I

Before the sea the sound of sea, before the wind a mask of wind placed on the face, before the rain the touch of rain on the cheek. The lee shore of this finger of land is a gathered turbulence of tea-coloured, leaf-curling wave upon wave, wholly irregular, turning, folding, falling. No steady crash and withdrawal hiss, but a chaos of breaking and turning over, no rhyme or reason, and far, far up the beached misted shore. There, do you see? - suddenly appearing in the waves’ turmoil a raft of concrete, metalled, appearing to disappear, the foreshore’s strategic sixty year old litter shifting and decaying slowly under the toss of water and wind.
 
II
 
From the lighthouse steps to the sea fifty yards no more: the path, a brief facing of the wind and spit of rain, then turning the back to it see the complexity of low vegetation holding its own on the shallow earth-invading sand and rolled leaves of marram grass. Sea Buckthorn is the dominant plant, not yet berried with its clustered inedible oil-rich orange fruits. The leaves, slight, barely 5cm long, but in profusion, clustering upward, splaying out and upward on thin branches, hiding the wind in its density, never more than chest high, so the eye looks down, sees the plane of the leaves, long, thin, suddenly tapered, dense, stiff, thorny.
 
III
 
You said, ‘look the door is curved.’ And it was. In the late afternoon light filtering through the oblong window 150’ into the grey sky the panelled wood was honeyed. Covered with a well-varnished frottage of swirled marks, some of the wood itself, some of gathering age and infestation, the single window’s light blazed a small white rectangle on the larger rectangle of the door. The passage outside the door too narrow for the eye to take in the whole door straight on, one has to move past and catch its form obliquely.
 
IV
 
The curve, the long four-mile curve of the finger into the afternoon mist and sea cloud. From the road: only seen the smooth ebbing tide waters retreating from the archipelagos of mud and sand and slight vegetation of rusted grass.  From the road: only heard over the marramed banks the sea’s sound of waves’ confusion and winds’ turmoil. Follow the fade of the curve’s progress in the echo of distance. It paints itself from the brush of the eye, the sea a grey resist. This spreading away is a long breath taken . . . then expelled from the lungs of looking. You can’t quite hold it all in one view so you’ll build the image in sections, assembling and projecting across two adjoining landscape sheets as if the spiral binding isn’t there. The resulting image when digitally joined will describe the negative space of sea of sky, silent and uncluttered by marks. Only the curve of the land will collect the drawn, a vertical stroke here for a lighthouse, a slight smudge for the lifeboat station.
 
V
 
From the road looking south to an invisible North Shore, the mist hiding the true horizon, there is layer upon layer of horizontal bands: of grass, of mud, of nested water around mud, wet sand, layered water, mud-black, water-grey, a dull sky-reflected white of a sheltered sea, and patterning everywhere, dots of birds near and distant. Then, in the very centre, a curlew in profile, its long downward curving bill dipping for worms into the wet sand and mud. Breeding on summer moorland, wading winter estuaries, this somewhat larger than other waders here, so distinctive with its heavy, calm stance.

It’s the morning after the last heart session
Eyes open but brain still crackling with static and white noise
When I try it again
Hoping to get pen to paper
Before consciousness can recover sufficiently to intervene
And proffer pretty syntax to the poem
Hold the mind blank
And stack the words in rows of green growth
Like garden beds
That only need time and attention to bear fruit
Let truth come from some other place
Than reason or left brain
Or the extensive vocabulary
Meticulously indexed in the cranial cavity
Somewhere near the brain stem
Or maybe in the DNA
As C, T, G, and A
Storing data like binary only twice as complex
The recall mechanism operating in the darkness of our comprehension
Apprehension of its failure threatening to leave the poem unfinished
Unillustrated
Uncalibrated
Un-fact checked
Like that matters somehow
Like the facts are important in art
Like the right brain has no sense of propriety
Just as surely as the heart tells lies in gibberish
A chattering maelstrom of syllables in a cyclonic vacuum
And yet somehow the heart speaks with perfect clarity
Uncluttered rhythm
Timing and flow
So you know there is more going on here than we fully understand
Lend a hand to help decipher the intentions of a part of yourself wayward from the rest of you
Leading to a collapse of the ego
And a blurring of the lines between you and I
Turning discrete data into continuous
On the fly
On the run
Under sun and and moon and sky
Until the day that even death fails to be discrete
Or even an event any more important than a fire
Converting energy from one form to another

Pounding bass.
Sub-sonic strobes.
Synthetic smoke.
Alone on the dance-floor
I was glad to see another
clubbers curves move in rhythm;
Uninhibited by the foot tapping brigade
who watched with intensity.

You edged ever closer
Till our smiles became infectious.
An uncertain bond of understanding,
amid an endless rush of acidic bleeps.
Uncluttered.
Uncrowded.
Mystically shrouded in transient beats,
we strangers come together in unity

Your hips move to the pneumatic bass
as transient hardhouse and
tribal breakbeats embrace,
The foot tappers again resume,
Spontaneous rushes
and some sulphur that is sour to taste.

We may have unzipped and consumed
to electronic tunes,
but the tune remains the same -
Beautiful stranger dream a dream for me
because now all we have between us is
Rain.

Would that a recollection could expire;
Not in the fuzzled hedgerows of old age,
But here amidst the furrows of a sage
And active mind -- A rustle of attire;
A scent, familiar, quickening desire;
A voice as soft as silence on a stage --
Unbundled straws like kindling to the page
That sets this enigmatic heart afire --
Would that I could entreat vacuity
To bar a thought, to keep it squarely shuttered,
Preventing it from creeping back inside --
The vacant plots might cleanse my memory,
Might numb an ache and leave a mind uncluttered --
The healing of a vast unfeeling void.

Then again, I was changed then
Each day I renew
Sleep like in a cocoon
Emerge with wings anew
unwritten by yesterday's
Weighty legs ground dwelling
Ways, days are numbered wings are fluttered, my crypt will be in the future, today I soar, uncluttered.

Ex's

I am a part of all of them
even the ones I hate.
Maybe especially the ones I hate.

They are transferred paint
after the fender ******
at the unfortunate intersection
of fate and bad timing.

Not enough damage to make a difference.
Not even enough impression that
you care to be bothered changing your schedule
to repair it.

But every time you leave the house,
and on every lap around the chariot,
you see a trespassing color screaming
of either their bad decision.........or yours.

Sometimes it seems there are more accidents
than pleasant Sunday drives.
I suppose most encounters must be accidents
until we find the uncluttered road to our destiny.

L.E. was life shift
and napkins.
I didn't even know I needed napkins
when I had paper towels in the house.
I Jones for napkins these days.

D.B. was college
and fashion.
Shiny shoes moved her to the soul of my feet.
Now Kiwi polish
smells like foreplay to me.

N.R. was forbidden
and my piano teacher.
I hated practice, she loved to kiss
The oral exam was one of my best finals.
I like tests more than most people today.

J.T. was a cougar
and Tchaikovsky connoisseur.
Maturity was uncovered, along with adult lessons
about carpet knap and fireplaces.
I am Pavlov's dog in the strings of Symphony #6.

L.J. was adventure
and abandon.
She is a grassy carpet over a live train tunnel
in a memory I should regret, but don't.
She is the crossbeam in my permanent smile.

I am an estrogen inspired creation
finding purpose in soft fleshy motivation.
I am who I am
because of their compunctions and compulsions.
They scraped off on me
in the kamikaze journey to fight loneliness.
But in the dive I learned -
grace is humbling when you don't deserve it,
toilet paper has a perfect delivery direction,
I get the right side of the bed,
you shouldn't say anything
you don't want to hear again,
it's my job to take out the trash,
shutting your mouth sooner than you think
is almost always the better choice,
you can never have enough closet space,
and some experiences are so good
that you should never try to repeat them again.

She may be gone forever.
And we may not be able to have
a decent conversation for the rest of our lives.
But God knows
I'll always have napkins.

This board is not on the wall. It rests on a worktable against a wall. It’s almost the length of the table, perhaps a foot short. On top of the board its wooden frame makes a shelf ideal for photographs or cards to balance precariously, photographs and cards too precious to pin. Today there are five, yes they change from day to day, and today (from left to right) there’s an original drawing in walnut ink of a winter field, a photo of two children looking from a cliff top towards a peninsula’s end, a card called Autumn Spey from a lithograph by Angie Lewin, an invitation to a gallery opening, and a What’s On brochure – from another gallery – showing some unusual tapestry.

The Notice Board is 100 x 60 cm. The wooden frame is slight, probably home-made, but well-made, with a dark brown hessian surface. Not that you can see much of the surface as it is covered with stuff: photographs, images, poems, pictures, cards, quotations, a prayer, an origami bird, a doctor’s prescription, a piece of tapestry, an invitation, an address, lists galore, a cheque or two, a diagram (of a knot), a concert program. Not everything can be seen directly as many items are shared by a single pin and hidden four, even six, notices deep. Every so often the items are unpinned and consigned to a folder and filed, and so the process of choosing and pinning starts over again. This can happen after a holiday, returning uncluttered by days walking the cliff paths with only the quiet sea to gaze at and the cottage blissfully free of things known, things owned.  So when back at the desk, in front of the notice board, it seems right to be beginning again.

Mozart’s Linz Symphony is playing quietly in the background. It’s that time of day when music is sometimes allowed to frame work at this desk and blot out the going home noise of buses in the city street moving away from the stop three floors below. Linz, the capital of Upper Austria and now a large industrial city straddling the banks of the Danube, once gave its name to Linzertorte, a cake of jam, cloves, cinnamon, and almonds, and this remarkable symphony by Mozart. The composer had only just married his Constanza and wrote to his long suffering father:

When we reached the gates of Linz . . . , we found a servant waiting there to drive us to Count Thun's, at whose house we are now staying. I really cannot tell you what kindnesses the family are showering on us. On Tuesday, November 4, I am giving a concert in the theatre here and, as I have not a single symphony with me, I am writing a new one at break-neck speed, which must be finished by that time. Well, I must close, because I really must set to work.

And set to work he did. He had just 4 days to compose, write the parts (though Constanza helped), and rehearse an orchestra. Such is life for the working composer, even today. Maybe not a summons from a beneficent Count, but a phone-call from a producer with a deadline. It is the film or TV score to be composed at break-neck speed. And it can be done, believe me. It may not be sublime as Mozart, but it gets done: there are ways and means.

But this is today’s background, and as these words are written the gracious siciliano of the Symphony No.36 plays away. Such a tender confection.

Looking up at the notice board where does one start? Each pinned piece is a divertissement, an aide memoire to times, events, places, and people. It is a mixture of the colourful, the curious, the necessary, the unusual, the nostalgic, and the personally precious. These things are the qualifications required to occupy a place on this board.

But now Haydn takes over the musical background, Symphony No.88. No descriptive name here, just his wonderful music: his first symphony to score trumpets and timpani, and with more than a touch of Turkish in the Minuetto and Finale.

So close your eyes now (let’s listen to Haydn for a while), then slowly open them and choose from the notice board what first catches your attention.

It’s a coloured sketch of flowers on an A5 sheet of cartridge paper. It is outlined delicately in pen, coloured variously with pastels, green, orange, purple, red. The vase is a glass bowl. It’s set on a window-sill and there’s the frame of a window faintly rendered. There’s no artifice in the arrangement. These are flowers from a garden, picked and now firmly ****** into the bowl. Immediately the long, quiet east-facing room comes alive to colour. It’s in shade now the sun has moved since midday when the flowers arrived after a journey of 40 miles in a hot car wrapped in moist newspaper and silver foil. It is a special gift and its beauty remains vivid for days. When visitors visited gentle comments are made on their fresh colours.

At night when the room is only lit by a standard lamp standing by a pale yellow settee the flowers sleep in the darkness, holding a vivid memory of a day of colour and light. A recording of the Schumann quartets plays passionately during the ‘close to the end of summer’ evenings. Hands are held, and between movements there is an occasional exploratory kiss. Such was their collective fear of passion overcoming other endeavours . . .

In the early morning time when she slept in the room next door oblivious to his wakefulness he would enter the long studio room with its four windows to find the first sunlight patterning the floor. The flowers were wide-awake, their perfume rich in the still morningtime. He would stand entranced to see such beauty brought from her city garden; the first of many gifts he would come to treasure. His sketch was an amateur’s, but four summers past it continued to give much joy and dear memories. It had something of the solemnity of Mozart’s siciliano, and if an image could be said to have a right tempo, it had a right tempo, a gracefulness roughly hewn perhaps, but full of grace.

Now I'm in the turnips and string beans of poetry:
It's like, you think you'll grow up some day
And live in a two story house with swimming pool,
And a two car garage, with a six pack driveway.
Things turn out differently, though you might think
You'd spend whole days devouring Dickinson, Keats, and Shelley,
Drinking fine wines with tidbits of exotic cheese.

Then you find out you'll live in a one car rented garage apartment,
Over a couple always yelling or making love-
There's no in-between; and you never know which it'll be
And if you're mistaken for the significant other you might get
Bopped with a lady's spiked heel or an army boot.

Then you find out that you're the couple
But you're always too busy to make love;
Love is no longer scheduled like bowling night,
It all depends on uncluttered horizontal surfaces and spare minutes-
And the wine turns into beer, when you can afford it
And the nightly budget pizza is the only dough you'll get
It's constipating; but the words still get squeezed out.

And the poets you're reading now aren't dead:
They're urbanely unkempt, and you know them personally,
All their quirky habits; writing poems at bus stops
In a voluble rush; writing words on cafe napkins,
On discarded want ads and torn paper sacks;
And none of them are well known, and none of them are rich.

But they're poets all the same, they live and breathe
The written word, and you're no different, certainly no better,
All of you shooting up words and slang nightly,
Weighing out the soul of the latest idiom,
Choking on cheap cigar smoke and wishing you'd written that,
And thinking you could have done it worse-
And suddenly some night, you look around you

You realize you're living poetry, and you don't care anymore
About rich and famous- because now it's your addiction;
None of that mattered anyway, for only poetry holds any reality now.
Everything else is imaginary, and all the poets started out this way;
Nobody knew them or gave a rat's ***,
And they went on writing just the same
As if it were the most important job on earth they'd been given.

My dear girl, she stands broken.

Eyes once seeing with vision uncluttered by hate,
Now are blinded with the cataracts
of insecurity.

The sun will never set the same way.
a song will never sound as it
once did.

Reality has broken her.

The place looked like an inn, or was it a sin house? no idea he had,
He made himself believe that he was a pilgrim, but free from bindings of any kind,
as he was going around  holy places in  penance, after mourning his father's death
had  long black beard and saffron robes,a Hindu Sadhu look like,( renouncing nothing!)

She said she was a fallen woman, he told she should get up and go, not wasting time,
he has no wisdom yet worth giving, but she still expected and stood by, waiting
so he had to put his wisdom cap on,"Stressed out men and catty women" he said what occurred then
"this world gets tattered by them and their kin, the sooner one understands this the better,
beyond the quagmire  focus your vision; uncluttered  mind, that's where to begin"

it's naked how in June
(hot uncluttered flesh)
by lips and parting

                                    do caress

with careful splitting
and agile mess
unsaintly contents

                       ,             wriggling
  ,       spilled adolescent
bodies filled
              in eager sating
                            days were killed
                  and the arcuate pleasure of
           thighs and *******
       tongues between
     cotton dress
    spiced and
   folding
  ******* fret
  at mangled balling
  upon lewd dashboard kept

the three quarter crush crunches
                              under foot,
till you leave the man made route
                       step from sun to shade,
of the forest, inside a park, inside a city
                        to see inside of me,
what do the shadows stir, was that a
                        movement that blur?
or is my deepest insides pooling fear
                 when I walk alone out here,
it is then the beauty escapes me, some
                traffic noise nearby masks
the peace that could be mine, walking
                further to find rotten logs,
in my thoughts, so if I just sit a while,
                  let the green needles, inject
me with a sense of humility and blindness
                  evergreen, ever clean, silence,
now pristine, I have walked deeply to
                 the place there is no sound,
except that which is so close to surround
                 me in its entirety, and I feel
that the onion layers of tears will peel,
                   leave me stronger to go back
into the world uncluttered, save for the pack
                   of sensations I take with me
no fear, no darkness, no sadness just be free,
                   with bird whistles echoing instead
of the thoughts that can only hold the despair in me,
                  I like my forest walk and would rather
listen to the birds and nature talk to one another.
                 Than the self-doubt poisoning my stream.


©DWE102013

They enter my office
and I am their landfill
They take a cozy seat
on my blue heartbroken couch
They unload all of their garbage
One by one
a banana peel of tears
an alluminum leftover
of regret
and as their tainted trash
piles to the cieling
I take it all from them
with nothing in return
I offer them a clean towel
and an uncluttered
clear hope
And I genuinely
love them for it

I will take all of your dirt
and brown disgust
you've held in bins
all these years
once a week
as long as you want
my beautiful dears

After my plan ended
I turned to seriousness, 
like an uncluttered aficionado
I persisted with slide film,
treating them as an unfurnished enrichment,
for although not mounted
their sleeves were of equal impression
that captured the many verdant gardens visited,
holding them to a light box;
torn between being an Artist and a collector,
a feeling seemed to be conjured,
like a tentative transition
my heart wanted change,
tall shadows of people
cast contra jour,
a new benchmark for Autumns
dry like thatch.

Tonight I saw a Falling Star
So I made a wish to dream on
I wish you time to try and to fail and try again
I wish you an uncluttered mind and curious soul
I wish for you a steady friend to hold in your heart till time dost end
I wish for you a stunning sunrise at beginning of every day
I wish for you a place of comfort and solace when your in need
I wish also for trials and tests for in completing these you will
gain both strength and wisdom
I wish you laughter ... great big chortles... giggles and shy sweet smiles
I wish you empathy and its sturdy twin tolerance.
and at days end may you sleep deep, dream sweet and safe under Our Lady's silver light
All these things I have wished for you
none can you hold in your hand...
or cash at the bank or even exchange it for something more grand
Because this wish is my wish
wished on a falling star


I make this wish with all my heart

I make this wish with all my spirit

I make this wish for you

All the ones that touch my spirit
met and yet to be

I will never force nor bind anyone with this wish

it is a gift and as with any gift

..you must accept it or deny it

In my Lady's name ...
MAY IT HARM NONE
These are my WORDS
This is my WAY

Solita Shadoewalker -2007

The beginning was unconsidered people
Their night time mutterings familiar
Friendly voices during the hours of dark
Addicts of the slow uncluttered time

But some choices will haunt forever
White shards of sputnics flying
Starry explosions within the eye
Show a gleeful sense of malice

As huge storms gather in the red sky
Swift confident and totally predictable
Images flashing like neon steel bells
Gigantic whistles singing in white heat

Behind these invasions of her space
That keep her company when not asleep
He attempts to brush away likes specks
Ripples of dust in the texture of his life

But to her it is a slow painful process
An identity that has been stolen and
Her wide open eyes can only stare
Hearing acute for the sirens soft wail

History too holds space in the present

We kiss at a party just as everyone else does but it's as if two people had never touched before

We sit at a local coffee shop and it's like half the people speaking have something to prove, the other half deadly silence

Much like our dead reflections in the newspaper. None of this ever talked about but we know

Nothing is queeer than quiet understanding

Except maybe survival

Still We wake up beside eachother and find I've stolen the blanket again in our uncluttered apartment

This is enough to forget about our existence

For awhile

I fled
I fled to the comfort of the dark

And felt soft swarthy fabric
Envelope my heart
I allowed myself to deeply sink in
Peering into the blackness
Seeing nothing
Like a blackboard duster sweeping
Off the chalk
So my mind was uncluttered
Of all it's wild talk

I stayed till first light
I stayed

Rewrite of an old one.....I could have picked an easier one to rewrite lol

Winters emotions

Coldness issues and seeps slowly under my feet through bare polished wood floors
Winters growing chill subtly and with seasons stealth lays her hand upon the land
Memories of those summer days
Nighttimes' blackness now comes early with its seeping hint of winters cold memories of summer now but a golden memory that covers gilded cage

Meanings now lost upon dusty unlit shadow covered book ends upon the once warm shelves
Emotions deep they resonate with messages unheard in souls dark cold winter wells
Smiling frightened life now dishelved with the coming of that winter emotions found so cheap
Endless distances across life's journey those memories of warm summer now they slowly creep
Reaching out that warm friendly forgiving hand that will always be there for you to reach for to grasp forever hold
Silent teardrops tracing the well worn passages down my cheek channelled silent rivers as again that new love grows now so cold
Matching now and marching side by side as if in a brass band I sit again in silence watching natures seasons change
Again fate in her wisdom in league with Destiny reaches deep within us and causes us to rearrange
Candles flutter in competition with open fires warming roaring glow writing illuminated seen by fires light
Again I wonder that age old timeless question and seek answers from the heavens to untangle life's great mystery that of knowing wrong from right
Trust again given to the wrong person from this heart of mine tearing at emotions as I watched it used as a door mat torn up just thrown away
Again I feel the searching yet again knowing the meaning of unconditional love and honest just for that one that comes to stay
Again the road ahead its view uncluttered by the falsehoods they did bring seeing clear eyed with happiness the future ahead with wide open view
Journeys to those places been experience lessons learned kn owing glancing to the recent past theres nothing there worthy to be seen
Raindrops falling pattering musically upon the roof above they mimic as if in harmony those that we've sometimes cried
People and their games they played like the coldness from the polished floorboard beneath my feet they haunt the confines of our head
(GE2014)

My head tackled down,
viewing at the ground.
I dare not lift my expression,
as your eyes may meet mine.
It´s not that you don’t catch my interest.
Have faith in me when I say this.
But my eyes are the window to my soul.
I´m scared to show you, how badly I am wounded.
One look at me, and you will see, that I am damaged.
I am broken, and I am torn.
Ripped from joy, from happiness and from pleasure.
Your look pierce through my senses.
I tremble, with every single nerve in my body.
Frightened, that you might see who I really am.
It hurts me to expose all these wounds,
that I attempt so desperately to stitch.
I try, but I am too fearful to display myself so openly.
The wall of protection that I have built for myself is withering.
Lay your eyes on mine, and I will crumble.
For I have been strong for too long.
One taste of intimacy,
has me uncluttered, like the work of a world-famous artist,
exhibited for everyone to see.
And that, I am not ready for.

How do I know that she loves me ?
Well, she said she did.
I know.

She took the time to hear me.
My smallest joy held meaning.
I know. She showed me so.
Her heart.

Was uncluttered.
Even though...battered from before
How she was the way she was only god can know.

She told me she would have to go
The cancer told her so..
But until. Then held me.close.
Until the time to go.

I held her in my arms that night.
And there we parted ways.
She had to go.
She left her love.
Because she told me.so.

Under summer sun,
Closed eyes,
Visualize.
A soft hue of  Crimson.
Where pictures blurred,
Images, obscure,
Drift unordered,
Through a uncluttered mind.
Thoughts of a serene nature,
Content just to be.
While the nostalgic sound,
Of an aeroplane's engine,
Echo in a cloudless sky.
Time idly slips on by.
And the call of one’s youth,
chime the ages.
Each season,
That  falls under the sun.
Like old memories,
That  hang  on the breeze.
Amid the beauty,
Of nature's sweet rhyme.
caught  up  in a few precious moments,
Slowly fading, falling backwards,
Through time.

In a desolate place that appears devoid of hope, I start to pick up pieces of paper and broken glass. With each bag I fill and send away, the ground becomes uncluttered. I move on to fixing fences and replacing pavement stones, then I paint a building. Through all of my toil, I have not noticed that things have changed, until I stop to wipe my brow and realize I am not alone. With each task I completed, someone saw me and copied what I did, until the word got around. One by one others came to join me, though they were not asked, they came anyway. A silent call went up and they saw my progress and wanted to be of help. With each act of kindness and each selfless deed, we moved towards the restoration of a once forgotten place. As I finally put my paint brush down and picked up my last piece of paper, I could swear that I heard children laughing at play. In the back ground I heard music and saw people dancing and then someone came up to me. I awoke from the dream and realized what I had seen. It only takes me to begin to rebuild hell and then God will send others to join in.

Into my fathers’ arms safe
from harm
In a place far away no moonshine
in his hand
Running along a beach
somewhere on white-golden sand
No shouting, swearing or
blowing to the head
At a table where I will be fed
No more hunger no more pain
all is well
Sitting at a warm fire stories
we tell
Well away from my living hell
Ironed clothes and shoes on
my feet
Into a bed with fluky white
sheets
uncluttered and cosy not afraid to
sleep
Nobody kicked out to walk the
streets
Dry bed in the morning what a
delight
Going to school with a smile on
my face
Parents watching you in sports
and plays
Shouting
encouragement
making you proud
Not to be outside the
fashionable crowd
but things are not what they
always seem
What do you expect in a strange land hounded with reality?
This is not reality; it is only a
childhood dream

perhaps it was his love for
the salt and the sea
perhaps upon the desert of waves
he awaited a vision to awaken his dreaming heart
some beautiful illusion
spoken aloud by a drunken bard
let loose his devilishly smooth voice
in the small hours of night...
she was there too
with her loose skin revealed...
she will be tainted by his warm breath
she will bear its teethmarks with voiceless pride
till the end of her days
it was his hot blooded passion spilling its
cruel seed upon her
and she smiled like a young nymph
displayed her shameful state like a peacock strutting
like a wild animal rutting...
except in the night where she held it near her lonely heart
a single dim light in her dark world
she is his love of life incarnate
she is his lust uncluttered by romance
all hot hands groping for pleasures given and received
she is a lean warm soft creature of night
that slips away to sleep
and yet dream still
of his warmth upon her shoulder

my parents always told me i was a forgetful child,
who's little
pattering feet would go quickly running
back upstairs to double check,
even triple check the things i would need
or forget to carry with me,
as if i was a marionette puppet pulled by the knots on my fingers.

but it seemed as though no matter how many bows i could tie on my fingers and how many post-it notes were stapled around the house, my mind was a clutter of litter--
filled with little odds and ends
and useless junk to day to day living.
if my brain was a room it would resemble a crowded attic, full with the pieces of myself that i longed to get rid of but refused to, whether out of sheer stubbornness or fear, i still don't know.

it all changed when you came along. i was inspired to a point of frenzy. I was uncluttered, with the exception of my thoughts, because they were full of you. if my brain was a room, it would be a museum of glittering proportions, a massive archive of our affections.. this is art, a romanticized portrait of our time together. you had tattooed love etched on your skin, from all the things you grew passionate about and i swear i looked at my own skin and saw your ink seeping in between the cracks of my ribcage-- i used all of it to write out devotion. you were my favorite collection of destructive metaphors i sunk into.

but it's funny because you outgrew our memories. i am a worn museum, a discarded trunk show, filled with artifacts of past lives we have lived and the empty promises we made. no one wants to visit a dusty museum when there's a new shopping center in town. so i pull my venetian blinds down and make my way downstairs without double checking.

how is it forgetting seemed so easy in my youth? because no matter how many knots i untie from my fingers, no matter how many bows i pull loose from my ragged hands, no matter how many "forget me not's" i have ripped from our dead garden, i have yet to forget a single day with you.

i closed up
and from the minute you kept me company i felt stardust on my skin but it was so cold and i feel so cold and i can't help but shake
i see cars crashing and i see shadows twitching with fear and with vice
and the energy that radiates from every living thing pierces my wellbeing
constantly
pervasively
i do understand when i say i understand, unfortunately
and i've understood much more than any human stricken with bliss has ever even acknowledged

shields can be beautiful things if you know how to use them
but alas i do not and i still end up getting hit

if there is an end then why am i still falling into this abyss even after everyone else has gotten out
i never caught up to the wonders of an uncluttered mind;
the only thing sound here is my ability to accept

i feel
i feel.
and that's the problem
emotions are purely transient things
and whether that should make me feel
sad
angry
happy
or
if i just shouldn't bother at all

no one wants to hear a thing you say unless they've heard it in their own heads before
and so i hold my breath as the air in the room is taken up by refractory lungs

maybe i shouldn't ask or maybe i shouldn't tell
but the unknown slices my skin with such ease when i feel it in your grip
i spilled my guts hoping you'd give me yours to fill me up again

all i am is chaos embodied in an empty cage of flesh and bone
and
i closed up
because all i am is an open book with a sad story that nobody ever wants to read again

at the top
of the National Museum,
there is a bed of Highland Gorse,
tamed by a rope of metal, and
given Latin names.

*****, moon white branches
barely hold
sickled leaves which
fall into gloam drenched soil.

transplanted, and
awkwardly placed,
between two concrete slabs,
it looks and sounds alien to the city.

displaced, amongst the dull
incomprehensible squeal of
tourists and gulls, the heavy
roar of dim traffic, muted
bagpipes and the occasional
camera click.

looking upwards,
the shallow blue north
of an uncluttered sky,
and the thin
uneven line of an aircraft,
divided in two.