experience

I want to fall in love again

Posted on by zaphodfreek

It always seems so
Easy at first.
Just tip forward into heartache
Like falling off a chair
Or the bike you thought you
knew how to ride.
A distinct lack of training wheels on this occasion.

If you feed me orange porcelain rose petals
I will close my eyes and listen to
the rain on the window pain.
I will remove cat hairs from the
Peripheries of my mind
And the corners of your downturned smile.
I might read poetry in hushed tones,
Your head in my lap.
If you agree
To hold my hand in the dark
I will try my best to
Never doubt you
And to keep all your brightly coloured matchsticks
In order.
To never lose your
Loveless green eyes.

Oh how I hope you care.

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Is there though?

Posted on by zaphodfreek

There’s a limit
To how much useful music you can make,
To how much tension you may instill,
To how much damage any one person deserves.

There is a limit to how much
Despair
Will soak into the pillow cases,
Into the sheets on her bed
Or the tips of your agitated hands
Or the soles of her yellow harried feet.

There is a point at which the night gives way
To a grey and rainsoaked morning.

And when you hit that wall,
When you reach that bluff,
That endless, precipiced edge,
Breath a sigh of relief and close your eyes.

Don’t be afraid to fall.

The Box

Posted on by zaphodfreek

At first he thought,
Somewhat presumptuously,
That the box contained
All of his words.

He had been silent
So many months
That he assumed that
His thoughts had been dragged
From his lips
And placed into the box.

For what end, nefarious or otherwise,
Well in truth he hadn’t considered.

He longed for the box to be opened
And had tried all the keys he could find.
He had opened hidden boxes before.
Many mysteries had been uncovered.
But this one was stronger,
More resolute.

Finally she came.
The key bearer.
She who would open the box
With it’s intricate carvings and inlay
And release his words
For him to use.

She was so beautiful.
She brandished a small, bronze,
Heart-shaped key.
It had to be her.
It had to be…

The key slipped in the lock.
It turned noiselessly.
She lifted the lid.

He peered in.

The box contained nothing.

But not just nothing;
Less than nothing.
A void-less, soulless, sleepless nothing.

And too late he realised
That the box was not a box of words,
His or anyone else’s.
It was a box of silence.
Complete silence.

The lid closed
With the slightest of clicks.
Footsteps faded away
On roughly hewn cobblestones.
The ages gathered.
The box remained silent.

Beauty lies in my beloved’s arms

Posted on by zaphodfreek

Through the dark Swiss night
The fingers of my mind
Stretch out to caress you
From your little magpie nest.

Though it is cold, I am
Warm without cares.
You light such fires in me
That threaten to burn
Unhindered and wild in my chest.

For so many days I had thought
Ill of this entanglement of hearts,
This engagement of my will.
It threatened to undo me.
But now I realise it was all folly
And foolishness of my heart.
For you are the one I see when I
Close my eyes to the darkness
And your face is all I wish to see
Upon my waking.

A Lot Of Dreaming

Posted on by zaphodfreek

Something is very wrong.
In my mind thoughts are clear
And lucidly float behind my eyes.
I can feel soft words,
Some of them for you,
Dangling from my fingertips,
Hiding in the drowned spaces
between my glistening teeth.

But up close this mirror
Is muddied and scratched
With fingernail marks and
Something closely resembling
My very own brand
Of unsettling bullshit.
My tongue drips sour,
The saliva frothing and bursting
And steadily becoming
More embittered and lonesome.
Suddenly there are things
That I can no longer impart,
Not nearly so readily at least.

These problems course
Through my arteries and veins,
Through the skin on the
Back of my hands,
Along the bloodlines
That feed my brain,
My arrow-filled mind.

They lead me to believe
That some creatures were designed
To break with natures bonds.
And perhaps we will always blame others
For what we refuse to believe.
Or hate ourselves
For what we know to be true.

Don’t Hate Yourself For Me. Don’t Love Me For Yourself

Posted on by zaphodfreek

The wind tells me when to leave.
It howls obliquely
And I close my eyes.

It’s a strange fact
but it is the hands that I fear yet again;
The pleading golden ones
Waving in the gale
Or your gently distorted hooks
Twisted around my own.

My eyes are black with thought.
Your skin, the feathers of swans.
Seven of them,
Necks all curled like thumbs,
Beaks like swollen yellowed fingernails.

I pull at the skin around my mouth
And it comes away in my hand
Like sheafs of paper.
Leaflets about fear,
About melanoma,
schizophrenia and depression.

I offer you a cup of my love
And you sip at it politely,
Making jokes about Parkinson’s
And the the shivering of my fingers
All about your face.

Settle for Love

Posted on by zaphodfreek

Settle yourself and be still
even if all around you
the wind howls
cold and quick
and shrill.

Let your heart settle
for what you always knew
was the colour of it anyway,
the ‘less’ that is ‘more’,
and the uneasiness
that steadily rises in your throat,
with its greasy metallic tang,
may subside for a while at least.

Settle down now for a long wait.
Stare at your hands
and count the scars,
the callous calluses
of your existence up till now.
Breath deep and feel your
blood flow.

And if you can,
settle your head on their chest
and listen to their drumheart
beat,
settling to the
unremitting rhythm
the perpetual part
of their somatic self
and the rest.

And at night
when your mind spreads out
to find them in the darkness
do not fear so if you find
that you have to settle
for the stars.

Keep A Grip

Posted on by zaphodfreek

If I went blind tonight
and lost all sense of sound’s delight
I fear that I could remember
the colour of a summer sky
as the sun drops over the horizon
and the gently sobs
of a woken child
in the room next door
would linger in my mind.

But how could I hold onto
the sound of our happiness?
How long before I lost
the soft colours of our love?

Won’t you be more tender?

Posted on by zaphodfreek

The weight of your hand
in the small of my back
reminds me why,
when we were younger,
we stood awkwardly on either
side of the parish hall
with its squeaky plastic floor.
Jostling one another and laughing
or scuffing old tennis court markings
and staring sheepishly at our feet.
Trying to work up the courage
to ask you to dance.