Finale.Finally.

and she ties pearls into her curls

knots each one in its elegant loop

a silken hangman's noose

and she leaves her neck bare

but for a breath of scented air

to take your breath away

and she stands behind the light

with her skirt tied tight

by the threads of shadow

and she burns, she glows

and she knows, she knows

that this will be the end

of you her friend.

Emasculate.

It was an odd little lion

with pastel tufts of tail

and a beribboned degradation of a mane

It looked, to me, ashamed

sitting amidst these glitter coated things

in its own shining cage

and the plastic cannot stop

its glassy eyes from staring

back at me.

You sit beside me in these clean rooms

slouched across these straight back chairs

with the florescent lights bouncing

their hard beams across your face.

Your hands sprawl across the space

and your eyes wander the busy room

and there is nothing for you to see.

What is a cynic to do

with a world as hard as he?

What use a lion

When all the gazelle are caged?

Bend down bend down darling

let me tie another ribbon on

Come along my sweet my dear

I know that you are nothing to fear.

Make a Wish.

Once I caught the half bell curve

of an drifting eyelash

on the swell of my finger

It slid into the sprawl

of my rigid fingerprints

a puzzle piece slotted neatly in.

I wonder each time they fall

if there is something I missed

If like the petals of the rose they mark

the strands of time that I forgot

and mirror the coming doom.

One by one, at each half-finished tale

each friend that slipped away, each

afternoon spent without thought amidst

the swollen space of the crowded world,

and they work loose and fall

and I am one step closer to the end

the inevitable moment when these

the last slender spears between me

and all the grit of truth

are gone, lost forever on the wind

and my eyes are forced open and raw

blinded by the grinding light.

So let me be careful to blink

and light with the mascara's ink

too soon this soul must sink

beyond the edge of mortal brink.

Sandman

I've built a bridge

to where the Sandman lives

I know the way

to where the Sandman is

Come along Night

take my hand and come

We will walk along the stars

back to your father's home

The Day has run away

She's played her inheritance

into the shadows beneath the trees

and the branches that dance

You and I have seen her game

We know the tricks she builds

Let us away to the Sandman's

beyond the foggy hills

I know where the Sandman lives

He keeps a room for me

I love to be where the Sandman is

in the house of my dreams.

supply and demand?

she learnt it on the plastic panels

that stuck to the back of her knees

and itched her elbows

and always smelt of bleach or glue

one day they gave a red one

even though she asked for blue

and it didn't even have the duck

with it's bright yellow feathers cracking

in a thousand ways in the corner

how was that fair?

It wasn't as though there wasn't another

sitting right there in the teetering pile

and she could just see the edge

of a yellow bill as plain as could be

but this was that and what she got

and there was nothing to be done in the face of that

so she drug it in the corner

and carefully spread her blanket across as much as she could

stretching it to conceal the fire engine

with it's yellow ladder

that was nothing at all like feathers

and curling in the center to think very hard

about justice and desire and whether she would have

apple juice or chocolate milk today.

Everything I learned

confused me in kindergarten.

The Lagoon

The moon is flooding through the upper window

filling half the room

and I wake in a silver aquarium

with the shadows sitting choppy

on the sea of light

I awake as a creature unseen

the mythical amphibian breathing

both dark and light as easily

as my long hair drifts through this new world

as my long thoughts drift, prodding

the corners and stretches of this world

and how it bends before me with a marine grace

All of this is freedom and the breath is sweet and deep

between the light and dark the mirror sprays

white caps into the shadowed ceiling

and I am the last siren singing her secret song

awash in this midnight world

a cloud sails across the moon

and I am asleep again

a mortal child with immortal dreams

to wake in morning with nothing

but a strain of song to recall

Visitation

I have seen angels before

with faces like yours

so white and still

an implacable beauty

an impervious threat

and I am as afraid

of you as them

with their wings predator tipped

and, o horror, nothing behind.

There is nothing to touch to feel

but still their long fingers grip

the cold iron swords

that burn with celestial ice

the bitterest of all wrath.

I am afraid to touch your hand

lest I find in its grip a hilt.

I am afraid to ask your name

for my fear is that I know it-

O grief how did you find me again?