"watercolour" poems
i slipped out
into the waves of watercolour
that broke themselves upon the shore
of the horizon
and i disappeared
as they darkened into black
i escaped through the sunset
as words were climbing up my legs
setting fire to my ears
and forcing me to retreat away
from the choking letters and sinking ink
that tattooed all this sound into my skin
at first, the sunset saved me
and the waves that gently hit the dock felt like a heartbeat
telling me that this was how it would always be
but soon, i began to miss the panic
just for the simple fact that it was a feeling
and the sunset had stolen them all from me
leaving me bare, black and stretched high above
unable to land on the ground again
unable to even blink stars down onto the grass
unable to do anything
other than wait for the sun to rise again
but solstice has already passed
and the dark hours grow longer again
and i am pulled thin, veiling a world
that accepts me as the night
and doesn't even miss the stars
Jul 11, 2014
Jul 11, 2014 at 11:05 AM UTC
The descending sun,
A tranquil withdrawal -
An end,
Yet also a beginning.
A delicate watercolour on canvas of sky,
So lovingly crafted.
Soft dusk reveals tiny opals of constellations,
The moon smiles a spectral lustre.
Yet only almost-content;
Your absence leaves me hollow.
Aug 21, 2017
Aug 21, 2017 at 11:55 AM UTC
How fortunate
Our color blends unintentially,
Wildly with thoughts bleeding outside the lines what have we started: again
And again I stroke
And again you absorb
And again this easel-- summoned
And again your vellum-- softened
Perched on a stool,
Vibrant as mangos --ripening
I chose you, the spectrum
Unknown to most
The only museum I go to.
Jun 20, 2016
Jun 20, 2016 at 11:55 AM UTC
Sunflowers in the sun
feeding from the light
like a golden watercolour painting
Field mice nibbling
Bees buzzing
Coming out to play
In the middle of a wheat field
Turned over
looking up at the dust particles that fill the sky
Oh how wonderful it would be to become a mole
Or fly.
Mar 22, 2014
Mar 22, 2014 at 8:11 PM UTC
I adore you.
That is all there is to it.
Sometimes red poppies blossom in my stomach because of it
Like ***** watercolour water it grows increasingly murky
I find it is a beautiful shade of hurt and soul
It contrasts nicely with my porcelain casing
Like a tea *** I am poised to empty my contents
I adore, you.
Nov 28, 2015
Nov 28, 2015 at 9:14 AM UTC
between the breaths, the boredom, the blues, the *****
the smokes, the sacrifices, the smiles, the sadness, the snooze
the poems, the problems, the pros and the cons
the needles, the nobodies, the neurotics, the loose
the careless, the fearless, the dreamless, who knows
the tulip, the lilac, the jasmine, the rose
the suns, the moons, the earth, the birth
the nights, the fights, the lies arise
the loneliness
among the hate, the fate, the date delayed
the loneliness
along the tongue, a song, wrong, wrong
the loneliness
inside the heart, a part apart, from the start
the loneliness, the loneliness, the loneliness...
"and the crowd, so many people,
and the cries, the laughs, the whispers...
Too many mouths talking in my ear, my left ear
Is it the chaos of unphysical presences ?
But I touch them, I see them, I hear them...
And nobody is here" -- Myra
-- Watercolour
Oct 5, 2016
Oct 5, 2016 at 9:44 PM UTC
I have dreams that I once was
A free majestic albino peacock,
Jewellery trapped under a rock.
I have dreams that I never was.
I have dreams that I once was
An old tree covered in snow,
Winds that took an eastern blow.
I have dreams that I never was.
I have dreams that I once was
A poor little drowning fish,
A silver ring left to tarnish.
I have dreams that I never was.
I have dreams that I once was
A lot of things and one thing,
But I never was anything.
I have dreams that I once was.
--Watercolour
Nov 13, 2016
Nov 13, 2016 at 5:41 PM UTC
baby lie with me
with your hand
beneath my back
your gentle fingertips tracing
the outline of my ribs on my
bare chest
i've got my hand on
your chest
i can feel each
heartbeat,
your heart fluttering gently like
a caged butterfly
the sun melts
slowly
like watercolour behind the hills
and we continue
to lie
there
just the two of
us
there was no
tomorrow
only the
moment
of the
night
Sep 26, 2015
Sep 26, 2015 at 3:38 AM UTC
Encased, as an oil painting,
behind a plane of glass.
Years of exposure dulling the canvas,
no funding to restore the brightness
of the subject's lifeless eyes.
They lay dormant, cloudy,
From a lifetime of accumulative debris.
Transferred between people, buildings, countries;
Memories on display for brief intervals,
Then packaged and returned to storage,
As if they were never your own.
People shift, distorted, beyond the coffin of glass.
Their movements hazy,
The shutter speed slow.
Colours muted,
Sounds muffled,
Melting into each other.
An abstract watercolour, waxing and waning.
Low resolution projections on a dimly lit screen -
A theatre seating but one.
Jun 29, 2022
Jun 29, 2022 at 4:36 PM UTC
My country is my cradle, gently rocking,
gently spinning dreams of further isles,
prosperous waters and rivers of gold.
Dystopian land of watercolour sunsets
the fiery sea illuminates foreign pathways
and we know in our cold cores we must go.
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 3:49 PM UTC
Place silhouette pieces or outlines of my heart in thirty or more envelopes.
Paste each one with a new soft paintbrush which clean cream bristles. Push them into torn up fragments of clean new watercolour paper. The sharp edges feel through onto the wooden table leaving mistaken, accidental grooves. Glimmers of sawdust are ****** up into the pockets of your lungs, where they contaminated and will permanently sit.
It was a small heart, the colour of grey sky reflected on seas and carried in bloated raindrops. The texture of diamond. Carved up as easily as wax by a blunt butter knife.
The envelopes are neatly labelled with white tailors chalk powders.
Apr 27, 2014
Apr 27, 2014 at 12:20 PM UTC
I last rode this road in Summer
When the light was as now;
Long, flat and mellow
But by the hour not the season
The trees back then still wore clothes
Green, perhaps liver-spotted with yellow
Now I watch them tangle their naked arms
And the world turns its face away in shame,
Longing for its chastised summer
The wheat field is grey scrub
An old bristling beard
And my bike tyres trace its edge
Like fingers on the jaw of our grandfather
And the watercolour wind
Rinses my knuckle bones
And then bites them open
They don’t bother to bleed
They’ve been chewed too many times
As the clouds wash in,
Black with frostbite,
I bite my winter scarf
And sing to it of bluebirds
Dec 25, 2014
Dec 25, 2014 at 3:35 AM UTC
she is a poem is pajamas
an unfinished Picasso fresh from the shower
she is a watercolour painted along the
moments of my day
in bright vibrant colours
running along my thoughts
as fluid as the delicate turns of her laugh
shes not just a woman
shes a universe and a summer day
wrapped in a rose printed dress
shes a intoxicating potion and a carefree laugh
iv never wanted to be anywhere but here
holding her and breathing her
loving her
drinking in her every moment
she is a poem in pajamas
Apr 30, 2013
Apr 30, 2013 at 10:27 PM UTC
The nightingale gives way
to the ruddy dawn and foam blooms
overhead among the early watercolour
skies.
I hear a blue-tit (or robin) whistling it's tune
through the bulbs which rise bouncing
from the rippling sea of soil,
growing in seamless swathes beneath
the leaves silken pink.
The sun dapples through, reflecting
a rosy hue into the glass
dew drops fast melting
into the thirsty earth, and peeps
over the treetops before
gradually bowing his glinting head.
Old daffodils turn russet
in the golden day
and wrinkle
as the clouds blush.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 2:45 PM UTC
… a watercolour freshness
breezes through the open window.
The trees are stretching,
Shaking their sleeping dust dew
From their earthy leaves:
Nature’s man-made morning is
Apple-crunch crisp.
Feb 22, 2011
Feb 22, 2011 at 4:53 AM UTC
This collecting; this laying out of treasures. A piece of watercolour paper cut to fit the sill of a window, then each object placed in a sequence. Stones and shells at first, then slivers of wood, a crab, a starfish. Eventually, small objects from inside the Fishing Station. Strange and so different away from their location. Strange to be displayed as distinctly separate rather than a gregarious jumble of ‘finds’. Their shadows fell with such delicacy across the paper, turning as the light turned, sharp-edged now, smudged later. I would catch her sitting before these collections, observing their properties as the window projected different qualities of light with the passing day. I had them to myself in the early mornings when I crept from our bed into the grey blue light of the dawn. I would sit before them with a china mug of tea feeling my body come to terms with its own self having left its shared part of me in bed. Every day seemed more precious than the previous. As the calendar moved relentlessly forward I realised we had begun to speak in whispers, beyond whispers in fact. I would look at her and speak silently in my head, as I do when I ‘say’ our silent grace, when I close my eyes and pause before the delight of a meal shared. She would nod, or answer with only the barest movement of her petalled lips. The most delicate stroke of my arm was a poem; a hand resting against the neck a chapter of novel. The volumes of words that we had between us come to own tumbled away into the machair. And living slowed right down. Every movement had a graceful turn, bend or flow to it. If we stood close to each other there was rarely the need to venture into an embrace. For once we were not about to part, we became completely, utterly together. We would listen to each other breathe until even that became absorbed into the sea's great breath we could feel from the cottage windows ruffling the waters.
Sep 7, 2012
Sep 7, 2012 at 2:35 AM UTC
Chew the water, and don't breathe the air
You weave Apocalypse in your loom
You paint Armageddon on your easel
Black watercolour
Made from human ash
Bombing in the microwave
The embers will die, and the winds will cease
Like the fingernails of a corpse
Trudge into malevolent oblivion
Convinced by the impotent fallacy of happiness;
Generation Nuclear Apathy
Generation Destiny Liquidation
...And the minute counter ticks away...
Tick
Tock
Tick
Tock
Eliot was wrong
This is how the world ends
This is how the world ends
This is how the world ends
Not with a whimper
But a bang.
Mar 4, 2014
Mar 4, 2014 at 4:23 AM UTC
Some one has destroyed
the robin’s nest
and stolen the eggs
Jane said
she leaned
into the hedgerow
beneath the streamlet
and parted the branches
her voice choked
as her fingers poked
about the damaged nest
you stood watching
behind her
over her shoulder
watching her fingers move
who’d do such a thing?
you asked
all gone
not an egg left
she said
in saddened tone
you leaned near her
smelt lavender water
she wore
her dark hair
pinned back
with metal grips
why destroy?
she said
why steal?
you sensed her sadness
felt her ache
and how
it would feel
she withdrew her hands
and wiped them
on her dull grey dress
and looked along the lane
and back at you again
who would do such things?
you asked
she looked at the hedgerow
that now concealed
the damaged nest
and said
father says
such are humankind
that seek and take
and leave all fouled
and lost and leave
to nature or to God
to mend and count
the cost
I saw the nest and eggs
last time we came
you said
the beauty of the eggs
and nest made neat
Jane walked on
along the lane
and you walked
beside her
her dull grey dress
swaying as he walked
her hand reached out
for yours
her fingers slim
unpainted nails
her thumb rubbed
against your hand’s skin
the sky
watercolour blue
with puffs of white
just the countryside
sans eggs and nest
and Jane and you.
Dec 26, 2012
Dec 26, 2012 at 4:05 PM UTC
The sky like the palm of my hands
Is clear and faint
Holding stars and then slowly digesting them
Just like I do with magic pills.
--Watercolour
Dec 13, 2016
Dec 13, 2016 at 9:53 AM UTC
stem of orchid jewels
hearts white. fronds dangling caressed
clouds obscure. Judas gifts wrap
kitchen. bromeliad pool &
bird chorus, cocteau twins, unwound
clock. himalayan surveyor measures
watercolour, telescopic insight
ginger of blue flowerless season
changing, renewed construction
seeds bloom, a winter pose. house of
possibilities in clear air, away from here
barbeque covered, herbs sprout flavour
zen stone feature a cat’s new bed
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 8:13 AM UTC
some days I miss the little sailboats
dotting the horizon
keeping me floating
as they sat on the shore
smiling at the watercolour painting
watching the clouds blow away
leaving the picture perfect
but they couldn't see the sea so choppy
the wind so strong
the paper-thin sail
the hull breached and leaking
they never saw
I lacked a sailor's heart
I couldn't lift anchors
or keep weathering storms
while taking on water
content to drown
So I turned the ship around
they tied it to the dock
and I swam away
but to this day
I remember
half a small white pill
half an oval blue pill
make a little sailboat
Apr 20, 2015
Apr 20, 2015 at 11:26 PM UTC
a hybrid soul,
one to blend like watercolour
paintworks into the social canvas,
boys would stare,
at the star, gone dying, who knew
spotlights illuminate
the pretty parts,
the hips and the mannequin calves.
until the sun dimmers, like gods
dipped lantern burnt out,
and bodies are stripped like birds
of their feathers, plucked to glaring
scars and worn out faces peer
into the mirror - who is the ugliest
of them all.
they called her by names,
prettier than her own,
until she trembled into the
valley of the dolls, a dark and dismal
place with discarded arms and legs,
to build the perfect 'woman' -
a vulnerable creature, made to
be loved, to be wanted.
Oct 3, 2016
Oct 3, 2016 at 1:55 PM UTC
We all live in a world
Where fairy tales could come true.
Rivers that flow like caramel
Watercolour skies painted blue.
Strawberries hang from peacocks tails
Sea green, berries and ducks in teams
Sailing with cigars in their beaks
on crispy clouds and coconut dreams.
Jul 8, 2015
Jul 8, 2015 at 12:12 AM UTC
I want to feel loved.
I crave the melting of flesh into mine.
Boiling pores and sweating fingertips
tracing my face.
I lace myself into your hair and make myself a nest.
I am safe,
but not for long.
For I will never feel safe again,
not in your arms,
not in the arms of any.
I am *****
soiled,
used,
empty.
I am not a body of love,
No longer a *** of milk tea
on a cold day.
Watercolour stains wash away with water.
I am viper,
I am splinters,
hangnails,
and paper cuts.
I will never be soft again,
and it’s your fault.
I will never forgive you for that.
Feb 25, 2019
Feb 25, 2019 at 9:38 PM UTC