Colored streaks on the pavement
Grinding stone against stone
We return our source of enjoyment to the Earth
Sidewalk chalk tastes like childhood.

Body tracings, blue skies, big fish-- our cement canvas is filled
Filled with youthful thoughts and unlikely realities
A world of our own creation;
One we can stomp on
Cross out
Wash away

The presence of an unknown friend
Everyone is a friend, we are young and naive
“Draw with us, Draw with us”
Our wonder reaped the same;
The new face shows only bewilderment

“Draw with us”

Chubby childish hands exchange colored chalk
Despite our encouragement, this outlander won’t join in
It’s now a game for us
“Draw with us, Draw with us”
Foreign motions, fast moving fingers, a frustrated face

“Draw with us”

His hesitant movements are masked
By an apologetic smile
He brings new things to our Crayola-created universe
A trumpet, its player, a lion in mid-roar,
All things ordinary
Nothing we’ve drawn before

Like the colors we immerse ourselves in
Our company doesn’t last
Our accomplice offers a wave
Leaving his silent marks in our little world.

ME ALRIGHT!

She watches as
I write.

The soft wheeze of lead
leaving words in its wake

like seagulls following
the trail of a ship

clamouring after
the refuse of the mind.

Soon the page is
littered with words.

They crawl across the page
in their best 4B.

It pleases her to see
the graphite leave these

tracings of me
upon...beyond...the white.

She looks at the journey of my hand
as if writing were a magic rite.

She asks if she can
draw.

"Sure..." I say
and the words cease.

I just put the tittle
on an small i and j.

The words splashed across the page
like puddles of thought drying in the sun.

I hand her the pencil.

She shakes it and shakes it.
And shakes it.

"What's that for?"
I dare to ask.

"The pencil is too full of words.
I want a pencil full of lines."

"I see..." I say
even though I don't really.

Well, it seems  to work for
nothing comes out but line after line.

She lost in the little planet of
her intense concentration.

She throws in the odd curve
and a wonky circle every now and then.

The lines look confused
not too sure just what

they are doing
on this scrap of paper.

I ask her what
the lines mean.

"The lines are you of course.
See...?"

"I see..." I say
although I don't really.

But indeed in this
drawing I am

very much
as she sees me.

The page never lies.
These are scribbles that were my eyes.

I have as it happens
eyes five

stuck on the side of
what appears to be a head.

And yes only one leg.
One leg with seven toes.

An abstract alien
bird father.

It takes pride of place
sellotaped to the fridge.

"Yep...that's me
alright!"

(20 minute poetry)


I take my life in
my hands
no one can see the struggle
no one understands how
slowly sands **** me
ever closer to
this wide sea,

eternity is a stab in the back
when you stop searching

am looking
will find

A mantra for each day I say

am looking
will find

I am sure that love is the cure,
backstage though where the river
runs slow
there's a raging thirst that will
not be quenched.

this heathen ocean
full of deep dark
motion that carries
me on

do I not belong?
is there something that I did that you thought was wrong?

it carries me on,
even thoughts
odd imaginings

new beginnings are frightening.

man overboard

was never roared so quietly and the sea that smothered me slept
on soundly

I wept loudly
and then was still.

the quill will scratch on the parchment of time
and all this will be gone

it carries me on.

the sensation of the wires hanging loose from your headphones gently brushing up with the blonde hairs on your neck like little hairthin whispers- spiders crawling on you throat

leaflets
blankets


fleece summercamp sweatshirt

the a/c rumbling

crisp fallings
hatchlings
seeds
wax paper tracings-rubbings of leaves

downstairs
  pageling

moonrock, lovelight;
dim, silent, mindbreath-
interleaving sunspace;
dark, narrow, corridor of doubt--
   far below this moment lurks
         an otherwisely ancient growing sense:
              of worldliness i haven't asked again
                  (yet you are this world-to-be);
              the smile-harvest nearing,
         your touch reasserts its ever-meaning
   of dancing in the starlight i ask
my yearning future self,
of playful rolls of joy
spinning off our lichen finger tracings~
of healthiness and utter-smooth response
    to sharpness i think with full bodied thought--
        (it throbs deep into the wellspring of our self-teaching);
    of healing i ask with songs beneath the feet,
toes vibrate dream-colored peace
       like the windblown comfort of forestal goddess tresses,
             i fall upward into you even as we descend through shadowovercastings,
               even while the earth-tremble breaks our calm,
                        even though the bees fade,
                                another nectar drips from all around
                                            your inner-golden, flowered canopy of lives
                                                            (i effulge this world-to-be you are!)

Thus, halfway along the journey
a life interrupted me
even if I try,
I can not decipher it
where will it lead
I can not see
This duration of suspended moments
searches its destination
in dimmed tracings
As if half parted lips
are a sigh
and a kiss
and an affirmation
As if, half mast eyes
are a prayer
and modesty
and a secret
As if the touching of hands
runs through the veins
as electricity
and inebrience
As if on seeing the mirror
all your faults
face you,
and sometimes, understanding, too
This duration of suspended moments
searches its destination
in dimmed tracings
The seven colors of the rainbow
it weaves in the braid
of this tale of conquest and triumph
This duration of suspended moments
is my destiny
In it lies this soul
in it lies this body


Urdu Version:

یوں آ کے آدھے رستے پہ
ملی اک زندگی مجھ کو
سمجھنا بھی اگر چاہوں
تو عقدہ کھل نہیں پاتا
کہاں کس موڑ په لائے
نظر میں یہ نہیں آتا
معلق ساعتوں کی یہ گھڑی
دھندھلے ھوئے نقشوں میں
اپنی منزلیں ڈھونڈھے
کے جیسے ادھ کھلےلب
آہ بھی
بوسہ بھی
اور اقرار بھی
کے جیسے نیم وا آنکھیں
دعا بھی
اور حیا بھی
اور کوئی اسرار بھی
کے جیسے ہاتھ کا چھونا
رگوں میں
آتشیں بن کر بہے
خمار بھی
کے جیسے آئینہ دیکھیں
تو سارے عیب
خود کے روبرو آئیں
کبھی پھر پیار بھی
معلق ساعتوں کی یہ گھڑی
دھندھلے ھوئے نقشوں میں
اپنی منزلیں ڈھونڈھے
قزح کے سات رنگوں کو
شکست و جذب کی اس داستاں کی
زلف میں گوندے
معلق ساعتوں کی یہ گھڑی
میرا مقدر ہے
اسی میں روح ہے میری
اسی میں خاک پیکر ہے

The summer is static. Over
A drying lawn the slur
Of heat descends. Quiet
The garden flowers. This mind's diet?
Shaded hills and solitude.
Slow recession of the crude
Tracings of my origins,
The silhouettes of sins
And murmurs, blurs into
The sophomoric hue
Of my brain. Can I
Extricate myself? This lie,
Though it elude my thought
Into what action I know not,
Seems to legitimate my being
And foretell the fate of my self-fleeing.

I don't see how u can talk to someone off and on for over2 yrs and follow their every keystroke and see what and who they talk to and listen to them thru the speakers on the computer and if I didn't  cover the camera would be able to see us also.....and then see theyre on a dating site and either u had a profile already or made one up to meet me.  That is a lot of following and listening and reading their online happenings...only to meet them from the dating site.  Which how u even knew that id date you is odd unless u were just hoping.  I realized that when my brother died last year.....that was you I was talking to wasn't it???  Do you know how special that is to me and my heart? I didn't have anyone to help ,me thru that and you were there.  I wanted to thank you so very much. I don't see how u can do all these tracings of my actions and talk to me at the most horrific time of my life thus far and then not tell me that its you..... I will never under stand why u didn't tell me.... I so wished you would have *** the things would have turned out so much different. I just thought u were some dude who was a cheating pig....and wasn't thinking too serious about anythg *** I knew u wont leave "her". that's why I never asked u too and or even brought it up *** ive seen the shows where they say they'll leave but never do so why ask? but if id had known u were frozen heart and soule shawn I would have looked at things differently. I would have taken things and rearranged them to fit into my life better. I owe the person or man who talked to me and helped me get thru each day when john died a lot..... *** If it wasn't for u I don't think id been ok. Also If id known you were the holder of my heart and would have told me things instead of not saying much....it would have ended up in the way u wanted it to be. Not this way where I will be sad and ****** yet upset for not knowing u were the one who makes me happy *** to me you are perfect and perfect for me as well... God I miss u more then u will ever know,,, I wish I could hug and kiss u.... and sit and talk ....but its not gonna happen and it just makes me want to cry but I keep getting headaches when I cry....so I don't like to....     Im so grateful that I was with u for the year and a half we spent together.....wish it would have lasted for ever though instead...*** I wont ever stop wanting u....ILY!!!

As above...


...Your sky-dial feline mind, unzips
Bold rose-hip teems of fervour, kept
On ice, throughout the needle of
the duty-bound laborious.

You have geared the slug of
greased machines have
waited tables overseas,
have moved your shoes
to rythms of inconsequence.

So below...

Call talons from your lava skin,
in tracings of a milky way, step
ladders through the cotton fields
to set aside a broken string.

Float, leaf, about your symetries
to crook your spine in Gothic arches.
Sovereign , deep in quicksand warmth
through paths of least resistance.

Dissolve in waves of ageless truth
dashesd amber over Roman tiles.
In wild writhes of curling fern,

Your body shines obsidian.

Reeling,
Legs burning,
Chapped face,
Overwhelmed,
Following the ebb and flow,
Swaying in the familiar dance.
Joy.

American romance,
Empty pools,
Teenage dreams,
The unknown.

Resting on top of the world,
Watching activity below,
Yet singularity in existence.

Shattering what’s to come,
Turning over past,
Shocked in present.
Happiness.

Familiar tracings,
Rough seats,
Cool breeze,
Triumphant warmth,
Security.

The textures,
Soft and rough,
Metrometric rise and fall,
Occasional shifts,
Constant peace,
Resting,
Fitting,
Pressure,
Patterns,
Depth.

Spurred by rain and impending eyes,
Rushing on,
Exhilaration.
Vibrant, brilliant, psychedelic chromatics.
Melting tones,
Air cutting,
Screaming,
Joy.

guttural groans seep
releasing themselves from me
I ******* ache for you!

The missing returns a thousand times faster than it leaves
Grabbing nothing but air and fantasy.
We used to paint the skies in colours you and I
Now the strokes are of no substance
Tracings of heat dissipating like my hope to catch our meaning
It's a guttural instinct,
a fidelity that knows no carnality only the faintest hope of it.

Another groan escapes me.
Oh **** I miss you,
like the desserts miss the rain!
I ******* need you!
Worse than the Poet needs the pain.

I was never like this before..
an anxious ball of heavy breaths and quivering shoulders.
Tears tracings my lips
And I cannot make the smell of cigarettes escape my fingers despite not smoking in an entire year.
My skin is peeling,
My skin is crawling
And the irk is unbearable.
Like large swarms of tiny gnats pinching me, digging their teeth into my flesh.
I am tired.
I’ve slept all day, but still I am tired.
Even at 12:51am,
It feels as though the sun in my eyes
And I am squinting oh so tightly
Trying not to let the light inside.

Homeland

Morning clouds tear apart.
White-blue helmet of heaven.
On the river, goslings glide.
Ripples of desire.

A darkened figure climbs the hill,
silent, snaking homeward.
Death marches, stride for stride,
and drops the red baton.

2. Berghof

Who has cried for sunken Dachstein?
Its crumpled crown.
Beauty is stone.
Carry me through glacial waters,
green and trembling,
fear alone.

Lichen blooms
on blackened tree bark.
Ice blocks clog
paths unknown.
Half-hewn timbers
line the walkway.
Heed the warning:
Hide your soul.

3. Atelier

Shadows shatter:
light’s division.
Present passes.
Breathing comes.

Silver circles:
no corrosion.
Water siphons.
Spirit song.

the dolls house is small with pointed tracings

above the windows.

kept upstairs. unfinished & fitted with bunting

outside. a gift.





faded now.





there is not much inside.

sometimes i go to live there when

there is not much inside.



when i feel anxious,

a fragile day to hide

fragile way to hide.



peer out small windows, to peer in

make some reflection.



my bones are brittle, the skin comes drawn

now.



the dolls house .





curtains drawn, deplete to hide there.

deplete reside there while.

he made it

i use it

i photograph it

and not finish it

some things come minimal.





the dolls house

not much inside

the bones of it are

brittle.





remember.

ME ALRIGHT!

She watches as
I write.

The soft wheeze of lead
leaving words in its wake

like seagulls following
the trail of a ship

clamouring after
the refuse of the mind.

Soon the page is
littered with words.

They crawl across the page
in their best 4B.

It pleases her to see
the graphite leave these

tracings of me
upon...beyond...the white.

She looks at the journey of my hand
as if writing were a magic rite.

She asks if she can
draw.

"Sure..." I say
and the words cease.

I just put the tittle
on an small i and j.

The words splashed across the page
like puddles of thought drying in the sun.

I hand her the pencil.

She shakes it and shakes it.
And shakes it.

"What's that for?"
I dare to ask.

"The pencil is too full of words.
I want a pencil full of lines."

"I see..." I say
even though I don't really.

Well, it seems  to work for
nothing comes out but line after line.

She lost in the little planet of
her intense concentration.

She throws in the odd curve
and a wonky circle every now and then.

The lines look confused
not too sure just what

they are doing
on this scrap of paper.

I ask her what
the lines mean.

"The lines are you of course.
See...?"

"I see..." I say
although I don't really.

But indeed in this
drawing I am

very much
as she sees me.

The page never lies.
These are scribbles that were my eyes.

I have as it happens
eyes five

stuck on the side of
what appears to be a head.

And yes only one leg.
One leg with seven toes.

An abstract alien
bird father.

It takes pride of place
Sellotape'd to the fridge.

"Yep...that's me
alright!"