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