The Streetlights are Shimmering

The drop of rain
Trickling down your blushing cheek
Could easily be mistaken for a tear.

“Don’t worry if the shoes don’t fit,
You’ll grow into them” you said
But what if the shoes I’m stepping into
Are growing as well?
Swelling up and stretching
As they absorb the puddles around me
And now my ankles are wet too
And the streetlights are shimmering
And bouncing off the thick watery skin of the world

And the more I focus on them
The more it seems like the raindrops
Are slipping morously from
your open eyes.

For Emma, Forever Ago

It was winter.
We had been standing out,
For some time,
Under the night sky
Vaguely looking up at the stars.

It was cold.
I was thinking for my fingers:
How I wished I’d worn gloves,
Until your hand came
Snaking after mine,
Your fingers warm and delicate.

Our breath lifted lightly from our lips,
Mixing, mingling in the moonlight
As I tried to forget
What words tasted like
Dropping from the tongue.

So This Is Life

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.

Go to the movies and cry your eyes out

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.

Homage to Edward Lear

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.

Simples

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.

Eyes

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.

Just Another Hopeless Romantic

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.

Tears: A Haiku

Emptying my eyes
of all the salty lies you
would have me believe.

Orion’s Belt

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.