When darkness encroaches
And chaos and panic beckon
With long white fingers,
That is when I take up my pen
And lay thought upon word,
And word in book,
And book on heart.
These brief flashes
Of a light so pallid and grey
Die in the laugh tracks
Of a normalised life.
They aren’t who I am,
But they can begin to tell
Of who I long to be
Or who I dread to become.
I don’t have the words for you yet
But when I do they will be glorious
And subtle and sweet and alluring
And full of depth.
And people will dozely mumble them
On the train in the morning on their way to work.
And the birds will whistle out their melody in that way birds will.
And the gentle grumbling of engines in the distance will murmur it’s agreement.
But I will rest safe in the knowledge
That I could never sum you up.
So here I
am
Trying to cross town in
Some godawful rush
But all the while maintaining
That it doesn’t really
matter, that I’m
Enjoying the trip
When all I can really do
Is stare longingly at the
taxicabs
Gliding by. So breathtaking.
All the good ones are taken.
He put her slippers
in a clear plastic bag
and hid them inside
an old shoebox
under his bed.
When she asked
if he had seen them
he told her he had
burned them
in an old oil drum
out by the docks
with the seagulls
screaming overhead.
The healing skin around a scar
or welt
is pink and puckered and perfect,
smooth to the touch.
Recalls the rough times behind
and sings of gentle times to come.
I had the thought to
slide my face up against
the hot, rough skin of the tree that grows in our front yard,
jagged brown bark,
and maybe tear a hunk of it off.
A lump of steaming flesh with that
glistening yellowey fat
shorn right off.
I would stare stare stare.
Actually I think it would more resemble
some whiting flesh.
All feathery and soft and cold and silvery
and quivering.
I’m not pink inside.
I’m not a seeping red.
I can imagine
how I’d feel with
such a large chunk of me
missing.
the other night
I cried myself to sleep.
I felt pretty miserable
real lonely.
not your normal lonely.
the sort when it hurts
because you’re not around.
unexplainable pain and need and want.
ouch ouch ouch.
it’s the sort of pain where
you can’t do anything without them
and you have no idea if they’re thinking of you
but
you don’t think they are.
that’s why i make sure to say to you
‘remember,
someone is thinking of you’
I say that to reassure
so that you know
I’m thinking of you
and that’ll maybe make the night seem ever so slightly less dark,
this cage ever so slightly larger
and my love ever so slightly stronger.
And I am thinking of you
in one way or another
because I feel that if someone’s thinking of you
if even in the tiniest, littlest part
if even if it’s just next to nothing
it makes you feel better
like I matter a little to someone.
like I matter a little to you.
for all the ‘her and me’ poems
but the subject is sort of consuming all my thoughts at the moment.
Maybe soon I’ll
sober up
calm down
and maybe grow up a little too.
And then I can get back to fighting all the injustice in the world
like the true superman I am.
B
(Note: The part about me being a ‘super’man is sarcastic. I’m not THAT egotistical.)
Agitation of hands. Strength of words. 