Sunday, February 28, 2010

Sorrow like a Jungle Grows

You speak to me with all of the tepid haste
that this jungle setting implies
as though the sounds were as sticky as this air
and that the effort of forcing them
through layers of green grey shadows
is more than this moment is worth
I wonder how much it is worth
these scattered segments of a day
that drift in and out of your consciousness
like a handful of orchid petals along the water
how lovely and o they are gone.
So are you --melting in this heat
another shadow lost amongst the trees.
You have all the steady grace of the sloth
startling not in how you move
but that you do
You have been still so long
I had forgotten what it was to see
the length of your arms as they slide through the air
the calm of your eyes as you think and then act.

I still am surprised when you are gone.
What a slow thing grief is.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Winter.

These are the days when dreams lie fallow
cut and buried under the weight of the field
burnt close to the roots and left alone
concealed beneath a curtain of ash
Walk on and forget all this that has passed.


Today?

At some point I have become a camel
storing up memories beneath my skin
swaying across these long desert roads
with these silent feet of mine
padding a hidden rhythm day by day
with these illusions drawn long over my eyes
lashes to protect me from this burning sand
and long and lonely the distance grows
between these moments I may save as strength
but still I journey on

At some point I have become a camel
and the sky a sliding stack of straw
piled high upon my swaying back.
Your voice drifts in upon the wind.

and CRACK.
I am broken, back and all

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

What A Web He Weaves

Still the spider string clings to my skin
spanning my wrists in a slender chain
and the light sticks to it
making it shine silver.
How it glows, it glows!

They swing slowly
the slightest of bonds
the softest of shackles
but I am bound and o!
How it burns, it burns!

Of what a little thing this pain
a look, a thought, an absent word
and I am tied again
a silent sacrifice and willing
How I love, I love!

Home Again

Come along the wall.
Walk beneath the trees
who have stripped themselves
of their gaudy leaves
leaving them loose to drift
in casual piles about their rooted feet
and slipped on the silver moonlight
which clings like silk to their long limbs.
Come across the stumbled stones
that lay rounded over the earth.
Use them like steps-
Up up and away!
Come along and hurry,
The winter moon is waning.
O love I have been waiting
so long.

Dead of Night

Slow the saviour comes
ringing his lonely bell
but the hour is late
and we each alone
have curled into our corners
that give a shallow protection
from this sharp-edged world
and have climbed into a sort of slumber
The bell rings
again and again
with its brass voice beckoning
bending beneath the branches
of each wild-armed tree
and bringing the echoes back again
but no one stirred
I heard you in the cavern that comes
between the day and the dream
but the bell could not bring me back.
I am too deeply gone

Slow the saviour comes
and late the hour
The night is already deep
and I am deep in it

Ring on bell ring on
I dreamt I heard you ringing.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

The Reveal.

Skin of mine
how easily you stretch
swelling day by day

One day I'll tell you what I mean
when I stop and stand in streets
and stare at the cracks that spread like spiders
across the sweating pavement

I always think of them like scars
small caverns carved into the skin of the city
marking painful places and stupid choices
The pavement in front of my house is so broken.

One day I'll tell you who I am
when the earthquake comes swelling
shredding the streets into slag concrete
a wave of grinding destruction

As the city stands shedding its skin
I'll scream- at last. all of the cyanide secrets
I've hidden with my silver knife
buried under these slender scars

One day you'll look at the rubble
and walk away.

O skin mine you cannot stretch forever.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

City dear.

My feet searches for the curve of cobblestone
beaten by this flat concrete
laid out like so many tombstones
one against the other in the grey stretches
and I wonder whose grave I'm walking on
Oh city how hungry you have been
I hear your belly roar early in the morning
and as I slide to uneasy sleep it growls outside my window
an anxious need an eager grasp
and how you stretch and grow sending your smoke
like fingers that curl into claws
spidering their way through the scraggly foilage
wrapping each dusty strand carefully against each surface
until with one twitching pull
it tears the forest down and thrusts it thrashing into its grasping maw
and with a quick swallow stretches out for more.
O city I am lost in your grasp
and cannot break free.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Winter at the Window

I haven't seen you here for a while
on the edge of my windowsill with the wind at your heels
but tonight, tonight I was expecting you.
The small storm clouds were curling along the horizon
tinting themselves pink and red
dipping their grey fingers into the sun's hidden rouge
and making a mess of the skyline.
The tree has dropped it's last skeleton leaf
and the branches swing lonely against the shingles
tapping their own morse code out in the night
a hidden rhthym to the faraway forests
that stay green the whole solar circuit.
The stars too have been brighter
as the sun sent itself to bed they stole closer
sparkling one against each other
and throwing the darkness into disarray
laughing children with an old dog who stands
bewildered at their games but can only bark not bite.
All these things whispered to me
as I walked along the sullen streets.
the echos murmered through the halls of my home
sinking into the carpet with tired little sighs
to be roused again at the step of my slippered feet.
They whispered of secret things and shadows
and silent escapes across the starlit streets.

I haven't seen you here in a while
with your shadow stretched long against the tree
it leans so lazily across the snow
That it might never move again.
How lovingly the light falls on you
tangling itself up inside your curls
and laughing as it spills out of the dimple
that hides within your cheek like a blush
on spring's first rose before it dares to bloom.
I am not surprised by your hand
cold as it is
sliding across the long expanse of winter air
You take possession of my skin with one finger
its slight weight against my cheek
carving it's own small cradle in which to rest

I was waiting for you tonight.

Forever, is an awfully long time.