‘You’re quite considerate,’
she says, and I laugh.
It’s probably true,
but I don’t consider it.
It’s only natural
to want
to think of her.
In the dark, alone,
I’m scared so often,
but only behind my eyes.
There, lies.
A kraken wakes
and I hear it’s moaning.
I shudder.
How, I wonder,
when all around me is still.
What causes such insipid self effacement.
I hate what waits behind my lids,
like being forced to live again,
to recollect, is some great torment.
But honestly, the hurts are done
and all I force upon myself
are simple shadows of what has come
and cannot hurt, so much as sting,
but still, in the dark
I see the light behind my eyes
showing horror films that were my life
and keep me up,
awake,
alone
and shivering.
She says her peace like truth then holds it.
What a bitch, I think, as something in me screams and dies.
Three years won and lost like some back alley dice game.
I bet too high.
I go to speak and can’t. Can barely think.
I want to rant. Instead I look away, shame faced,
full of fear and passion I can’t feel.
My fingers reminisce over her skin from the safety of my lap.
She won’t look at me so I watch her mouth.
I watch her lips pucker around a cigarette, puff and part.
I watch the smoke coil between them like a serpent.
I watch them shape the words I already expect.
I can’t say anything, I have nothing to offer,
but I know she needs something, so I nod.
I want to laugh, or scream.
I want to feel something other than the numbness.
I keep nodding.
After a while she looks up at me. I can see tears uncried in her eyes.
Something like a smile eats at the corners of her mouth.
‘At least the morphine was good,’ she whispers.
I really need you,
though I very rarely say it.
Some days I’m so alone,
isolated in my skull,
peering out
through Perspex eyes
into plastic lives.
I long to be held,
to hold, to be told
that I’m ok,
that I’m fine this way.
I need your love,
like I need to love you,
to be real in your arms
if only for a time.
Gritting his teeth, he watched it draw closer. Watched the monstrosity drag itself across the cold linoleum floor. Watched it working at words through a palpating mess of blood and gore, what once was a mouth. He listened. A raspy hiss, a sound like cutter but more familiar, slurred and husky, sickeningly percussed by a slippery snick of teeth on bone. It was trying to say his name. He tightened his grip, shut his eyes and brought the axe down hard against his wife’s freckled neck, a mottled target. ‘I’ll always love you, Sunshine,’ he whispered into the silence.
Black stockings,
straining to contain the bulging veins of age,
sensible shoes,
a slight heel and faintly worn alligator skin
print the only concessions to fashion.
A navy blue skirt, conservative length,
nods gracefully at better times.
Over the top of matching jacket,
peek happenings of blouse,
offering daring hints
of Pollock patterns in black and blue.
Stereotype lenses pinned to face,
pinion skin in place.
Steel wool hair
rises, looming in bouffant,
thin dry lips painted desperation pink
in the styles of her youth.
Shorn grass scent and fresh turned dough
overlap clouds like pressed felt
tacked to a dry blue canvas, slapdash
lashings of shadow attack at intervals
the palette of the day, its colours hewn
though unmarred, intransigent sunshine
in transient lines, cuts its fine ribbons
in time with the wind, swaying trees
and leaves in rhythmic assent.
‘Can you believe its been a year?’ she purrs, regal
in candle flickering illumination, sublimating scene,
back arched, cast in relief, an exotic shadow dream.
Acquiescence breeds. Settling, she posits,
‘Poor thing, under siege. Twelve months with me
can’t have been-’
easy tenure, I assure her.
We swap smiles like campfire tales
in the flame lit blanket wilderness
and hold each other for warmth.
If I hate my day, then I think of you.
I pull memories from my mind,
moulding moments like modeling clay
and look at them in different ways.
Every facet turned, is tacit,
beautiful and placid,
and makes me feel so…good.
I revel in it and find I’m happy,
burnishing the truth
I made a cage inside my head,
I plumped the floor to make a bed
but after years of lying there
I realized it was too bare.
So in my cage I placed objects,
the simple things a life collects.
Then one day I woke to find
the cage I’d built was not my mind.
Even with my props unfurled
I’d somehow made a hollow world.
All arranged, so neatly stacked,
they couldn’t hide that something lacked.
I’m in love with the horizon
though I know it’s just a ruse,
when every time I wander there
the fucker up and moves.
One time I tried a sneak attack
by walking in reverse,
but when I turned around to look
the distance was perverse.
I wasn’t any closer,
I just couldn’t understand,
when wherever I am standing
I can grasp it in my hand.
I try so often now
that it seems like self abuse
but I can’t seem to figure out
why my passion’s so obtuse.
Sometimes I think I see you
in the street,
before I realize it’s a lie.
There’s nobody like you,
simply wishful thinking
and the spectres of my mind
that populate the streets
and bring a smile to my lips.
I fall asleep listening to my thoughts
as they pad through my head
with hard soled intent.
When I sleep, I dream of you,
and I wonder,
what are you doing there,
so out of place?
When I wake, I wake into
a maddening silence,
the emptiness of my bed,
a longing in my arms,
and I wonder,
where have you gone?
Comfort finds its purchase
in a three a.m. embrace.
Two bodies intermingled,
two hands that interlace,
outside and all around them
the coldness has it’s way
but holding one another
keeps the chill at bay.
I threw a stone across a pond
and noticed it not sink,
which made me skeptical.
So I made another choice
and threw, this time
drowning my intentions.
A wake, rippling waves
at a minutia of knots
across the skein of time.
A Few Short Words 