Morning.

i'm on the edge of who you are
hovering here along the boundary
and how hungry i am
I am so thirsty for this final draught
Immerse me
Come to and find me here
standing on the edge of your skin
handing off the corner of your smile
waiting for you to reach for me

come find me.
i've been lost in your dreams
finally- you're awake.

tell me

why when i reach my arms to you

your eyes snap shut

leaving only the black streak of your eyelashes

in two slashing scars across your face

and your mouth tied up tight

with two small knots at each corner

and the pink of your lips in a bow

just on the edge of a pout

but with a sharper edge

tell me

what i have done

to become hateful in your eyes

to be endured not enjoyed

what sin have I committed

for the sentence of shunning

how stern you are with your subtle shoulders

leaning away from me

but politely of course

the courtesy that cuts me to the quick

How quick you are to change

I fear I am, as always, behind the times.

So tell me.

When did I become the monster?

Hope

let me tear the moonlight from my hair

with my ragged nails pull

strands of magic dripping silver

across the ravaged ground

strange you to stranger me

let me introduce myself

with the shake and tremble

that took root in the depth

of me at your touch

let me stand here on the edge of dawn

and dare you to breathe

grasp the air like the wine

you described me as

look at me with the light

bouncing off the concrete

I have torn the moonlight from my hair

I left you in the dark standing there

cycle

I watch you move your fingertips

against the autumn air

twisting the long stems of your hand

like a bouquet

with a great golden leaf

blooming

bending gently to the ground

under the weight of its own glory

With a snap it crumbles

and you laughing toss

it into the careless air

slits of gold to fall across your feet

your fingers pulled back

against your palm

like a seed awaiting spring

hidden for winter cold

I picture the warmth

stretching it out

with my hand like the sun

leading your fingers to grow like roots

deeply coiled in my own

Gold on silver

soft and strong

and we will watch the spring bloom

without fear of winter

a deep tree with strong roots

dropping its great gold glory

for others to pick up

and grow into

Queenly

You wear his looks like a fur coat

fluffed up and white

to make you look bigger

all wrapped in the warmth

that separates you from the air and bite

of this concrete world.

The wealth just drips off you

from your rounded red lips

soft and subtle

a flash of pomegranate pearl on the tip of your tongue

and then it slips away

as quick as your scattered feet

in their soft silk slippers.

We stare at you with envy

and with distance

too afraid to come close to touch

as you float on

walking down the road

wrapped in rags and love

the story grows.

how strange these hands have become to me

these long fingers that smooth away into shadow

at your side

and I am watching them there

at your side

wrapped consecutively in the dark

of your soft coat sleeve

pulled down to conceal them with

the thoughtless gesture of one

who does not seem himself as others do

but only a story that he is telling

from me to you and no response

is possible but only this

that his hands will retreat from open mine

up the mouth of that cloth cave

the magicians rabbit within the hat again

But back they flicker with the sudden spark

that your train of thought throws

against these senseless rails

holding us back from the sidewalk

and i am constrained in my seat

watching the strangeness and the shadow meet

melting one into the other

until i am watching nothing

but the swinging shape of the dark against the ground

like swallows swooping in the twilight

and then they fall again

two still hands at your side

and i drop my eyes to stare at the sidewalk

looking sidelong at at your long fingers

you are telling me a story

of who you are and why

when and how and that you are fine

and i stand by your side

knowing you are lying

how strange your hands look

without mine

Courage Now.

Let me find the calluses on your fingers

the places where you and life have grappled

where the slender scar was disregarded

the battle pressed in again regardless

until weal by weal the victory grows.

I can count your triumphs in these small hard wounds

not left to heal but reentered in the fray

I find your strength in these called flaws

but what use to me an untested vessel

with siding still smooth and white

the shine of the smith sticks soft upon it

when against my hand your hand fits like a hilt

a protection well tried and proof against any attack

Standing beside you I draw strength through your skin

Let us then begin.

The new world awaits.

London.Once.

the sounds of this strange language

crowd my throat

creating their foreign echoes

that thrum down into my lungs

ricocheting into my stomach

and suddenly i feel sick

what it is about you

that steals me away?
In all the world

there is only one place

I remember

snowflake clear

with each edge defined

standing beside you

wherever we are, whenever we are

I see you standing on that stairway

with your arms around me while we sink

and the darkness flickers behind us

stretching its jaws wide

to take us both at once

and I don't mind, don't even feel the teeth

leaning against you

with your warmth wrapping me up.

Keep me safe once more.

I am on my way down again

with nothing but the heat of your memory

to hold me.

how foreign this place

that i have emerged to

how strange the language and bitter the taste

of the air without you beside me.

Once upon forever

I'll play Scheherezade for your soul

let me tell you the tales

of my days and dusks

i'll tie it together with magic

and we'll hold the world together

my steady voice and you

with your wide eyes and belief

we'll be safe, we'll be safe

come my love away with me

and i'll tell you a story with no ending

they'll say of us

and they live happily eternally

so come my love

let us begin

i'll play scheherzade for your soul

and we'll write a love story that never ends

Transitory love.

hello love,

do you mind if i call you that?

here in my mind all secret and quiet

like a habit that we don't even notice anymore,

and you turn your head to it

as if it were your name.

I don't know it-

your true name.

You have been Angeline,

Guinevere, and Jane as the light hits you.

I played with Marie for a day

but you have too much of a bite,

something that has consonants you can chew on.

I decided on Janette

with the extra letters to set you apart.

I picture your parents

all glowing and panting with the newness

of being fresh defined by the small screaming you-thing

rolling the name around between their teeth

stretching the vowels into a song

and then snapping their mouths shut over the final syllable

as if already fearing your escape into the wild world

away from them.

Thats what you look like to me

every time you board the bus

like a thing on the verge of escape

I wonder if you would let me run with you.

Perhaps not

I lack the courage.

Its why I'm siting here

calling you love in my head

and wondering if I'll ever know your name.

I almost asked today.

But the board flashed Suttle and you stood to exit.

Perhaps tomorrow.

Mind the gap.

home soon

today I awoke with the taste of home

on my tongue

clouding my syllables.

The world i'm looking at

glows through the stained glass

the great green slashes of rice

against the bend of mountain arm

that tucks me in at night

and through the colours through the glare

i know that it is raining here

but I am gone

long run home

to the place where the sun sinks

into the hills in coverlet of red

so softly with the last strand of colour

traced across the sky

like a sleepy kiss

here the sun crashes into the horizon

a collision of heat and rage

spills across this flat land

and everyday i taste the ash on my tongue

today I walk the concrete streets

with the drifting wish-seeds floating

about me from the lines of trees

I am drenched to the bone

and do not feel a thing.

Bird burden

what a bird burden is this

a weight to bend feathers

to breaking point

to splintering like the shards of bark

peeling back against the wick

like fingers pulling back

from a dying love

and its cold here

it is so cold against these bones

that grind like stones

their screeching grumbling hate

the wind and i were lovers once

take the long way home love

the long way home

and on the slopes we would fly

wings and words and wind

and here i am

the wind is gone

slipped away with the scent of spring

I left my feathers along the slopes

dropping them one by one.

one does not ask the Fates

without a sacrifice.

so does he?

does he love me?

or does he not?

It is cold here

with these bones against each other grown.

It is a bird burden this.

to look at life alone.

The last door of Fall.

She looked at me with her deep black eyes.

Fall fell behind her like a backdrop

a side note designed for emphasis

to be felt and then forgotten.

fall always is.

The winter comes behind it

sweeping up in its tragedy

the tipping points of colour

the moments where change began.

Winter cuts it down to essentials

leaving the what if frozen into a certainty.

It could be no other way.

Fall fits her

with her slim mouth

and the slender voice that slides from it

like red leaf stain drifting down the grass.

She looks at me like a door

and suddenly I am unsure

if I am fit to be tried, opened

or if, in my own secret winter,

I should stiffen into solidity

as locked as the sap caught in branches.

She turns her head

it feels like a key to me

with her eyes sliding inside of me

and with a sliding click

I fall open.

I reach for her.

With my hand, my stumbling voice

whistling through my mouth

like a coax, an invitation, a plea.

The tree behind her drops two more leaves.

She is looking at me with her black eyes.

With no question in her slim neck

she says,

"Earn this."

And flew away.

Inspiration given by. Josie Morway.

http://www.tinyshowcase.com/artwork.php?id=1668

On Irony.

I found a strand of your hair today

dark against the white of the wall

it was tied up against itself

an arachnid skeleton

from some forgotten age

I couldn't look away

I kept seeing your hair

looking as if it were alive

in the ocean

swimming at its own jelly rhythm

separate from the thrashing of your arms

and how it picked up the light

and the salt and the sand

and still looked beautiful

dragged out behind you like a net

with treasures caught up in it

beating to be free

i caught my hand in it that day

each finger in its own coiled chain

with one loose curl wrapped around my wrist

like a shackle of silk

I did not notice the way it hardened

stiffening into small vertebraes

like the slender spines of some fossilized creature

it cracked under the weight of my hand

sounding like gravel crunched beneath my boots

and I realized I was caught and could not get free

At that point you too were stiff

with your fingers curled up in fists

as if you fought this last indignity

to be stripped of life, in public.

my hand was tight in your mass of hair

and my voice too

strectched like some current

that dredges up all the worst in me

they say i sat there cursing

over and over again the same word

until they cut my hand loose

from your mangled net of hair

and led me away

to check for injury they said.

i wonder if they were being ironic.

i wonder things like that

and i used to say them to you

and you would roll your eyes

telling me that no one is ironic anymore

merely sarcastic, with an occasional flash of wit.

I didn't believe you

but then i knew you.

you would have found it ironic

to have died on the day

we were to have begun a new life.

i suppose we still did.

i think i like the old one better.

i washed the hair down the drain

wondering if it was fitting

that water be there at every doom

every reminding of your leaving.

Megan

Today i want to tell you that i'm thinking of you

I want to do it in some way

that will surprise a smile into your eyes

write it in the sky

spilling smoke behind me like a cloud of ink

against the deep blue waves

or drop it in small notes like a trail

all over the streets

that you'll follow like a mystery

till you get to the twist the end

and there i'll be

thinking as hard as I can about you

who and what you are

with your tendrils of thought

curling around your hair and shooting

like stars from your mouth

directed by your hands into these detailed explosions

dreams that grow like mist on paper

and reach out to tangle my eyes

in their ideas and feelings and screams

and I can't get enough of them

so here I am with my fingers stretching far

trying to tell you

I am thinking of you

and how wonderful you are

I am thinking of you

and how much I love you

Happy Birthday.

and she's dark chocolate

addictive but bitter

sweeps me off my feet 

in the rush of her words

and i would listen

but i'm too busy remembering

how to swim

roll on, roll on baby,

you're the one i'll hold on to

ride through, ride on baby,

the knights are chasing you

all those silver skinned saviours

are looking for your golden hair

and i just woke up

and you were there

sitting there laughing that my tongue

tying it up in knots

and walking away

I won't follow, you're too far ahead

just wait for you watching in my head

as you turn around with your shining smile

with the sky silver behind you

they're running to your rescue

one more addition to their petting zoo

i'll stay here until you're through

taking their shield and dulling their swords

to cage you they'd need to build worlds

for you to rage to

so i'll go back to sleep and wait for the girl

hangups

i have written script after script

in which you

in many names and faces

appear under my window

(or at my door

or to pluck me from the sea)

and throw pebbles

(knocking and rescuing are also acceptable)

to catch my attention.

When i appear

you always smile

and say.....

i never know what you would say.

i suppose you could improvise.

Bless me brother for I have sinned

you sit down beside me

and i have nothing to say

the thousand strands of each day before

have become tangled in my dreams

are twisting in their decay

and the mold of memory is tying them together

turning them upside down 

i have nothing to say

because maybe it has been said before

perhaps you cried or it could have been me

but all i know is this

i've got nothing to say.

just.

please-

don't walk away.

again.

the blessing of the blurs

with the mist so deep

i can barely see the ridge of trees

that blur like columns of smoke

another intangible thing

in this imaginary world

so i stretch my eyes wide

seaching amidst the grey

for a darker shape

i can't see a thing

so i pretend

that the thing i can't see

is a mountain standing there

behind the trees

with its wide arms stretched

and my home nestled in the crook of it

like a child on the point of sleep

i close my eyes through the rain

pretending i am home

codes in plain sight.

you know in the films

when the detective or the spy

tapss three times on one brick

and then in a secret pattern 

follows up with soft strikes

to four others and then

to the amazement of all

a door creaks open where there was clearly

nothing

before

when i am talking

and you look at me like that

with your head tilted 

and that one strand of hair left loose

to hang over your eyes

normally you brush it away

but at these times your hands are still

and your eyes merely widen

as if to see around it

I can feel your eyes pushing against the sounds on my tongue

trying and trying again

to unlock the door

creating a secret code to my vulnerability

one day i might let you in on the secret

when i say i'm fine.

that's exactly what i mean.

A Handful of Haiku

Old Teachings

the turn of voice falls

an autumn load of leaves

who is listening?

Tension Builds

the pause between words

pulls my ears like children who

watch the candy jar

Transit

The stream talks loudly

wondering from where he came

carrying my boat

Winter Worries

The mirror ages me

writing thin wrinkles on skin

with the thread of frost

The Secret Garden

stories grow like weeds

wild over the level flagstones

building a garden

Camouflaged reincarnation

Two thousand scales

lie against each other in wait

flash into a fish

Regret for a wedding

late for your rebirth

I was caught in the fall rains

my feet in debris

the watcher - a matched set to 'the watch'

spring would be the point

he had made her promise

saying it would be fitting

to begin again then

when spring comes step down

look around and grow new dreams

promise me this

and she would not, could not look at him

watching instead his hands

and the way they bent around hers

so when he squeezed them tightly

like the question mark to his command

she nodded and did not say anything

but he took it for her word

be brave. 

watch for me.

i'll meet you before spring

and he was gone

It is late summer and she stands by her post

watching along the wall

keeping track of the slips of green

holding on to them like small promises

spring is not gone yet

he could still come

there is one sapling left

carrying green like a flag 

that she builds her army of hope around

marshalling her dreams to protect it

from the raging fire of orange and yellow

burning through the forest

the sunset blazes through the trees

turning the leaves in the wind

to its own golden tone

and she closed her eyes

to hold back the the sea

that raged at her last hope stolen

she opened her eyes to the snap 

of the twigs laid along the path way

taking her spear to raise the alarm

she turned to watch for the enemy

the spear is broken

the wall breached

the door abandoned

the watch forgotten

spring has come again

in the eyes of the warrior 

standing with his wounded arm wrapped

around his woman who waited

winter is nothing now.

the girl at gethsemene

you came to me in an eclipsed world

where the memory of the sun

still burnt but faded

turned under the weight of years

into a fantastic thing, a child tale

a dream talk and a fool's hope

you came in the greys of the day

like a neighbor who has been traveling 

far beyond the arm of the familiar

and so I recognized you and did not

for behind the face of the next door over

beat the strangeness and it was hungry

for me and i for it

but afraid because it was so strong

and burnt in your eyes like a passion

it flooded your skin and arced through your movements

and the tastes of it i found

in the words from your tongue

were sweet and bitter

stinging my tongue with its bristling courage

and soothing it again in its glow

and how hungry i was for it

for the whole from which your words flowed

i could be content no more with the fruit

but must have the seed myself

you were so hungry to give it

that once reaching out my hand you took it

and carried me across the grey streets

up the grey mountains along the grey streams

i was not tired carried as i was

and upon the mountaintop you set me down

i was crying for the hunger

the need you had awakened in me

you stood tall upon the mountain top

and carful as Atlas beneath the earth

spread your arms wide and cried out

and the sun came bursting through

an explosive wave that struck like a shout

sweeping through me and carrying me away

lighting me up through my skin

you gave me the world as it should be

as it once was

i have tasted this love and it is good

the risks

aren't you afraid

one of these days

you two will wake up like strangers

you'll ask him his name

hell ask you the same

you'll forget to ask where you came from

you'll get out of bed

with the thought in your head

i wonder if he's any danger

he'll go back to sleep

like a secret you'll keep

and you'll choose to call it a home

aren't you afraid

it'll all pass this way

with the life you live dreaming not waking

well it all could come true 

though its frightening to you

that's a risk i'm okay with taking

and so she stood at the door

and i asked her no more

but gave her a kiss for her leaving

my true love is gone

to risk at someone

and i am alone left to grieve her

aren't you afraid

one of these days

you'll wake like a stranger

in stopping too low

and speaking too slow

dreaming is always a danger

the watch.

the wall sentry has left his post

has abandoned it with his spear in his hand

left the looking to the trees

which send their young saplings creeping up

through the razed area like lithe spears

each sharp-tipped with green

the shifts are changed

the empty wall climbed again

and the child who was young

when it was built is young no more

she stands with the wind bending

her long hair around her

watching the forest grow

how the watch stretches on

from the dusk into the dawn

and still she stands there

waiting for the shadows to waver

to bend and blur in their surrender

to release her man 

with her eyes she plans to steal him

back from the wilderness

the sentry stands strong

her hand to her spear

waiting for the next dawn

for her warrior to appear

song.

i found you amidst the green

the long grass around you and the dropping vines

and your eyes too were clean

and i took you and with my hands i fed you

with the food which i had made 

to call you from yourself and to me

you ate and you listened to the song

following with long steps back

through the trees and grass

and i brought you to the circle of my home

with each red fire glowing by the door

showing you the space that was left

you took your hands and dug

pulling up in great strokes the earth

and packed it into straight lines

you built for me a house 

standing with it done before me

covered in the dirt of your labour

and you were brown all over

with the streaks of earth 

against your skin like cloth

i brought the coals still warm

from the house of my mother

and placed them in the heart of the house

you fed them wood 

new wood from your hand

and then it was done

then it was begun

the monsoons came.

it was the grass that gave you away

the change in its whispering whipping against itself

each slender blade flagellating the other

in this dance that makes sounds like blood

that sprays lightly above their pointed ends

and suddenly the sound changed

the grass beating against your legs

turning into a tap, a rhythm rather than a rant

as though it was confused

in the midst of its frenzy to find opposition

and like a woman instead of turning on you

for standing in the midst of its worship

merely turned its worship to you

and that's how I saw you first

standing there with the grass wrapping around you

twisting up and along the lines your skin made against the dusk

white streaks in the shadow

soon blurred beneath the green

and you didn't say a word

just stood there waiting, watching

as though the sight of me adrift in the mud

was a casual common thing

so i stood too letting the black drip

drawing its own lines against my skin

it had not rained in so long.

it has been so long since i have seen you.

you lit a cigarette and offered me a hand

so I took it and climbed out crushing the grass beneath my feet

and we walked away

leaving the grass to begin again

singing its whipping song in the dusk

Vertigo

i wake up tasting the stale air

of my thousand dreams before

the dislocated dizziness of that gap

between where i am and where i am

the places of my tenuous grasp

drag me here and drag me there and the potential is huge

waiting to snap like a muffled gasp

the only evidence of a small sharp pain

i cannot explain what it means to be lost

somewhere between my skin and my soul

and to go in through one door and out the other

an interchanged transient

on a faulty transistor radio

trying to pick up a signal

a homing beacon to draw me back from these grey seas

that whirl like clouds above me and i do not know

if i am flying or drowning

but only that i'm wet all over

and i do not know do not know do not know

and i do not....the static cuts in again

and theres nothing but a strain of bagpipes 

turning and turning again

if i should fall from grace with God

if i should fall

if i should fall from grace

i wake up from my dream

of the plane falling from the sky to the sea

and for a moment i don't realize

the salt water is all mine

Twitches and Transformations

and when she talks i picture small loose threads

popping like strands of hair in the humidity

 from the tight red rim of her ponytail holder

small loose threads bursting from her lips

the ones that appear at the corners of buttonholes

thrust into the air from the constant twitch

the nervous force with which she shoves her buttons

like anxious, too fast words

in and out again 

like a magician trick 

invisible and then not again

holding herself together and then unhooked

left to fall apart in front of the watching world

and sometimes i don't think she notices

the way she throws herself vulnerable 

in between sentences but that rather its a habit

the way she runs her thumb along the cuff of her sleeve

and every time she meets the button 

flicks it in and out like a small irritation

a symbolic constraint that restrains and contains

and she won't break free for more than a moment

but for that moment she can breathe

thats what i think when i watch her speak

chewing on the corner of her lip between breaths

telling me her secrets under the cover of the weather

and how lovely it is today

one day the buttons will burst loose 

the magician will reveal his tricks

and the world will watch her turn invincible

At last.

I'll throw my two cents in

pay the river toll

and from this bank of styx

I'll cross my Rubicon

standing on the bow 

i choose this passage for myself

like prophecy or fate

but taking instead the mantle

of the wolf for its loneliness

and the single cry

that no one understands

but fears nonetheless

with the primal shivers 

that shakes them down from 

indivisible numbers

into the loneliest one

and then we together are alone

in this wide grey shore

Dido and I again 

one by fire

two by sea

and so we'll stand together

on the Styx's far shore

Sunny.Meili

i lift my glass to you

and you to me

finding comfort through

the distance

and seeing you from so far away

makes the stranger at the table

next to me seem farther still

a foreign thing who may sit

but cannot understand the swell of secrets

that i throw and you catch

as a matter of fact, and fiction

and the weight is sometimes the same

because we don't always dream first

but sometimes live

and later dream of the time that was.

and how it was to be with you

in the morning with your smile not awake yet

but stretching across your face

in an attempt towards altertness

and how we laughed as you stumbled across the room

to find the tea i had already made

knowing, as we do, the answer before the question

and the questions that don't have answers

but are answered all the same

with this, and we are happy,

i love you. forever.

so raise your glass to me

and i'll raise mine to you

and we'll stare through the screen

this time, next year?

i'll be here.

Sojourn through the sea.

when i was standing in the sea

i watched the horizon

and imagined it bending and bending again

an eternal enigma, the final joy

to reach and discover that this indeed

is the end

the final frontier

i watched and lost the sand beneath my toes

with the tide sliding around me 

the wind's liquid cousin

in the midst of it was something else

that pushed against my legs as against an intruder

and gave in the face of my firm flesh

but surrendered under duress and with protest

i looked and it was clear through

a plastic bag of the sort that mothers slide sandwiches into

and that are discarded in the midst of the sand and sun and freedom

it had wrapped itself with its open mouth

around a small portion of sea and then sliding shut

with its red zipper of a tongue

claimed it as its own and set it apart

i was amazed at this

a creature of identity so clearly defined

this then is me and this other

it is not

water in the midst of water

yet set apart

and suddenly i was afraid

for what i was and was not

a thin skinned bag of water 

in the wide sea of waves

in the hungry sea of others just like me

stumbling and standing and swimming

against these things not us 

and by running into them finding that indeed

they define us

they define me

and suddenly i am unsure of my skin

this wrinkled sheet that stretched so taut 

once

and now shrugs across my stiff insides

like an old habit long bereft of meaning

i wonder if it too is transparent

if for the others wandering the stretch

my coiled sprawling insides show through

a mess of unclarity 

a semi-system of insecurity and sureties 

how terrible to be revealed and unsure

to be caught in the act of identity

and at the crucial moment

the final horizon

to fail

i stepped from the sea 

at the end i plan to stand

upon my brave craft weary and worn

and quiet with courage 

answer this.

who are you?

Summer Souls

it was you

you who of all people

could sing a lightning bug into a star

bend your magic around and around its glow

its wavering steady dance

until i, enraptured, watch the summer bugs 

flit amongst the tall grass

like an astronomer with a new universe

and i am struck with hunger 

to understand it all

and in the second blow awe

in the face of all I could not see

and still you sat there

 humming against your blade of grass

like a mountain, or cloud, a thing unaware

of its strength or size or power

while beside you i got twisted in the warm air

turned and melted and shaped

i died and was reborn

taking my first breath along with the dawn

the first dawn, if ever there was one,

and realizing the scope of this new universe

i dared to name it

i called it love.

nimue

sometimes i suspect that just after the dark of night-

i am most suspicious in the dark

it is when i am most awake, and most afraid

because i cannot see you

and you cannot see my fragility

the thing i sometimes think holds you to me

more than anything

and so you, being so clever and young, wait

till the beginnings of light lull me into the half-sleep

that i wake angrily out of because it is the mark of the old-

i suspect that is when you do it

take each of my careful brushes with their slender spokes

and spin them gaily in your slim hands

dipping voraciously with all the hunger in your swelling soul

into my thousands shades of oil

smudging your mouth with charcoal 

 coating your hair in the soft pastels

and laughing, laughing like the hungry wild thing you are

at the thought that all of this could ever be denied you

that anyone could cut you off from the heat of your desire

with your starving need you wait and wait and then

in a blast of shaking speed vanish and reappear

beside my chair proper and pale when i awake

wheezing with the angry indignity of age that robbed my hands

of their steady pace and my eyes of  their open strength

you are quiet but i can hear the tantalized joy thrumming

beating through the hollow in your throat

and i know one day soon those small hours will not be enough

that your hunger will take you by your willowy throat

and you'll do the unthinkable

I'll die easily,

i know what it is to be dragged by destiny

and to be starved for your right place in this world

I suspect what you do in the hours after dark

but i do not stop you 

even with your slender hands descending

and the silent pillow encroaching upon what is left

of my feeble spirit and flickering genius

i'll smother under the weight of this fate

i love you. and i knew it would come to this.

daisy dear.

she plans to steal a million

what

a million atoms 

a million dreams

a million things she doesn't need

she tells me this on the porch

with her tongue twisting languidly

over and around the red cherry stem

she has the art of collapse

someway of disconnecting all the corners

in her body so she simply flows

over the chaise like an extension of her white dress

or perhaps the dress is an extension of her milky skin

and therein lies the answer 

she is the ex of all tension

the loose strand that this rushing world forgot

to bind up in its weave of stress and crush

and watching her here in the southern shadows

i begin to believe her 

that this limp form holds within her

all the latent force the world forgot

focused now on twisting the cherry stem

that stains her red mouth against her blanched face

it emerges a delicate knot

tied in against itself holding nothing but air

and i suggest a different prey 

realizing with my reaching even that i am lost

she reaches her hand to the notches along the wall

and notes

478,908,

a million hearts will do.

sojourner

i'm tracking my travels across the map

with small red pins

that bend when pushed like willows

and snap back to attention

my crackling soldiers practicing the art of piercing 

as they march across this outspread page

and one by one they punch

their sharp metal spears into the resisting cork

that sticks and then with a pop

peels away allowing this foreign invasion

these shining soldiers waving their red flag

and i am the grand generalissimo 

with the wave and thrust of my hand

i throw myself across the lines and colour blocks

and inject some portion of me into the taste of these cities

these black dots that infect the map

like some pustulating rash, 

the result of a pestilent disease

and here i place myself in the midst of it

and walk about with my mouth open

my arms stretched wide and hoping

to catch some of the scent of these places

in my secret crevices to carry away

a stolen treasure, an heirloom of national importance

and they'd never know

such a silent thief i would be

leaving as my only evidence 

the stiff red pinhead 

planted firmly  

pricking the pustule

and let the pus bleed out

the disappointment poisons the skyline

swells in thick milky waves till the whole place drowns

and i keep walking 

leaving the waste to fill my footprints

in one of these cities one of these days

i'll find you and finally hang this map

on the wall of one house and leave it

we'll heal the city

a slip of the tongue.

i woke up today with a mouth that stung

the corners of my mouth were raw

my lips swollen and sore

my tongue found the marks my teeth had left

and tasted the rusty salt

that comes from blood and tears

i'm tired of telling my secrets in my sleep

sick of letting slip the things i hid

to make silence worthwhile

its what i do when we sit next to each other

and don't say a thing

i practice not telling you 

all the things you don't know about me

i line them up neatly in my head

i'm afraid of thunder 

because of the way it shakes my bones inside of me

like the windows in a house

and reminds me how easily they shatter

I buy people i hardly know christmas gifts

and hide them around the house

so i don't have to give them

just know that i have them 

i kept the note you gave me wrapped around

a piece of dark flavoured magic

you promised would protect me from the night

like a treasure tucked away

i touch my lip carefully

watching the swelling dip beneath its weight

in my mirror thats speckled and stained

wondering if its worth it

every night accumulating these scars

just in case you learn

the secret of my silent smile

when we sit next to each other

and say nothing at all

one day 

when you're kissing me

i'll whisper, i'll ask you

can you keep a secret

and you'll say yes

you always do to whatever i ask

and i'll laugh and stay quiet

later you'll ask what i meant

what i was going to say-

so can i. 

by the way i don't love you.

children's codes for grownup games

i've been thinking about these

x's and o's

rearranging them in my mind

pulling them off that page

with their fuzzy lines

from your pen that always

leaks too much ink

your pockets are spotted with it

but its your favorite 

so i don't mention anymore

if i drop these letters in a grid

make them stand up straight

place them in orderly lines

maybe i'll have a better chance at overcoming them

these three x's 

the three impossible challenges

the woodcutter's son emptying the castle of bread

the miller's girl turning straw to golden thread 

the nobody's child sneaking her way inside your head

The first kiss

I wanted you.

The second kiss.

I was yours.

The third kiss. (oh triumph!)

You were mine.

three black strikes with a line struck through

it was tic tac toe and i love you.

Careful of the Antiques

she sat down to dust them last

as always, using their fragility

as an excuse to catch her breath

it seemed they gathered more figurines

vases and silver bells and useless things

every year and the dusting stretched

longer and longer every monday

but then tomorrow was tuesday

and scrubbing the marble floors was easiest

by far with her new brush that twirled for her

all she had to do was guide it

of course there was still the three floors of it

and the carpets to beat 

but it was the simplest by far

not much longer till then she sighed

and then the bells began

one after another with their rushing rings

pushing her up and along the hall

to see what it was they wanted again

last time they rung this loud it was a crown

with a prince thrown in

but that was half a lifetime ago

Cinderella set the slippers down again

they were far too fragile to dance in

The ritual before dreaming.

she would need a new brush soon

forty-eight, forty-nine

it was remarkable how soon they wore through

fifty-one, fifty-two

they made them better, in the old days

fifty-four, fifty-five

with the silver handles and thick bristles

fifty-seven, fifty-eight

none of this plastic nonsense

sixty, sixty-one

so light she sometimes forgot it was in her hand

sixty-four, sixty-five

and the flimsy pegs that fell out at the slightest tangle

sixty-seven, sixty-eight

how strange that my arms grow tired now

seventy, seventy-one

with this same old labour

seventy-four, seventy-five

and yet they are stiff and slow

seventy-eight, seventy-nine

and these poor fingers curl so awkwardly

eighty-one, eighty-two

around the smooth handles

eighty-four, eighty-five

how ugly they are and they used to be so smooth

eighty-seven, eighty-eight

oh well, such is the way of the world

eighty-nine, ninety

or as much of it as i know

ninety-one

the witches hands, hers too grew feeble,

ninety-two, ninety three

gnarled and arthritic they could not grasp

ninety-four, ninety-five

and her swollen wobbling arms lost strength

ninety-six, ninety-seven

till she could climb no more

ninety-eight

and so i have been alone these many years

ninety-nine

waiting with nothing to do but this

one hundred

and done.

Rapunzel laid her brush aside

and began to braid her silver hair.

Patience

i love the way you wait

with your fingertips just against the air

thats just against mine

and if i didn't know i never would

but i do

and it makes me smile

and the smile stretches all the way to my toes

making me larger

a growing thing 

full of strength and wellness 

and suddenly its your fingers

against my fingers

and we are waiting for no one

Tropical Hideaway

they complain about the records number

tell me its not the heat..

its the humidity

and i nod, i agree

and they wondered why anyone,

looking at me

would want to move to this tropical misery

and i shrug and don't say a word

about i have not yet had to

put on a coat

my thick wool coat

that traps scent like treasure

and saves it away for snowy days

it still smells of you

of your hand at my waist

of your arm across my shoulder

of safety and silence and the strength under your skin

and i cannot bear to put it on 

without your fingers adjusting the collar

pulling my loose curl and putting it back

worse than that i cannot take it off

face the world without your warmth around me

lose the scent of you in the cutting cold air

and shut the door to my empty house behind me

letting all the cold air in.

They say only a fugitive would choose texas in the summer

choosing between it and hell

and they ask me what I'm running from.

a coat and an empty closet

next to mine.

and they were embarrassed to see me cry.

isaac missed the point.

This time it is the loveseat

its wooden claws curled in upon themselves

and i laugh to see the way it seems to fight

against the indignity of the dirt

the dust that curls up around it

like a lover's touch sinking gently

into each curve, each carved curl

it may be stubborn in its shine

such a proper Victoria

with her straight back and sloping arms

and how the upholstery tucks in tight

leaving no seam visible, as is right of course

This is why I chose it today

to push it, quietly protesting,

out the silent sitting room and down the stairs

with a bump that would have shocked her

but what did I care

so here it sits

drawn up in itself

in the middle of this flat expanse

they politely call a yard

and I call a desert, a weak piddling excuse for it

but a desert nonetheless

and here I leave it to retreat to the porch

the storm breaks like judgement

splattering across the tight fabric

like machine gun fire

and I wait laughing

when the lightning hits I am not surprised

the gods have taken my offering in the spirit it was given

piece by piece I accept this destruction

moment by moment they steal my genes from me

and when the last knot comes undone

the lightning will come

They say the old dear is crazy...

i've hidden it in the umbrella stand

with its silver hook of a handle

carefully dented and dinged

and a careless raintarp half dropped over it

no one will notice

organization is not my gift

and this fault conceals many others

how easy it is to conceal a deadly sin

behind a minor character flaw

that you may gently mock at dinner parties

and having had your audience applaud

with quiet smiles and the faintest hint of laughter

muffled in the pressed cloth napkins

and the hairspray designed to be invisible, but strong

one day i'll learn its trick 

and hold my shape against the wind and rain and questing fingers

looking for all the world as though this

the graceful curl of my being

was how i was born to be

and no one will question my perfection

because after all, we all know, she's a little untidy

and we'll all be safe again because the balance was restored

all this perfect grace against the books left on the counter

and we allow her these little flaws,

or do i allow them

to find some safety in my vulnerability

what a weakness, to leave possessions scattered

as though they have no tie upon me

the wise ones see a sort of strength in it

a slightly twisted secret.

like the one i keep in my umbrella stand

with its shine a little spotted here and there

I smile and comment,

but the stains! they are so difficult to remove.

And really, who wants to bother

scrubbing away all that blood.

Ender.

they say the world is divided

into two parties if you please

the leaders 

and the led

the action

and the reaction

and then me

i have chosen to stand

not for something

nor against something

not in protest

nor acclamation

just to stand and be still

to watch

and not be seen

this was my choice

my voluntary exile from the divided world

my single pride in not leading astray

my single fear in having none to follow

but in standing I too am single

a single shadow amidst the flux of waves

a single voice

whose silence is a gift 

only to herself

and when speaking

steals no thought from any

this is my prison and my freedom

to need nothing and have nothing need me

what triumph!

in this divided world.

to be whole. and alone.

Imagine my horror

when behind me i find

a thousand others

standing

to see what i see

a pointless leader.

a lost follower

another piece of the crowd

that shoves like a menagerie

to practice silence

and loneliness.

i have ruined the world.

a dream, a vision, a future.

today you fell asleep against me

I didn't see it happen

but felt my heartbeat slow

my breathing change its rhythm to yours

and with a sudden swell of feeling i turned

 carefully, so as not to dislodge your head

against my shoulder

and watched your face soften

with your small breaths so steady and quiet

and in the midst of your sleep

you smiled

at that point i realized

i could do this

i could trade my aching independence 

my fear of manipulation

my single cereal bowl and disorderly books

all of what i understand myself to be

for this

to watch you sleep

with your hand swallowing mine.

Freedom and Fetters

if you, questing eye that you are,

were to take your gentle hands

and carefully scoop out

 like a fruit with a quick twist of the wrist

my insides

do it swiftly 

in one motion if you please

and then let them slide

into that large crystal bowl

your mother uses on special occasions

careful not to spill

but here, look here

these strings of shadow 

they hold everything together

but right here

inbetween the heart and the throat

there is a giant knot

a tangle of epic proportions

that even Alexander would pause for a moment at

you could emulate his method

and with a word or merely a swinging door

could slice the tangle in two

and i wait

but then with your gentle hands you begin

with small tugs and quiet words

to untie my burden

at the end with a gulping gasp 

i could finally say

I love you

and with those words

i tie myself to you

and will not touch the knot

Lost in a Lotus.

You have found children in the supermarket

lost of course

it is a common thing

to see them watching the end of the aisle

for a familiar waist

what a way to see the world

from belt buckle down

and how still they stand

tensing at each shadow that bends

around the shelved corner

because they know most likely

they are to blame for this tightening fear

but they'd take the punishment

the stern look the quick reproach

if only to find the one who knows their name

to use it in an exasperated sigh

you've seen the lost children 

in the supermarket

everyone has

I walk the streets quietly

waiting for you to turn a corner

and with your stiff voice tell me

"There you are.

Don't you ever do that again."

i will promise. never again.

A stranger saviour.

An old man stopped me on the street

to ask about my hat

but that is not what he wanted to speak of

he wanted to tell me a story

a grand tale of who he was

and what that meant

to find in the explanation to a stranger

a new vindication of identity

He was eager to speak

and slow to stop, sure that this

was my desire as well

to hear of him and his life

with its great arc and flair

I nodded and smiled

agreeing

that a life like that

was worth telling, worth celebrating

and that I ,strange girl on the sidewalk,

understood

we parted to cross the streets

at 90 degree angles

with mutual gifts

He had given me a story

and i gave him a smile

How strangers may save each other.

science explains the soul

"Do you know,"

she asked me once

with that crisp tone which means

she plans to impart some practical piece of science

in order to pin my flighty mind to earth,

"how we see things?

What we percieve in the way of colour

is actually a result of reflection,

rejection you might say.

It means that the object has absorbed

all the other colours but

for some reason, refuses entrance to this

and so it invites its way

into our eyes and we see the door

for example, as red.

"Even colours hate to be homeless." I comment.

This is not what she wanted 

and so she tries again

to inform and instruct

and with such information indicate my own distance

from the world of real, as she calls it.

"We see shapes in this way too.

Processing through lack as much as presence.

Occasionally a line exists not because it is there

but because there is nothing thrust between two somethings

I nodded.

She wanted to see if I understood.

"So, if you looked at him

you would see me."

I thought. 

"And love is a line because it appears 

to exist when there is really nothing between two someones."

She threw her hands in the air

and abandoned me 

to chocolates and black and white movies.

She did not hear me say-

"I thought love was a circle but it seems

the shortest distance between two disappointments-

the first is being alone

and the second is like it. only lonelier.

So i suppose a line is fitting."

nuns and nudity.

I wonder about these saints

with their large dark eyes

and ever accompanying light.

It shocks me how they sit

so still, so composed

with their flagrant exposure

a curve a line a dot

and a swatch of cloth hanging forgotten

off their serene shoulders

lit in the light of their holiness

In the street I would turn away

attempt to minimize their shame

by covering them with my eyelids

drawing darkness over them like modesty

and yet they do not mind

they sit smiling the faint smile of the vindicated, the irreproachable

and i wonder if this is what it means to be a saint

to lose so much of humanity

that they may sit revealed

not as women, but mere flesh

wrapped around their secret being

something so foreign that to come close to it

these painters in their desperate courage

must strip them of all else but their glowing skin.

Reflection

I have seen you everywhere today

in the tense quiet face of the Western man

in leather clinging to the swinging reins

as his fall and his enemies place him

beyond all surgery

in the bronze boy stretched to his toes

with every small muscle taut and 

his quick ribcage tight against his skin 

as his stretching wings create for him a new shadow

and place it far from him

in the weary Greek boy just pushed into manhood

against the whitewashed expanse  of wall

clutching his stomach through his rough robe

as though his heart had broken

and he could not place the pain

in the crouching Hercules

with lion paws dangling from his cloak 

that cushions only slightly

the weight of the wide rimmed world

that creaks above him like an anchor

in the rounded suggestion of a man

reaching in his dusty red coat

for the hand of a woman who will not  reach back

he has no eyes to see

in the hard strong man who stands firm

determined against the pushing shadow

and against the weight of the crushing crowd

behind him, his family,

he supports his soft too-round wife

with the mere touch

of his elbow against her fingertips

I have seen you everywhere today

and in everyman

You have been old and young,

full of strength and sapped by fear.

The center and the shadow.

I have seen you in the staring child

who over his mothers shoulder

reproaches the world 

for the thought of separation, of loss

and i have seen you in the neat folded hands

and covered feet that the shadow stretches across

even as the shadow has already stolen away

the light from his lighted eyes. 

I have seen you triumphant, failed, 

a familiar face and a stranger.

I have seen you everywhere today

I have not seen you for three months, twelve days, and eight hours.

What a thief love is.

Plaza.

i found a photo of you 

hanging in its white frame

on the white wall

i know it is you because of how you sit

against your black chair

strong as if against a horse

that will obey if led

but strains against the ground, like a personal offense

I do not know the woman pushing you

her white uniform erases her

rendering her nothing but a shadow of sorts

the hidden engine of which we do not think

while driving our quiet stretches

I only see you, strong as always

on that debris littered field

and the shadow that stretches its hand

out towards you , like a greeting

from too far to yell and so we wave

and wave again

showing how strong

our young arms are

against the encroaching autumn

and you say nothing but sit

silent and strong across the unlevel ground

under the shadow of the marble Caesar

who raises his arm in salute.

We are one, we two, he says

strong and silent with the world, 

waiting to be led, beneath us

and white time pushing us

invisible and steady

towards our known end.

We go in strength.

Memori

the day of my death

i did three things

three things for you to remember

to remind you why we used our special pronoun

us

i organized the icecream in the freezer

in neat stacks

with their pint sized labels 

slid to the side so you couldn't read them

without squinting

and then i labeled them

the way you eat them.

"two in the morning-you can finish that paper"

on the double dutch chocolate

"life is still simple-look how you made it today!"

on the cookies and cream

"go buy more icecream. you hate this"

on the vanilla that neither of us eat.

 

i bought you a printer's worth

of photo paper

and three cartridges of ink

and eight scrapbooks

because you hate looking at computers

for too long

and kodak employees make you nervous

the way they flip through

your private moments to kill time

also a good black pen

to write notations without bleeding through

or splotching the page

which irritates you to no end

i underlined all the quotes

in my favorite book

that remind me of you

even though i know you insist

that you are nothing like him

that wild eyed rochester

with his heavy hand and stabbing wit

but still i insist with your careful love

your quick anger when i hobble myself

and your roaring declaration

that the world may stand against 

but i will be yours. and only. forever

rings through these pages too

i tuck it under your pillow 

i do these three things

on the day of my death

to comfort you, to remind you,

because this is the unspeakable crime

to divide us into i

and you, left behind

but remember this.

i will be yours. and only yours. forever.

on the day of my death

i do three things for you

and then one more

for me, and me only,

i watch the sunset quiet in my chair

and i do not call you

to say goodbye

i know you know i love you.

and i cannot say goodbye.

close the door behind you.

i opened the door to your room today

i just opened it.

there was no preparation

not a deep breath before

or a stiffened wrist to reach 

i stepped inside

your empty room

stepped past where your bed was

instinctively avoided the pile that always grew

to the right of your window

and adjust the curtains

i haven't changed them yet

i suppose i will

it would make a good library

this room that was yours

i walked into your room yesterday

and i realized it was my house again

all of it

Why I fear Asher Lev

I have written that he writes of revolution. and that is true

but he also writes of redemption, of the giving of the secret to repay the past.

This understanding strikes second, always second, after the clarion trumpets of the revolution have echoed into dusk, into dust. 

It comes after the ties have been broken, the chains shattered, and the very language of the oppressive truth forgotten.

It comes slowly, tasting of guilt first and then a bitter nostalgia.

How this redemption grows- in dreams, in sorrow, in the places where the wounds and wounded have died and forbear to walk again. 

Yet this is what he writes, He writes a resurrection.

The revolution is done.

It was strong and it may have been right but it is no more.

The redemption must come, coiling amidst the thoughts of the rebels, reminding them.

The reminder that spring is not the wealth of the world but summer-summer when the death has come and age has brought beauty again.

 How could they, revolutionaries that they are, ever escape the wealth that they were searching for, the burning strength that drove them away and draws them back so inexorably?

He writes of redemption but there is no mercy. 

This is a restitution, a repaying of wrongs, a righting of what was fallen and in it there is no grace. There is inevitability. 

So the story swells and so it always will for the root is in the ground and must always be so. No matter how the spindling seed may fly, swept away in the wind, that grasping gasping freedom, it must return to earth. It must make peace with the ground and so too these rebels, these revolutionaries, they must return, unwilling perhaps and grudging, but they return to the secret strength of their parents, the solid light that they fought against envelopes them and too their children.

This is the sacrifice,the peace offering, they must make-found in the faces of their children.

Their children who know only of freedom what we have taught them and only of fear what we have feared. 

How then to return to the place we have feared and say- 'freedom'. 

How to turn back on the far place to which we ran and point- 'fear'.

Yet this is what we must do upon our faces and hearts to rewrite the revolution-to be redeemed.

This is retribution, it is restitution that we surrender to truth and in our turn watch our children tear away from it hungry and angry.

For the wrongs we have given such sorrow we receive.

But this is right and fair and as we fall in the glaring truth so greedy for our solitary surrender we learn what it was to be left when we, the hungry and angry, led away the hopes of the old in captivity.

We learn then the truth of a revolution- a point on a circle must always return.

He teaches us this. and leaves us to grow.

Why I read Asher Lev jealously.

he writes a revolution every time

a revolution from something that may not be wrong, a revolution against something that may be right.

but regardless must be revolted against

because it is sure, so sure, of its own rightness

and how, how, can humanity bear that insufferable rightness

that intrinsic selfcontained orientation that declares all other compasses worse than obselete, it declares them nonsensical, irrelevant, nonexistent

they cannot and so build hate against it, sneak small weaknesses out under the curtain of our eyelids and then when free from the blaring glaring rightness of it all build the weaknesses into tragic flaws

into bitter breaking antiques of old answers held together by that most dirty of all religious words

fanaticism

the dirt of that word shocks the modern word, the blaise, unshockable world looks away in shame from this, unspeakable

the crime of the fanatic, the prosolyte, the believer without an advocate

because he simply believes that his rightness will prevail

and so we dirty it. we throw cynicism and charm at it, we pollute it with clever denigrations and attempt with wit to throw it enough in the filth that we may look at it

and in the midst of it there is a blazing confusion from the believer, that irreproachable inapproachable fanatic,

a confusion all the more irritating because it is mixed with a sort of distant pity pointed at us with our dirty hands

and there he stands with his glory of correct belief above us watching us with our sneering terrified faces trying to pull him down

and he wonders what we think, why we think that the fraility of man means anything against this immovable force that will noe be corrected, that will not be reproved, that will not even deign to be proved. but only is. and will be.

and so he stands and he falls and is covered in the mud, the soles of our filthy shoes, the gritty ink of our trashy newspapers commenting obliquely on the quaint traditions of these fools, these antique fools, amusing only as long as they are weak

and we become tired and wander away, unfulfilled

because though the man is broken and tattered and torn

that blazing truth sits like cement unable to be shifted

that is chaim potok

the swelling circle.

today i found

under the fragile skin

stretched across my wrist

blue veins

popping

creating swelling hills against

the smooth plane that was there before

like rivers rushing with the winter melt

they spring from some unknown site

deep beneath the silent skin

that curves to keep it secret

they terrify me

these vulnerable veins

so close to the dangerous air

the years have pushed them there

have thrust me farther and farther into the strange

the snapping unknown

and soon there will be no where farther for them to go

they will burst with their blue grace

and i will be old and bleeding

all of the risks i never took

out in a blue flood until the world blurs

soflty into a place of safety

for a moment

and then i am gone

into another unknown.

the small loves are broken.

knock knock tap

i beat a secret rhythm against the green wall

waiting for you to answer back

my world swells in this spring rain

stretching corner to corner

transforming these stiff walls 

into sloping curves flexing 

under the weight of this bounty

and i rest my cheek against the green

feeling the thrumming beat

enter my skin and tingle

like the last note of a lullaby

the sudden thud shocks me

pulling me from my reverie

as i realize you are leaning

on the other side of the wall

listening to the world breathe

the same as me

then comes the tearing

the shrieking shredding as i fall to the floor

watching the wealth of the world bleed away

 in great clear drops into infinity

you are left behind.

look my love, i plucked this flower for you.

careful of the sap. 

I fall for infomercials.

You’re selling glass for diamonds

And I’m the type who’s buying

Because in this rush for wealth

I’m just a fool’s gold miner

I love to take your rubble

And I’ll thank you for your trouble

How you’ve made it sparkle and shine

I make it worth your time

In this world of cheap dives

I’m buying pretty lies

You get what you pay for

I believe you’re worth more

each time I'm left with a hand

full of shattered glass

I bleed it off and stand

swearing you will be my last

love for nothing

love for cheap

love leaves me bleeding

on my weary feet.

i stare into the mirrors every morning

trying to catch the reflections in my eyes

cementing them in there 

to give me an appearance of depth

when you peer into them

look for the real me

and i present myself

with these faces layered upon each other

to give the illusion of growth

these outfits fanned out in display

illustrating my richness of character

Alas Apollo's Gift Postscripted.

I warn you

do not dare to continue

to ignore me.

I will teach you

ignorance

is far from bliss.

It is the ignorant who ignore warnings.

Poets and prophets know something of wisdom.

They know to ignore, is to imperil the soul.

In Which I Acknowledge My Literary Debts.

I'm here to tell you nothing

that you haven't heard before

a thousand times or two

I've read you the prologue

you've memorized the epilogue

from the introduction

to the grand reveal

I've shown you the script

You've untied the knots 

of this denouement 

and could quote the ending

in your sleep

There is only one thing left

to tell you, or for you to learn.

Let us turn to the Acknowledgements.

Here under inspiration for this tragic drama

we find,what a delicious twist, your name

thank you, dear muse,

for teaching me the art of bitterness.

and the power of ignorance.

Today I will be presenting: Disillusion

hello...

helllllo-(is this on?)

OH Hello.

Yes excuse me

...so sorry to interrupt

but if i may?

I just wanted to say-

quiet down please-

that,well, if you don't mind

that-ihatethewayyouignoremealmostasmuchasihatethefactthatineedyou.

I beg your pardon 

for the interruption.

Thank you for your time.

I'll just be...going now...

The talent judges all agreed

it was the strangest act they'd ever seen.

They thanked her for her time

but one of them muttered

does she know that poem didn't even rhyme?

what sort of illusionist does she think

she is, with that...

but they couldnt remember what she looked like

no one could.