wanderland

no pictures and no interesting conversation
have left me dumb and my heart's desires moot
now darkness has finally overtaken the sun
and it's time for a painful uproot
I'll pick the corn from my pilgrim's teeth
with splinters of the bones crushed beneath your feet
and I think it is nice how I've learned from you
a most dismal hope in things I never knew
but alice knew as she followed her fate
that though the clock stops time does not wait
and beheadings will happen like it or not
and lovely thoughts tumble into the basket to rot

New Hampshire Haiku

High tide cold ocean
Visiting and retreating
Blue waves warm goodbye

Dedicated to my dear friend Chyela who knows how to warm even the coldest day.

motorcycle

fast you fly up mystic ave.
i watch from the safest place I have
and wonder as i desire your speed
if true love really is only a need
a quiet quivering thrill that rumbles my chest
at the thunder of your motor's eager unrest

skeletons separated by leather and skin
hungry to blur the lines between sacred and sin
american crosses, angels from hell
tender beating heart inside a frail shell
denying how very fragile you are
invisible invincible you race through the cars
forgetting those fading memories and scars

body crouched over your bright holy steed
i'd give anything to know just how to read
the mind hidden behind that mysterious mask
surely you have answers to all the questions i ask
but my words are lost in the wind’s rush and roar
and i join the rest of the-motionless in a colourful blur

not the third street washeteria

I have learnt the secret to staunching the tears
DEHYDRATION

I wait, listening to the drums spinning
I imagine the rhythmic thumping to be a child’s rubber soled shoe
No need to worry
My soul is labelled non-marking
I will leave no trace of where I have rubbed against your empty cask

How small can a heart shrink?

I call it “strength”
But I know the truth
Constant bumping against the Great Wall
Has caused callouses to grow
Hard, protective, disfiguring

My school colours were black and blue
I wear the bruises under my smile
Occasionally they tumble to the surface of my eyes
Bloated and bloody
But the crescent streak of bleach suffices to distract from the stains

It started out the size of my fist.

When the the door bursts open
With a pop
And comforting sigh of hot air
I observe what is left

I stuff my wilted pebbles back into their sockets
And this blackened lump inside my chest

I call my mother
She still cries
She doesn’t know why
She thinks the tears fall because she has lost a daughter
But I was gone long ago

I left to drain the fluids
And I have been spinning ever since

midnight whispers

Ah, hope, love, hate, deceit
At this time of night
They fade to the shadows
Where they belong
The only things real
Are the electric lights outside my window
And their bulbous reflection in each rain droplet
Thousands of little Bostons
Clinging to the window
They will never get in.
My tears reflect your words.
Sometimes I hate you

raspberry blues

I usually say too much!
Much more than I should
So lately
I have been holding my tongue
In hands too busy to notice
How it is so heavy and wet
And tied up in so many should nots

disown (migration)

The words flit through my head
I will not let them land
Letters grasping at the page
For fear that they will nest here
Tearing living things from the ground
Those things which wriggle hidden in my soul
They will scratch
They will pull them into the open
They will devour those small pieces of me
I fear them now
Those winged words whose flights
Delighted my eyes and mind
In their games of diving and soaring
Now I hide beneath umbrellas of immense size
That they may not see me
But more that I may not acknowledge their freedom
I will claim they do not exist
They do not belong to me
They do not belong with me
They are not mine