there's a house at the
corner of misery boulevard,
and heartbreak avenue,
that i call home.
& i can't count on my left hand
how many times,
those sand tinted rooms
with decaying light bulbs
have overheard
through paper walls,
the sound of that rose coloured capsule
embracing the floor,
only to find itself in pieces.
my mother always
hid that in a cage,
locked tight.
never did that stop my father
from finding the key,
she always slipped under the door mat.
like she wanted him to find it.
and you could hear it shatter,
into glass fragments,
that she was always left to clean up
by herself.
because he never stayed
to watch her pick up the pieces,
he didn't want to cut his life line
on her fragmented heart.
- or the time when my mother,
stained my ear drums,
and sold residence to a ghost
who now haunts the walls of my mind,
with words,
she'll claim her tongue never dismissed.
but ten years later,
and i still think i'm that painting,
in monochromatic shades,
that no one ever bothers
to glance at.
when they're gliding
down a vacant hallway.
more empty than the emotion
in this house.
but i still call it home,
because the walls have been
infected with sadness,
because there aren't enough vitamins,
to cure all this sickness,
released through
hatred hymns.
but those melancholy rhythms,
can't compete with the
floorboards that still sing me to sleep,
or the elation that fills
my lungs when i breathe,
because this house
still smells like mourning
the old flames,
from vanilla candle wicks
my ninth birthday knew so well.
& yes, there is no place
that sends fragile shivers
down my spine
when crossing the paths
of gloomy road,
and loathing crescent
but this is home,
this house is just like the cerulean tide,
because it always finds a way to
pull me back to shore.
& then i met you,
promenading down
hope street,
making empty prayers
to god
with a dry tongue and
waterlogged eyes.
another dawn spent
searching for the light -
in coffee shop windows
or even the stars.
something -
to guide me home.
and you taught me that
home isn't always a place,
you can find on a map.
sometimes,
it's two eyes and a heart beat.
it's love entangled words,
uttered through a pair of crimson lips.
& you showed me,
that ruby tinted vases,
look best when
they're not placed on shelves,
but rather granted as gifts,
sealed in envelopes,
with kisses painted
in scarlet lipstick.
& ghosts can be put to sleep,
by a lullaby,
you whispered in my ear
seven times a day.
i love you
has a ring to it,
but it's been six months and
that ghost sold his house,
to a boy who
told me i'm a composition
of colours.
that an artist painted me
in gold, because he sees it in
my eyes when i smile.
- i swear to god,
four walls and a front door,
build a house,
you'll always turn to
when the sky's crying, or when
you tear your jeans
on the wire fence
down the road.
and that boy
who is a composition of wonder,
possesses no door,
and the only window,
is the amber iris
that feels like the ocean
when he looks at me.
because,
he's just like the tide.
& i can still smell vanilla every time
i kiss him.

(with poems from the Chinese translated by Arthur Waley)

My bed is so empty that I keep on waking up.
As the cold increases, the night-wind begins to blow.
It rustles the curtains, making a noise like the sea:
Oh that those were waves which could carry me back to you!

Suddenly she was awake. She could feel a cool breeze on the cheek that wasn’t warm on her pillow. She could smell the damp fields, the waterlogged moorland and the aftermath of recent rain. The action of rain on wood or stone seemed to release particular vapours wholly the province of the night in a small town. There was also the not entirely welcome residue of the past evening’s cooking from the kitchen below. But such sensory thoughts were overwhelmed by the rush of conversation clips; these from a day of non-stop voices that had invaded and now occupied her consciousness. She had listened furiously all day, often fashioning questions as the listening proceeded, keeping it all going, being friendly and wise and sensible and knowing. She could hear her tone of voice, her very articulation in the playback of her memory. It was so difficult sometimes to find the right tone, that inflection suitable to different aspects of ‘talk’. She didn’t want to appear pompous or too serious. That would never do. The thing was to be light, but intelligently light so her colleagues would say to one another – ‘Helen is a treasure you know: brilliant person to have on the team. You can always rely on her. ’ She knew she was often anxious for approval, for a right recognition of her efforts, to be thought well of. ‘Doesn’t everybody?’ she thought wistfully.

There was a momentary flurry of what Helen often dreaded when she found herself awake at night – yesterday’s embarrassing moments. These invariably began with ‘Am I wearing the right clothes?’ It was Caroline’s jacket that came to mind first. That mix of informal but simply smart that can only be bought with serious time and a clear conscience with the credit card. Her favourite blue affair (mail order) with big pockets and the slight pattern on the hem suddenly seemed very ‘last year’. Anna had chosen all-over black, loose trousers with a draw string, no jewellery, but flashy sandals and make up. She’d painted her toenails green. Helen did make up – a little, but not to travel in. She knew she had the right shoes for a long day. Then, those first conversations with Paul, who she’d never talked to outside a meeting before. ‘Keep it light, Helen’, she’d say, ‘Don’t say too much – but then don’t say too little.’ She had found herself – her independent womanly self, speaking with an edgy tone she didn’t always feel happy about. As she spoke to Paul about the coming evening’s football – he’d brought it up for goodness sake – she found herself being funny about the inconsequence of it all, then remembering the passion with which people she knew and loved followed the intricacies of this sport. She saved an own goal with some comment about the game’s social significance she’d picked up off some radio interview.

As the long journey had proceeded she’d been able occasionally (thankfully sometimes) to fall into observation-only mode. There was this sorting of images into significant, memorable, able to forget about, of no consequence at all. She’d been caught by the strange geometry of yellow cones that seemed stitched onto the rain-glistening road surface. There had been a buzzard she’d glimpsed for a moment, a reflection of Sally in the window next to her seat, that mother and her new born in the Ladies at the services, the tunnels of dripping greenery as the coach left the motorway for the winding minor roads, then the view of a grey tor on distant moorland followed instantly by the thought of walking there with her sketchbook, her camera and his loving company, with his admiring smile as he watched her move ahead of him on the path; she knew that behind her he was collecting her every movement to playback in his loneliness when they were apart.

Oh how she wished for his dear presence in this large half-cold bed, as the dark of night was being groped by dawn’s grey. There and there, and now the pre-dawn calls of local birds before that first real chorus of the dawn-proper began. She thought of them both on their last visit to this ancient countryside, being newly intimate, being breath-takingly loving, warm together for a whole night, a whole day, a whole night, a whole day . . . the movies in her mind rolled out scenes of the gardens they’d visited, the opening they’d attended, all that being together, holding hands, sitting close together, sitting across from each other at restaurant tables (knees touching), always quietly talking, always catching each other’s glances with smiles, and his gentle kisses and slight touches of the hand on the arm. She began to feel warm, warm and loved.

As she was drifting back into a shallow sleep she remembered his voice recite (in the Rose Walk at Hestercombe) that poem from the Chinese he loved . .

Who says
That it’s by my desire,
This separation, this living so far from you?
My dress still smells of the lavender you gave:
My hand still holds the letter you sent.
Round my waist I wear a double sash:
I dream that it binds us both with a same-heart knot.
Did you not know that people hide their love,
Like a flower that seems to precious to be picked?

I had a collar once
Of black leather and sky blue fur
And it fit me snugly
It was all I could ask for.

When my thoughts rampaged
As they do very second of everyday
I'd wrap it round my neck
And the noise would fade.

They called me a freak.
They looked at me in disgust, I was shamed
Because they don't understand
The need to be tamed.

Whether round my neck
Or around my wrists and ankles
Without a tether, I fret
Thus, for that collar, I am thankful.

I once felt guilt
Worse than any other pain
It weighed me down
As though it waterlogged my brain.

And all I wished
Was to atone
For a whip
To sing to my bones.

"Why invite pain?
God, she's disgusting?
She's ******* insane!"
The words said to me.

But how could they know
How much I wanted to cry?
How much I wanted discipline
To ease the guilt in my mind?

I once heard a scream
And it scampered down my spine
Like it was a living, sentient being
Infiltrating my mind.

And I'm sure I'd be a pariah
If I ever told anyone
I wanted to cause that scream
To make it sound like painful salvation.

I once cried
I hurt myself as comfort
And the feeling of that pain
Was so very sweet and so very short

And they'd call me a fool
Yet I still crave pain
And they'd think of me badly
For what I can't contain.

See, I'm far from vanilla
I'm far from innocence
Because all life gave me
Was cold and cimmerian.

There's a word for what I do
A lovely acronym
And it's so far from vanilla
Most describe it as a sin.

a little boy sits on
the top of a staircase

his laden, waterlogged
eyelashes droop

his vision fogs
with salt

his heart pulses hot/cool
snowmelt

throughout the body

there are missing
people

no mother
no father

no brother
only boy

locked in house
too scared to sleep

while snowflakes
fall in unfettered

air
there is joy in storm

if one can see it
through the tears

there is comfort
to be had once

the emotion cools
and tree branches are

unburdened from the
weight of ice

movement happens
up the stairs

dear sister
who the boy forgot

was there
places her hand

upon the boy’s
quivering back

"We call it snow
when the parts of God,

too small to bear, contest our bodies"

and angels tell us
to taste the tears

before they freeze
on our red-rubbed

noses
here, taste your tears

says sister.
*they’re salty, aren’t they?

you came to me drunk and looking for love
when before it seemed i had plenty of
suddenly my eyes must have been
mazelike and empty
it falls out of me
so neat and yet so unkemptly
all these bodies in storage
and the coroner sent me
but i can't clean up this mess
i'm only good at disassembly

you cupped my chin in your hands
and begged me tell me what you're thinking
i told you i was staring at the wall
with that smile quickly shrinking
too fast for you to catch it
i felt your breath kiss my neck
as you tried a different approach
with a more subtle effect
i should have explained i need a while
to think before i talk about these things

My memere liked the smell of gasoline, i do too
the tiny shreds of dying nice and slow it pulls from inside of you
and stale cigarettes in mom and pop drugstores
and burying the dead birds, saying it was just time for them to go
explaining that they don't realize they are killing themselves
every time they slam into the glass doors
she loved the seashells welling up from the atlantic
and the waves that held me detained
when she disappeared from shore
the glass that cut, that taste of blood
the stillness of death and linoleum floors and the whining dog
i couldn't fathom how they could all remain

her still skin was first time i noticed
the shifting quality of epidermises cusps so waterlogged
like lotus leaves and flaking logs of driftwood in the ocean
the way it's currents pushed and pulled everything above and below our bodies'
disturbances and submersions of purple i didn't love
i wondered why our bodies couldn't just come back to us
couldn't learn to rigor mort this
still deaths leaves me feeling purposeless
waxy and elastic, with small hairs like the cactus on the windowsill
she said so but i can't convince myself that this is a beautiful thing

when i was young i dreamt of falling down the wooden rungs
of our staircase, screaming in pain in the airway and waiting to be saved
it felt so real, and days later we were pulling over on the side of the highway
when we got the call, saying no one was there when she had the fall
when i saw the sunset from the beach for the first time in years
that night i cried for the beauty and
washed off the tears, purple and red clouds
salt water and tender sounds
and stared for a long time
at the empty shell of a horseshoe crab
did not eat the poison berries
removed the glass from my feet
set down the photographs in defeat
sat and read the dusty books
still caked in her fingerprints
sitting on the shelves of the library

and he never liked gasoline
he always liked fresh air and talkative people
the little things, and the adrenaline of strings
the 4 am sunrise over town center's church steeple
i was terrified of loving this good person
this aversion confuses me,
i teeth at these pseudonyms for something so real
being turned into something transient
i can't explain it i just hate dominance
and love hurt children

i still see his face like it was yesterday
saying that it was his birthday, and he was smiling
about going to the lake
i still can't retrieve a single date
last year from the months of august to may
i just remember the pictures and google pages
i would read 1 through 25 internally enraged
by this rememberance of you
my fists clenched in a faded grip
feeling the searing headlines
cutting through the blackness
i forget what it's like
not to lose it all every time
i close my eyelids
and the waves i love creep in and rip
i've just conceptualized it to be a pattern
and accepted it

They tell me to stop remembering
But they don’t understand with
Each blow life hands me
Another is already sewn
Into my ribcage, bruises in each hand
between each crescent bone,
this isn’t a coincidence
Most nights i hang my lungs
Dangling from my spine
Watching the walls cave in
the sticky residue of surgical tape
Strapped around my bicep
Will not wash off in the shower and then
This guilt will not wash off in the shower
and then, you are a burden, hidden
In the paperwork, between the lines
Three weeks later and there is still
Traces of it on me
Parts of me trapped in glass vials
i wonder what people thought
when they saw me in that blue robe
on the bed in the little blue room
I still remember how thick the
needle was
I was never scared of them
until now

i trick people when i feel like
i'm not seeing at all
i'm just feeling, not healing
with these words
that's my downfall
i wish i could give more
but this is all i have left
if i can't keep it locked in closet doors
i know the effect with be my last theft
don't force it out of me
just let the drainage catch your crests
let it come in time
when i feel safe knowing you
would catch my conjested confessions
and lay them to rest

I gave the hero of this story trust
issues. So that when his castle fell he
wouldn't worry about the damsel still
calling from the ramparts, where I hold court
in the dust. For this is my battlefield
where the headstones will read like love letters
and the weeds will serve as the royal seal.

I gave the hero of this story hope
a magic bean and two old china cups.
But the china, brittle, the bean rotten
as these once fertile lands lie waterlogged.
You can't grow your crops here, boy, go home.
I'll drown this hero before he can stand
the sight of the muddy bank. A hero's death.

I gave the hero of this story bread
water, and melody. To help him sleep
soundly and noiselessly, still. Arms, pillows
sway to the metronome of the city
beating such a heroic retreat. Stand
with fingers touching, childlike and brave.
Until the next wave comes and holds. It breaks.

We have no prairies
To slice a big sun at evening--
Everywhere the eye concedes to
Encrouching horizon,

Is wooed into the cyclops' eye
Of a tarn. Our unfenced country
Is bog that keeps crusting
Between the sights of the sun.

They've taken the skeleton
Of the Great Irish Elk
Out of the peat, set it up
An astounding crate full of air.

Butter sunk under
More than a hundred years
Was recovered salty and white.
The ground itself is kind, black butter

Melting and opening underfoot,
Missing its last definition
By millions of years.
They'll never dig coal here,

Only the waterlogged trunks
Of great firs, soft as pulp.
Our pioneers keep striking
Inwards and downwards,

Every layer they strip
Seems camped on before.
The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.
The wet centre is bottomless.

There is a Chinese proverb that says
Kissing is like drinking
Salted water
Because that act of drinking
Only increases the thirst
And with your touch
There are oceans in my lungs
There are waves of brine in my throat
Knocking into sodium crystals
That dissolve themselves
Against the roof of my mouth
But the sweetness of your voice
The syrup of your kiss and the sugar
Of your promises
Turn my tongue into
Atlantic City’s taffy
And the rushes of blood through my veins
Crest and break
With white foam
And I’m wary of the silver fins and ivory teeth
That must be gathering at the call of the red in the tide
But still I swim out farther
To take in all that I can
Quaffing rivers
Streams
Rain puddles
And oceans
Until somehow my thirst is quenched
Or until I simply surrender to your arms
Because a parched throat may be maddening
But your embrace calms the waters
That made sailors reach for sirens
And it’s a red sky at night on the ocean
As we lean in for one more kiss

We are all addicted to something that's killing us, but makes our pain go away,
and when I helped you stumble from parking garage into the dewey moon speckled asphalt, you swam out into the street like you didn’t notice your waterlogged chest was leaking.
I followed you to the hidden brook.
We crashed into each other and fell onto the wet grass
and I secretly asked it to drink us up.
But your fingertips swallowed my palm like a parched fish, and I wondered how you could still be so thirsty.
The stars bathed your pale skin in a gleaming light show,
so I traced my own constellations and named them after your smile.
The way you kissed me, it was like you were afraid of breaking me.
But baby, you tasted like explosives,
and later, you drove me home with burns in my cheeks.
Through the window, the watery red moonlight plastered your face in speckled crimson.

You left a somber sound below my brain,
deep enough that whales have called back to me through the dark.
You are the gravity that swings blood through the blue highways under my skin
and floods my flushed cheeks when I’m pulled into your arms.
Your hands have long since graced my back
or cheek,
or wrists,
but your fingertips wrote love letters on the surface of my skin
which I admire every night after my head goes quiet;
When my thoughts rest on your charming lips, and hands;
when they whip through your hair like the wind of my breath
to find your eyes,
tongue,
and teeth,
and guide your waist with the sway of the sea.

And now I find myself missing the nights when you'd kiss self worth into my skin under the glowing canopy of red christmas lights and cinnamon whiskey, when I’d write stories on your back and pull the sky around your shoulders and pretend that I didn’t notice that your thighs are smaller than mine.
I’d ignore the fact that I could feel every gram of fat on my body rubbing up against itself, shifting under my stretching skin,
my jiggling oily layers caked in something more shameful than sin.
Because at the time, your kisses were my only testaments to the fact that I deserved to take up space.
And I know that you’ve held somebody who hates themselves in your arms before
because when I tell you that you’re beautiful, her echo chokes out “No I’m not”.
So I tell you that you better learn to love yourself like I do,
because I never. want. to hear. her. voice. again.
I don’t tell you that sometimes, it feels like there is a living breathing monster tucked in the corners of my mirrors and underneath my toilet seat,
because I never want you to think that its your responsibility to save me when you’re still drowning.

I remember it well
As if it were yesterday
We geared up and set sail
And embarked upon unfamiliar waves

It was I captaining the vessel
With One-eyed Sven my quarter master
He could cut throats and roll pretzels
His weapon of choice was his bow caster

This wasn't a mission of plundering
That alone left the crew in a state of wondering
No, we weren't looking for buried treasure
But for sheep skin seat covers and Scandinavian leather

My first mate Mr. Obanion said to me
"Captain are we off course?"
Then my boatswain , Wiley asked sheepishly
"Aren't we going for *** and ******?"

I looked them in the eye at the same time
"Gentlemen, this ship is headed to Dublin"
"We're going to see a good friend of mine"
"Now get back to your swabbing and scrubbing"

This was an order of business not some sort of cruise
I'm sailing with a ship of one track minded fools
We didn't set out on a vacation of leisure
Were on the hunt for sheep skin seat covers and Scandinavian leather

I did not mean to keep them in the dark
But they would think less of me
I needed these things
For the women I married

You see we'd been on the rocks
And I know she wanted these items
So I went over the sea with a fine tooth comb
Until I had finally found them

My men had sailed endlessly for months
They were worn down and ragged
Waterlogged and exhausted
While I always came up empty handed

But I had to save my marriage
Salvage my relationship
I knew it would work
If I gave my love these gifts

We reached the golden, calling shore
Of the beautiful Dublin
From the River Liffey and headed north
My friend Seamus let me come in

I came out shaking his hand
I was satisfied with my purchase
Until I was questioned by my men
What it was we came for in our searches

I had to show them, I was under scrutiny
I pulled out two stagecoach seat covers and a pair of pants
They were enraged and called mutiny
They blindfolded me and bound my hands

Now I'm marooned on some unmapped island
And I see my ship riding that horizon
This will sadden my wife, oh how it will upset her
She will never receive her sheep skin seat covers or her Scandinavian leather

We crash through
Class V relationships
with no life jacket
emerge waterlogged
and disintegrating
only to blunder through
thorny undergrowth
while searching empty
pockets for some
kind of map
to this always
foreign territory.

Tonight, she taught me the nature of healing summer rains
Whimsical descriptions of dancing in puddles, but
Metaphors only serve to drown her pain
Dry on the surface, swearing inside the drought sustains
But dew droplets in her eyes betray her restraint
The morning after, the storm remains

Little flower, bent at the stem
Oversaturated by the self-absorbed
Her waterlogged roots weighing her down, but
In fields of bloom they still look to you
See, the weak reach for the easily used green and blue tulip hues
But her yellow petals require strength to be pulled from the meadow

There was a time where I believed that friendship didn't flicker like a waterlogged outlet. Where standing up came before standing out. I never understood what growing up was for a long time. I remember when I was 15 and I saw a man at starbucks spill coffee on his white dress shirt and thinking "**** that I'm never growing up" and then when I was 18 I draped a plain white polo over my heart and watched everyone I thought cared about me redefine caffeine from waking me up to putting me to sleep.  I insisted that success and money didn't go hand in hand and positivity is easy when the only thing you're paying for is young cigarettes and blindfold mints. When we grow on the  outside, we shrink on the inside to a certain extent. We watch death like a ****** sequel. We fear the inevitable and watch the hands on the clock until they clap and your lights starts to flicker. We live in a sea of inconsistencies that drown our livelihood and when times become consistent, monotony sits in our throat like drying cement that cracks until we can't even breathe for ourselves anymore. Can anyone define happiness? And can you tell your kids that growing up is a breeze? Cause that gust of wind can blow the half empty cup of coffee on to your clothes and really **** your day.

Strange times. When I speak of caressing your mantic lungs
I don’t know what I mean, but I know
I would hurl you under proper circumstances.

Darling, one whisper falls from a tree silently
so as not to wake the ghosts from their siestas.
Your robe has holes I can’t write of. I can fathom
getting there, what that might entail, wrapping,

as I am prone to, my fingers around your furry pincers
while I wait for you to read my rights to the ceiling fan

who whirls above our renovated combustions like the glowering
eye of our Lord upon the teary-eyed wicked.
I am not looking to escape through the window, darling.

I am diving for your diamond-in-the-rough, peeling off barnacles,
making moustaches of seaweed. You threw it into that ocean-
sized trough in which you drown lizards as way of
stress-release. I don’t know what I’ll do next.

The poor man. You give me your hand,
darling, and your robe, your robe is shiny like a pubescent star,

and it shimmies like a wagon piecing itself apart, as you
piece yourself apart, starting with your smile, which was always more
like a photograph of a dune in a textbook.

You give me your hand. It is a blue egg
dusted with microorganisms. I sprinkle it with our fragrance,
what’s left of it. I wish happiness upon your sleep-life, doldrums
upon your late-night haunting. I am tired and these

machines are so convenient, bringing me on all-expenses-
paid visits to the site of your burial. Or is it your sister’s?

I quote, my heart is like a walled onion.
The poor man is tired. It is not 1904 anymore.
You are not smiling anymore, darling, but you give me your hand.

You give it in a basket with parsley and cheese
and cut-outs from The Waterlogged God.
You give it almost grudgingly but I will keep it.
You tell me you’ve been dreaming again of train stations.

I wonder what that means.
I wonder about your eyes.

There are many spiders inside the wall, and along it,
and on the chandelier’s fingers, and inside the spiders.
I quote, a dream is worth a thousand dustpans, but you,

darling, are worth so much more than dustpans.
But I grow weepy, as stated. What do those dark blue lines mean?
Your fingers, darling, smell of a dark cloud in an electrical storm.
Your palm is a circus. Your nails ticket stubs.

That one’s from the alligator show. You dislocated your
throat. I had a plan. If you stare into someone’s eyes for

more than six seconds, you’ll want to lick them.

I feel as though I am stuck in the purgatory of my life
It's my own fault, I know
The rain pours and I just wait for someone to show me the light

My bones ache
I'm soaked to my core
The emptiness in my soul is drowning and, still, I wait

Doing anything is becoming more and more difficult by the day
My existence is getting heavier, but lighter
I fear that I will soon spill everything and float away

the most dangerous person I know was a beautiful girl,
with a singing voice like white chalk:
when you came into contact with that voice, even momentarily
you found your fingertips lightly dusted
and the taste of chalk in your lungs
She settled on you.

This girl left pieces of herself everywhere--
anchors.
to things she knew should be
important to her, but instead she couldn't find the commitment
enough to make them important.

she could only find
fragments of a conversation
about anything
that affirmed her
self-importance
or made her feel
important.
even if only for a second.

she disregarded the pain that lumbered just beneath those
glimmering retinas,
only to step closer and see the light
was just a reflection of whatever stood before her.

so she anchored herself to humans.
she chose to connect with people
based on the "mutual" stars in
their eyes.
and how they felt important.
she anchored herself to
the expectations held aloof in
the eyes of her unattached lover.
Eyes that swam with the imaginary meetings and hopefulness
to obtain girls not her.

and so she swam.

at first, she treaded water like it the thing to do in the eyes of your
"lover"
then, the ropes she tied to herself
to make anchors began to drag her down.

the people she anchored herself to reached out as far as the cold depths would allow
but she refused to tread the last few feet and take hold
of a shoreline filled with
finite praise for not drowning herself.

The most dangerous girl I knew
made drowning the important thing.
and now she waits, sunken and waterlogged
with the weight of eyes that are not hers.

The eyes of her lover, who sparkle artificially
as the light is just a reflection of whatever stands in front of him.

I hate how naive I am
how twisted I grew
always struggling for breath
strangled & contorted
wrong air in the greenhouse
that outside seemed a dream house.

grew painfully pressed
soft & depressed in those places
shield of armor & tree trunk legs
strong & sturdy
waterlogged soul
I carry the ghost of every snowflake
every storm struck passenger's spirit
lost love & one glove.

I. Parade Square

I can still feel the blisters from the hotplate ground,
the tar off my marred body,
imagine my acid sweat coercing my eyes
to burn with an perverse, masochistic
fire for this
torture
my tongue could never profess.
Running or sprinting blind, and
then a rumble above, force open my eyes to
watch the undercarriage of the SQ A380
hang low like a
ladder.

II. Swimming Pool

Usually we swim here,
or get cooked by the sun,
but there was once we pumped eighty
because the FT was bored and wanted to go
home,
early.

III. Cookhouse

Pre-dawn,
we sit down half-asleep,
milo in hand,
a lump of oily I-don’t-quite-know-what on my plate.
Every table a section-full of once-boys
taking a glimpse at the outside world through flat rectangular
window panes that hang from the ceiling.
At 0600, Channel News Asia plays the National Anthem,
and I wonder why we don’t sing it
anymore.

IV. Range

It is going on two months in this foreign land
Two months of having not shot a single picture

A single snug trigger-click, snap-shot
Burst of colour – bang! – picture

Tangy black three-point-eight-two kilos that
Hang off me like a corpse-like appendage

Two months of wading through picturesque scenery
Lilac cirrus sky, or the sleeping shadows of silhouetted trees

And no chance to shoot any photos
But the picture of simulated ******

As I point and pull, hear the
Trigger-click of my camera go

bang.

V. Grenade Ground

When I picked up the little
inconspicuous
olive thing, and placed it in the pouch
next to my left breast, beside my
heart,
I couldn’t help but ponder
if that was how the Bali
bombers
felt like, moments before they
died.

VI. Beyond the Sphinx bridge

This is another world;
a world filled with so many dark
memories
I cannot write about it.
I would have saved you from drowning in your
waterlogged grave, except
I was drowning
myself.

On the long ride back
to camp,
I gazed into the distant twilight, thinking,
we may sit in the
same
tonner, but in actuality
we all find our own roads
home.

VII. Coy Line

When I shower I close my eyes,
feel the slow trickle of water from
the broken showerhead, and
imagine myself in a hotel villa, or
one of those luxury hotsprings.

When the lights go off I lie back,
gaze out at the orange floodlight that
shines through the panes,
illuminates my teary face,
darkens my world
to a quiet, uneasy
sleep.

VIII. Ferry Terminal

Every book-out
I let the man scan my card,
puff up my shoulders
and catwalk down the dock
with a sense of newfound authority.
I’m a civilian now.

Sit and hear the low rumble of the ferry
get louder and
louder
like a plane on the verge of taking off;
like a soul on the verge of
escape.

And the rain is falling
Making music off the roofs of the cars
And we stand there
In the steam rising from the
Parking lot pavement
Shadows made from
Alarmed headlights
First, still
Then, quickly moving
From two separate shapes
To one jumble of limbs
The two of us becoming indistinguishable
As I can’t hold you close enough to me
And after so long waiting
I don't mind
My tears mixing
With the rain
Making our first open-mouthed kiss
Wet and messy
And you tangle your fingers
Into my waterlogged curls

glued to crushed velvet
i think in hues of blue
tonight and wonder
what you see when
you stare at your
ceiling in the bronx

is it waterlogged and
cracking? or smooth
and perfectly painted
in eggshell white? or
maybe it's stuccoed,
or patterned, or hand
painted with naked
angels floating about?

turn on your transformers
and fire up the transporter

i'm coming to lay
side by side to see
what it is you see
when you tell me
you're thinking of me

I hate how naive I am
how twisted I grew
always struggling for breath
strangled & contorted
wrong air in the greenhouse
that outside seemed a dream house.

grew painfully pressed
soft & depressed in those places
shield of armor & tree trunk legs
strong & sturdy
waterlogged soul
I carry the ghost of every snowflake
every storm struck passenger's spirit
love lost & one lost glove.

~


Collective eyes on the shoreline
Ripples meander unaware of who they touch
Glimmering surface reflects a doubtless moon
and fireflies abandon all hope of neon goals

Stone and sand meet in driftwood destinies
Autumn grips the night with postcard tendrils
Feet beneath water paddle slowly,
hiding in plain sight in the center of this liquid target

Alone on the wrinkles of waterlogged bed sheets
Silence finds no home here
while voices cackle and point slanderous fingers
and buoyancy is in question

Words fly like arrows in cultivated sentences on thin air
When what was once sacred sinks
into the stagnant reaches of heartless ink
and I wait…a sitting duck

England is waterlogged
becoming submerged
nascent Atlantis
surrendering to the tide

Sink holes in Hemel
sunk homes in Surrey
hanging railways in Devon
****** cafes by the sea

A damp apocalypse beckons
it may get wetter yet
now that rain reigns
Britain is ruled by waves

Cynthia Pauline Jones 15/2/14

I have seen, somewhere, a beautiful green beetle.
It would not be so bad to be breathtaking
People would open the window, smiling
And let me flutter through.
But though I sometimes think I shine,
Fact is, I’m just a worm,
A segmented soldier of the dank, damp earth
Fated to be trampled, waterlogged
Poked with a stick, eaten by a bird
Or simply, unable to find the path
Lost, panicking, grazed by gravel
Trying to find my way home.

A torrent gushes from the serpent’s mouth
wave upon breaking wave; it’s ALL fake news
swiftly eroding what is left to lose.
Democracy’s waterlogged corpse drifts south,
a bloated mess; all waters to infuse
with putrefaction, thus to breed disease
uncivil war invades our fantasies;
the polarized extremes now pay their dues.
Propping things up: it’s what they do the best—
business as usual, pawns all occupied
in scaffolding facades upon the West
and sculpting the friezes of fratricide…
but underground, the currents cave away.
Media will fail; God brings a brighter day.

Loving you is synonymous with setting yourself on fire
It seems the only way to stop the fire is to drench yourself in tears
And as it burns; the passion spreads wildly, untameable
Racing amongst gasoline veins during restless nights

The fireworks have exploded in my head this time
Flamboyant paint splashes the blank canvas of my mind
I'm feeling dizzy from the taste of electric lips and metallic tongue
Skin touching; your fingers dance a brief ballet across my skin

Unrequited love can only blossom so long without water
But will my showers of affection cause our withered love to grow
Or become waterlogged while we drown?
I stamp out my words and bury them in the dirt with a harsh finality
They rest in peace but my mind won’t settle
There is a raging inferno eating at my heart
And I'm not sure I want to put it out.

There's a hole in my wall which the wind whistles through
And the wallpaper's mouldy and calamine blue
The carpet besmirched with a decade of grime
And the pattern is lost to a happier time
The journals and books where my memories stay
Have mixed and submerged in a fearful array
The curtains hang tattered in woeful neglect
Where the mildew and fungus and beetles collect

There's a hole in the floor where the mice have a nest
Where the walls creak and groan like a cancerous chest
And a puddle emerges from under the door
Like a serpent, it winds on the laminate floor
Underfoot, fragments of crockery crunch
Still stained with the leavings of long ago lunch
There's a rattle and scratching of verminous claws
The spoon never stirs so the *** never pours

There's a crack in the window that lets in the rain
Where it runs in a rivulet right down the pane
The mattress is rotten and rusted inside
Bacteria thrive and amoeba divide
The ceiling is sagging from waterlogged beams
And catches the sunlight with putrefied gleams
Like powder, the plaster is fast in retreat
With it's choking secretions, the air is replete

There's a trace of a life that was never fulfilled
Like a drink only sipped and then carelessly spilled
There's hope of a future and trinkets amassed
But frittered away and consigned to the past
The wires are old but the bulbs are still new
And pictures of vigor are hanging askew
As if from existence, vitality blinked
A carcass remaining though life is extinct

Lying flat in a river bed and covered in sheets of water:
this is where you will live.
Pure, ice-cold springwater flows
around and through, picking clean our bones like a vulture,
taking out the filth that collects like soot in chimneys.

From here only two roads:
To let go or hold on.
The instinct is to deny! hold tight, forever and ever, keep safe,
but you are here to learn the river’s lesson, to follow the flow, to be
carried away and let go.
Die happily, knowing.

Spread like sand
across the hills and gullies
peacefully dispersing
along centuries to form and reform,
learning that there are no endings.
And to know by cycles,
building familiarity, some core knowledge
which undoes the instinct that says “hold on”
and “not yet”
and “fight.”

Instead, become waterlogged.
Give up your boundaries.
This is the only way.

Second-hand smoke
thrums within my ribcage
and I notice every atom
from top to bottom
crannies and nooks
mahogany lava
flooding over shoulders
blue-streaked toes

I can't look away
I don't want to look away
at the way
she holds a cigarette
lazy between *******
and the impish half-smile
that says everything perhaps
and perhaps nothing
a Picasso masterpiece
but it's only lips
it's only the girl
they all call Alaska
a walking storm in flip-flops
from room forty-eight

the static we have
simmers upon my tongue
or is it just Mountain Dew

words belonging to Vonnegut
drop from the leaves
sparkle like drizzle
and kiss every clover
good evening goodnight
goodbye

I have plunged into her pool
of wine and waterlogged literature
I see it I know it I want
to take a drag of her
glide inside her nirvana
hear her smile
with a crush of emeralds
wild in my eyes
a throb of electricity
that rockets through
my crooked veins
and I want a taste
as if squeezing a lemon
and the sugar cascades
liquor-like down my throat
straight and fast
to the last frontier

I see a chain of daisies
gush from her chest
crash at her feet
to be continued
I hope I hope
a phone is ringing
what country is calling?
is it where her vanilla whisper
leaves me wondrously numb?
a fuzzy echo hums
inside my ears
I ask is it over?
Is it done?

and then ****
I'm awake
and her name
has vanished
as fast as a ghost
disintegrated
like the cigarette she held
lazy between *******.

The potency froths the glass in ghostly embers.
Rectifying a suppressed kiss.
Liquid's juicy lubrication sweats
as the icy voice asks,
refill my void.

Fingernails cling
like thorns to skin.
Waterlogged and fogged,
my footsteps fall,
sloppy little domino.

Mindful thoughts yank at drunk appendages.
One too many benders, far too many hands.

Awake, the memory kaleidoscopes.
Pieces unmatched.
Strange images fade,
meshed in sheets.
evidence stains.

I stood in front of the toaster oven to retrieve my slightly singed toast, and for a moment, I felt the warmth of the sun.

It's been so long since I've seen the sun. I suppose I've grown accustomed to the cruel skies of a bitter climate. Lately, all that can be seen of the world when I look out my bedroom window is the grey sky and the bare bones of a Japanese maple.

The waterlogged earth squelches underfoot, weeping the melted snow up through a sparse carpet of grass. The grass, also, is barely keeping it together.

The skin on my hands has grown dry and rough, and while I could blame this on my clumsiness or demanding pastimes, I know better. Occasionally I work up the motivation to fight this process with some lotion or other. But yet, the heat of my apartment and the chill winds persist.

Will my hands ever again have that soft tenderness? Will we ever again see the sun? Will we ever?