fear

If my heart had glass walls it would be a slaughterhouse

Posted on by zaphodfreek

In the northern lands
Of ice and snow
Where the winds are born
You made your presence known
Among my thoughts.

Your eyes glowed behind my own,
Like shards of brilliant blue ice.
Your necklace strung with
Glimmering Germanic teeth.

‘You smile too much’
You stated solemnly,
Matter of fact.
‘I will take now what you owe me’

Toothless it seemed,
and thoughtless too,
I wandered for days,
In the heartland of the
Shiver and the prayer for
Safe return.

I gritted my blooded gums
And steeled my breath.
I feared we would not last the night.

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Change taught us how to grow and grow we did…

Posted on by zaphodfreek

The windows in all the houses
In which I have ever lived
Shine opal black in the moonlight.
Like giant dark eyelids closed
To an even darker night.

You have your fingers
In all of my eyes
Donating to my consciousness.
Your fingernails scrape
At the back of my throat.
They entangle themselves
In my vocal chords.

This wind is one of
Change and indifference.
It fills and drys the sheets
And pulls down the chimney
Stacks one by one.

As I drive home at night
I lose my face in the darkness.
The road markings shimmer and glow.
My head is full of the past,
My ears buzz with it.
My nose strong with its stench.
I pull into a darkened driveway,
Black as an open mouth at night.
I move off away into the sky
With not a single star in sight.

Wringing

Posted on by zaphodfreek

This small wooden boat,
A dark stained rosewood,
Rides this wave of doom,
Of rising guilt.

We are perched precariously aboard.
Every time I reach out to touch you
It is out of fear. But the bruises I leave
Are dark with infatuation.
It seeps into your skin
Leaving its discoloration
for a week or so.

But once again my feet are predictably growing cold.
Water seeps into the boat and we are sinking.
You are sobbing thick disconsolate tears.
I try my best. I take a hold of the oars and pull.
The wood comes away in my hands.

Finally though, after many years,
You take them in yours,
lean down and close your eyes.
I do the same and the world
is suddenly dark.
Quietly we survive.

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.

Dreams locked in a dead man’s chest

Posted on by zaphodfreek

Close your lips and discover
The bitterness that sleeps
On the tip of your silent tongue.

In the evening the lights you see
From the shore are far off and pale.
They dance to the waves rhythms
And haunt your dreams.
If you close your eyes too
You can hear faint whisperings,
The succinct susurrations
Of children lost to the winds
And the waves’ roar.
Songs of dead sailors
Echoing and ringing
On the zephyr.

The blind see the world but through a veil.
The deaf hear more than they tell.
At night they come down to the sea
To touch fingertips.
They share our secrets with the wind
And their own with the sky.

Close Your Eyes To Me

Posted on by zaphodfreek

Storms make me think of you.
In bed at night
I catch the faint
scent of your hair.
I imagine the slight
flaring of your nostrils
As you sleep and I lie
More awake than ever.

I think it’s the wind
As it whips the rain against
The window. The howling of it.
It obscures the words that I
Cannot seem to even fit into my
Mouth, let alone push them
Out to you through the cold night air.
The air of a new year
seemingly destined to be
As emotionally dense and
Amorously unfrequented as the last.

The air is soupy with electricity and love.
The sky is milky with it and weeps.

Resolutions are mostly selfish
But this is the most selfish of them all;
To share my heavy heart with you
And hope that you shall not break it.

Peisinoe clicks her tongue, dangles her feet and complains

Posted on by zaphodfreek

I can’t say I haven’t considered it,
Your cold white thighs sliding open
as easily as a book falling to the floor.
A book of poems, of sketches of stretched contorted faces.

But I too often stride waste deep,
Or shoulder deep upon occasion,
Through the mists of impatience and lust.
Too often I fall victim to the
Siren’s song, the cuckoo’s call.

Not tonight quietless one.
Tonight I will not be drawn by any tacit cacophony.
Your woe filled lamentings fall upon ears
Deafened by emotion and
Stoppered up by the belief
That good things come to those who wait,
And those who wonder.

Finally Alive

Posted on by zaphodfreek

At night he has a tendency
To put himself in awkward
Situations. He let’s his heart
Confuse his head. Passing
Under street lamps the
Shadows make him feel
As if he is moving in a group,
A troupe of similarly silhouetted
Brethren, but in reality he
Is still walking along alone.

She is a creature of some
Desperate intrigue.
Dark, sensitive and obvious.
She plays heavy, bass-filled
Music and swings her hair
To the thumping, throbbing beat.
In crowds she drops her eyes,
Fists clenched, and swears
Under her breath. Every move
She makes is a disaster but one
That has already happened.

Thinking about her now his heart
Races and pearly beads of sweat
Pulse on his brow and down his back.
He begins to pick up his pace,
Slowing only momentarily to look
Back down the street. Back at the
Pools of light and the sea of darkness
Stretched out behind him. He seems
distracted and elsewhere. His eyes dart.
He is running from something.

Only the lonely fear love.
It looms in front of their lives
Beautiful and unobtainable.
They have grasped at it.
Reached out for it with their
Fingers and their hearts.
But those who have fallen
Will fear the fall again
And will avoid the leap.
They have grown comfortable
With their own broken thoughts
And pull them up around them.
More like a warming blanket than
Walls but use whatever metaphor
You wish. We are all dead
Until, finally, we live.

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.

Child

Posted on by zaphodfreek

When they got back
the door was ajar,
the handle smeared
with some dark, subtle substance.

The boys were still asleep
and her light was on
but she had gone
screaming out of that place.
You could feel it ringing in the walls
and on the smooth, mark-missed floor tiles
with not a thing to tell their heavy, searching eyes
if she had struggled,
if she had even tried.