Long black waves
beat at the rocks
With their grey white cusps
Foaming and angry.
Behind the thick glass
Of the train window,
Stung with rain,
And inside my dark hood
I sit safe in the
Eye of the storm.
So
While the wind moans
And trys vehemently to
Blow out all the candles
We lit last night in the
Garden and our inebriated state,
I dream desperately
Of freckles and fingertips.
Life is just
a series of photos
skitting past in front of my eyes.
Some of them are in black and white.
Some of them aren’t very focused.
Some of them are like incomplete drawings,
with the upturned corner of somebody’s mouth
or half of a dark grey eye.
The memories flick past like a cartoon
drawn by some crazy kid
and held together by an old blue rubber band.
They trick
my mind into them,
pulling it along like an unruly pup
on a leash.
The colours are often very real,
too true and they burn
the backs of my retinas
sting.
Some are more sober with
shadings of grays and browns.
I tried some of those
old school 3D glasses,
with the plastic lenses
to see if they could make some
sense in it all but they
just highlighted all the
mistakes in each piece
and all the
lines connecting us all.
My life is just
a series of photos
flying past in front of my eyes.
And your face
seems to keep coming out.
Once
long ago
I met a girl on a beach,
on a small island
where the Bongs grow
tall and proud,
and she had,
as I recall,
just finished swimming.
Her eyes were an unusual green
and she talked to me in a quiet voice
all the while nibbling gently
on a pea pod.
Above her naval and
slightly to the left
she had a tattoo of a rather
incredulous looking owl
which I noticed but tried to ignore.
And as we walked up to
the small beach house
that I hadn’t noticed before
a cat came out to great us,
or maybe just her because as she
picked it up
it gave me a flash of teeth and a steely gaze
before settling down around her shoulders,
its tail tracing out the line of her jaw,
its eyes glaring out from behind the waterfall of her hair.
Inside she set about preparing a meal
of honey glazed pork mince
thick with fat,
which we ate with more of those
vaguely minty peas.
We drank and i felt my tongue melt and slide away from me.
The next thing I knew
my hair was coming out in clumps and the girl,
her breasts were heaving free in the moonlight.
The sand was white and her skin was white and the moon was white and ghostly
but the sea was a black and evil and I had to get away from it
for fear it would swallow me whole,
and when she started talking about marriage I felt sick
and I told her so.
We returned to her shack and I
strummed at an old guitar that had washed up on the shore,
loose Nick Drake songs, while she danced
swirling around the small room with abandon.
And I knew I loved her then
but also that I wouldn’t always
so later, when she breathed softly and soundly into her folded arms,
I snuck away to the hills
with naught but a few silent tears
that sparkled and danced
by the light of the moon,
the moon,
the moon,
that danced by the light of the moon.
So there’s this girl,
right,
as there often is.
And she puts a certain
spring into my step
like when you know
that if things keep going
the way they’ve been going
you might end up
doing something
you most definitely
will regret.
But what the hell,
life is short right?
And if not, then at least
I have some time to make
amends. So I’ll make my
mistakes now and
learn from them.
Besides,
when she smiles
all I can think of
is her.
What was he thinking giving you
Such large eyes?
And that particular colour:
The darkest of browns.
Like being deep underground.
The colour moles and earthworms see
Right before they die.
Surely he must have known
That, as you searched the room
With your haunting gaze,
They would become gaping holes
Which I could but fall into.
Never to escape.
The small amount of skin
That hangs from the
underside of your arm
Is cold
And smooth as silk.
As I run my fingers along it
You wake and tell me
Not to be such a romantic fool;
That I wear love so
Heavy in my heart
And it really is rather
Unflattering,
Before rolling over and
drifting off again
With the most silent of sighs,
And the smallest of smiles
Still hanging from you lips.
Emptying my eyes
of all the salty lies you
would have me believe.
You had three dark spots
in a line
down your back,
more or less in line
with your gently curving spine.
Your very own Orion’s belt
you used to call it.
Each one of us,
you would say,
has our own constellation,
we have but to find it.
I didn’t care for it much,
I have to say,
but I liked the way
the corners of your mouth
turned up when you frowned,
so I stayed quiet.
But now,
when I look up to the night sky,
I find myself tracing you out,
amongst the stars.
Bluebird
- Charles Bukowski
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep.
I say, I know that you’re there,
so don’t be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he’s singing a little
in there, I haven’t quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don’t
weep, do
you?
Just a little something
I’d like to be able to read
to a certain someone
some day.
hate blows a bubble of despair into
-
e. e. cummings
hate blows a bubble of despair into
hugeness world system universe and bang
-fear buries a tomorrow under woe
and up comes yesterday most green and young
pleasure and pain are merely surfaces
(one itself showing, itself hiding one)
life’s only and true value neither is
love makes the little thickness of the coin
comes here a man would have from madame death
nevertheless now and without winter spring?
she’ll spin that spirit her own fingers with
and give him nothing (if he should not sing)
how much more than enough for both of us
darling. And if i sing you are my voice
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