not the thick black frames that you were accustomed to seeing on kids nowadays. Her smile was crooked, her face rounded and cheeks scrunched in a laugh, that glorious squeeze of muscles working. Synapses firing. A bony shoulder curved under a thin t-shirt.

He stared at her as she leaned over her paper, small fingers gripping a pink pen, all right angles. She wrote ferociously and his eyes beamed soft and he marveled at the size of her slender pinky. His fingers interlaced behind his head, his elbows triangles pointing toward the ceiling tiles.

In his mind he reached over and grasped her hand, the smallness of it, his palm against its smooth back. He watched as she let the pen slip to the table. The small clatter. The rustle of skin and clothes. The silence of the gaze behind a curtain of escaped hair.

There was a quick kiss, and nothing more. A curly mop bent towards a dark-haired temple, eyes closed. Lips pressed against skin, and time in the room seemed to slow, bending backwards through the sunlight floating in through open windows.

A sigh like velvet, and a grin. The tap of a keyboard across the room.

Kiss the back of my hand again, darling
Then leave it untouched until I miss your lips enough to make my heart ache a bit
That won't take long, I swear it won't
Your hands tousle my hair, un-tousling a day so tousled
I think you're a panacea

The eyes that bore a hole through mine onto the wall behind
Are the eyes that halt my breathing
The same pair that inspires my lungs to inspire
I shall look at them until this flesh expires
I've found my panacea

You move like the gods enraged by uttered blasphemies
You move with gentleness of the warm early morning light kissing my eyelids
You move so you could take the air I'm supposed to breathe
You move so I could take it back from your heavy exhales
I've never been so sure
You are the panacea

Howling winds flew against red cheeks,
tousling my mob of hair in a thousand directions.
I stood high as I could atop the building's roof
with my legs shaking from fatigue and adrenaline.
I moved my bloodied tongue against colorful cracked lips,
hissing at both the pain and relief I felt
through that one simple action.
I lightly ran my thumb atop my
left hands bruised knuckles, chuckling
at the painful blow I know I gave.
But I would pay for that tomorrow...
Gritting my teeth at the thought I clenched my fists,
and stepped forward, placing my toes
over the edge of the dirtied stone building.
The cities typical smog filled sky
was littered with stars of all sizes tonight,
as if they had only come out of hiding
to watch the morbid show I planned to give.
I stared at the audience above my head
with a glare in my watery green eyes
daring them to stop me, to warn me,
but they didn't.
Instead, they shone brighter than ever
humming songs without spoken words
they were content...
In their dark, gloomy, polluted sky, they were content
So I sat on that worn building ledge and
shoved my aching hands deep inside my sweatshirt pocket,
waiting for the morning sun to appear
somewhere, anywhere
in the sky.

I yearn to wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread and the strong aroma of a new batch of coffee. Sat on the balcony in a quaint apartment overlooking the ocean - mug in one hand; cigarette in another - with a view that words cannot begin to comprehend. The cool salty sea breeze tousling my morning bedhead as I look to you, my heart is full - I am the luckiest girl in the world.

MR. BLUE SKIES

He clasps her
'round her tiny waist

in a chap-ish
1940i-ish manner.

The size of his hand
almost cleaving her

into two
distinct sections

like an ant
she thinks.

She laughs
in b&w.;

A sudden gust
blows the chiffon

the blue material clinging to
her new found woman's shape

her every curve
outlined and how

so that it appears she's ****
as a Windmill girl.

"Now, now..!" she stays
his straying hand.

She calls him her
Mr. Blue Skies.

She gives a cheery wave.

"And just who are you
waving to..?"

he whispers into her
***** blonde hair.

"I'm waving to the future
me who

will be looking back
at this me now!"

"Hello me!"

"You're daft!" he laughs
tousling her curls.

He goes to fight Mr. ******
in the skies.

Never comes back.

Takes this photo
everywhere with him.

She often thinks of him
lost up there in the sky.

The photograph returned
to her.

She never had another chap.

And now only now
does her future self

wave back to
the girl in the photograph.

She strokes his face
with a fingertip.

He smiles.

How lonely were you
in that solitary grave
atop the hill
where
the wind whistled
now and then
tousling the dry blades of grass
and moulding the rusty boulders
into eerie shapes
where
the vague echoes
from the valley
and from the hills beyond
merged into
the silence,
the stillness

After that life of love
of tumult and adulation
I bet you'd come
to love this solitude
this quiet place
to rest in peace
while the wind erased
your name from
the headstone...

Until they brought the rest,
shovelling every now and then
and chanting from the book
and then throwing
clumps of sod
disturbing you
with their muffled sobs
which the wind brought back
a century later to me, now.

the cold winter air
caresses me like a lover
brushing icy fingers across my left cheek
tousling auburn hair
with familiar hands
across the street i see a woman
drop her groceries
and before i can stop myself
i am staring into headlights
with a hand outstretched
to help her