Love as a Metaphor for Life

January days are wet
and love-soaked,
like my heart.

Walking for hours:
god’s face appears
as a carpenter or
a stonemason.
A magician
or the dead.

Calmly removing raisins
from the sky, words splash
against my awkwardness,
leaving it bare and
essential.

Maybe it wasn’t you,
per se. Maybe you were
just an instrument. A
vessel for my fear.

Corners are crooked
and dark. Decisions
are easily made and
quickly regretted.
The day begins again.
And you weep for the end
of it, every night for the
rest of your life.

Alcohol and Anticoagulants (or Warfarin and Wet Kisses)

Your open lips I have
encountered of a night
when, dulled and nulled
by phosphorous light,
we may have danced.
I cannot be sure
for eyes were blinded,
memory poor.

I entered this dream
like a room without door,
the ceiling all stars
and a blackened wood floor.
A small gentle mouse
with some grays in his coat
breathed his last gentle breath
and opened his throat.

And I knew then that life
would be always like this:
that the ones you had loved
would be the ones you would miss.
So i steeled myself
to the darkened abyss
and settled my soul
in your warm, twisted kiss.

No, no, no!

I would like to express my disbelief and sorrow
at the deletion of the blog Good At Getting Better
by the extremely talented and valuable ‘krkbaker’.

Kim,
I don’t know what made you delete it,
against the advice of all,
but I wish you all the best.

I feel like i have lost a dear friend…..

Women

For you
we destroy ourselves.
Our livers, our minds,
our sense of self.
My sense of self.

Life is full of little puzzles.
And some are designed to be beaten
or broke
and some
are designed
to beat
to break.
But the really puzzling part:
each step I take away,
you take two towards.

And by the time you look down
and notice your hands are wet,
the damage is already done.

Midnight.

I look into the white eyes
of the purest of girls,
the purest of women.
She turns her face away in scorn
as words wash over me,
Making small incisions in my tongue,
in the spaces between my teeth.

In my mind,
all the wide open spaces of my heart
are as fields seen from the windows of a car.
I am driving with people
whose language I do not speak
and who’s faces and feelings
I will never understand.
Not in a million months of tears.

Their hands
which are covering their mouths
are nailless
and pockmarked.
Their mouths,
toothless and hollow.

But I have been bleeding all this time
and now my face
is empty too,
and pale like the faces of
the purest of girls,
the purest of women.

 

The Green Tunnel

That crunch and
thud,

like a head being laid
on a concrete pillow
at a million miles an hour.

Still so vivid,
those eyes,
appearing at my right headlamp,
large and dolorous
and on fire.

My licence plate was
kicked clear
across the road,
which was strewn fast with shreds
of my bumper, the crumpled
impact zone.
Blood turns thick and sticky
quick on a night like this.

It smears dishevelled
as Persephone’s kisses.
Her rich dark mealy lipstain.

And I drove on into the night
a little colder for our encounter.

Sarah McLachlan.

One phone call,
a few scattered words and phrases
here and there,
and I’m back
to 2 years ago.

A year of wasted energies.
a month of sleepless nights.
a single nights of words,
Not one with a use.

So please don’t
look this way
with your quick and eager heart
because it’s too easy
and that makes it so difficult.

For Want of Mints

They come in a small, metal, heart-shaped box.
An old man wearing a hat.
And as you pop the lid
That sweet smell, almost too sweet.

It reminds you of mothers,
and math teachers,
and how you never liked things
as a child.

You’re not sure why you got them,
knowing the sticky taste to come.
Sometimes it’s just good to have
something to suck on.

And then, before you know it,
the last one’s done.
The realisation: these mints
have broken your heart.

Laura is.

Laura is
in the face of adversity.
Sitting unsteady,
head cocked,
puzzled brow.
Every atom quivering.
She’s confused.

“What a pretty picture!”
the lady dentist said.
“Ah,” I returned, “but this is no picture.
This is a puzzle for you to figure out
with your hands,
with your lips,
with your slow touch.”

“Thank you” she said
and she took the puzzle
and walked away.

Frust

My love waits
in a small room
but she doesn’t wait for me.

My love sits in a dark house
and cries small, hard, solid tears.
And there’s nothing I can do.