A Few Short Words

She smells of bubblegum and sage

and walks the way that fine wines age.

A soft soled, hard wood, susurrus

of slinky surreptitious steps.

She sits in gypsy splendour

under lights like shredded silk,

Promethean eyes afire

a deity of desire.

Thunder storms throughout the house

leaving empty threats upon each pillow.

Willow thin, the librarian stood atop the stair,

casting her name into the darkness

like some unsheathed syllabic talisman

brandished in the air.

Thunder raged, followed lightning

whipping ragged ropes into the ground

in lashing jagged, whittle thin irradiance,

dispensing wicked shadow clones

upon whitewash mortar canvasses.

The librarian took measure with a breath,

hung his head, denied respite,

sighed resigned and retired.

Let the shadows play, he said

and put away his bellows.

At a loss with loss,

I lose myself to longing.

At the end of dreaming,

when reality slinks back

to reclaim its place

at my heel,

a dislocation follows

as I realize

I am me

and nothing more.

I love you most while you’re asleep,

tangled through the sheets,

a skin and linen swap meet,

sprawled there in threadbare clothes,

regal in repose, with hands thrown

open to palms and level headed,

stirring, mumbled proclamations

of dream nation doctrine,

confident in somnambulant

though prone, to whispers of the willing

flesh through fabric copse

in effervescent glimmers

imposing porcelain instances

upon my defenses, wearing me

down into the governance of sleep.

We sleep together

and it’s beautiful,

and sweet,

and strangely illicit,

breaking, as we are,

the rules of our own agreement.

She guides me in with soft hands

while I whisper, ‘are you sure?’

‘No,’ she sighs, but doesn’t stop.

Slowly, in stages,

I find myself deeper inside her.

I don’t want to press too hard,

I don’t want it to hurt,

but it’s as though

I can feel every piece of her

through her skin,

and I feel so much at once

I could almost burst.

Our rhythms match

and our lips meet.

My hands seek her out,

roaming her skin

and we come together

as one.

Buoyant orange sunset floating slowly to the ground,

The last disciple rays shooting vagrant from the clouds.

A blanket worth of blackness slowly coats the winter sky,

A mourning for the day just passed as it begins to die.

The moon’s encroaching presence, shoos away the light,

leeching life out of the sun to illuminate the night.

The promise lost within the day now held within the dark.

Envy of the dark for the secrets it might hold,

wishing on a solemn star to take me to its fold.

Shadows cast in dusk’s bleak light

once shying from the day,

come out and serenade the night

to romp and leap and play

The day will come again my friend

don’t mourn its passing yet,

take the time, enjoy its end,

the glory of sunset.

Some days I feel so disheveled, bedeviled,

ineligible and unintelligible.

I feel coarse, like my blood

were peppered with sand,

more bloody, grating,

abrading and degrading than necessary.

It makes me wary, on edge,

precipice precious like a man on a ledge.

Contentious and conscious of every little thing,

every bite, scratch and sting, and petty injustice.

While all that disgusts us, is bludgeoned in

again and again, without relent.

But some days, some days I feel content

I sleep better when I’m with you.

The inescapable tirades of my mind

seem so distant, so silent,

in your embrace,

with your arm across my chest

and your leg over my waist,

I’m comfortable in a way

that eludes me through the day.

I’m restless now, alone in bed,

my mind’s alive,

you’re in my head

and my fingers clutch

at memories of you

but find emptiness instead.

There’s no room left to think,

I’m spatially constrained

in the most mundane of ways.

I lose my equilibrium,

knocked against the pedestrian buffet

I find myself slipping

inwards, all the time

and such steep slopes to climb,

that my fingers,

worn already to nubs,

are blooded, twisted things,

scraping away my sanity

like mausoleum silt.

My mind wanders

and my thoughts confuse.

I catch myself

at times reflected

and touch my face

to feel how valid the truth might be,

though I fear I am not much better

than the calloused ramblings of an old soul.

I write stories I never send you,

little vignettes

like storyboards in my mind

that shape and colour

and seek to define

the thoughts that cue

behind my eyes

like Tetris blocks I can’t align.

Like shuffled papers, ruffled, worn,

flung in disarray, discarded scars

upon the surface, order marred

non-tangential sequence, scattered

meaning in clumps and clots,

drawing lots for space,

paragraphs displaced, cliques

dismembered in disjunction,

serving form a function,

braying punctuation, straying

hither, yon and thither meaning

less with each missed step,

a full-stop disconnect, dot to dot

discarded plot, anarchy’s favour

the flavour of chaos upon my desk.

She squawks at birds

and yells at the sun.

She holds the world

in high disregard.

She laughs with her heart

and smiles with her eyes,

pats, flatters and giggles

with infectious innocence.

A practical thinker

with a mind for lunacy.

She takes stairs two at a time

and treats life the same way.

You’ve carved yourself a little niche

behind my lids at night,

with a presence so enchanting

it absolves my will to fight.

I listen to your footfalls

as they creep around my mind.

I chart a course of echoes

and i know what they will find.

The place you’ve taken residence

now I’ve given you the key

make yourself at home my dear,

I hope you like my me.

Winter comes

her face is hidden,

she waves to me,

I go, now bidden

like a zephyr

floating thin,

with open arms

she folds me in.