release.

Passed my best

Posted on by zaphodfreek

Moving north and west
Along the Rhein
My face pressed up against the glass
As the mist whips past outside.
I carry you with me.

I’ve tried to relax my grasp
As I am fully aware
Of your reluctance,
Your crushing negligence.
But these ethereal fingers have grasped
At strands of nothing for so long,
They are reticent to release.

In the background
I listen to quivering vocals and the
Low rumble of the R10
Thundering along
As my mind ponders
Castles and poets,
Book burnings and motor oil,
The corners of your mouth
Turning up as you smile,
Blood in the sand,
Prison bars,
Daylight,
Freedom.

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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 Spector had a heart shaped hole in her just waiting to be pasted over.

Posted on by zaphodfreek

You can tell it’s a good song
When you slow down
So you don’t make it home
Before it’s over.

Select weaknesses in me
Set fire to my brain
And spiderweb around my heart.

I hold the glass up to my eye
But I can’t tell whether it’s
Too full or too empty.
For certain, it’s draining fast.

The piano may not be firewood
But it sets a merry blaze.
And the cloth rests over my face,
Over my eyelids,
Like a hood.

If everyone knows it’s going to hurt,
Then why wasn’t I expecting it?
One day I turned around
And realised I was fucked

And there’s nothing I can do about it
Except take the clock off the wall
And set about winding it back again.
Right back to the beginning.

At least for one night

Posted on by zaphodfreek

I blow hot and cold into the night.
All these shelves are full of cobweb covered photo albums.
I pull them down and rifle through my mind.
Fingernails properly groomed,
I empty my love into you.
For one night at least.

But I awake to find a different person
With veiled, shaded eyes.
Fingers reach out to greet you
And then retreat
out of what? Fear?

You walk so forlornly down narrow country roads,
Dragging your baggage along behind you.
Eyes fixed firmly on the sky
You tell me to stop following you.

I can’t help feeling
That if I could only stop feeling
Then this would all make
So much more sense to me.
But instead I scratch my head
And draw a line in the sand.
A line that will not be crossed.

L

Posted on by zaphodfreek

Of all the ways
that you could have hurt me
this one was by far
the worst.

This long lingering feeling
of doubt and insecurity.
You really had no clue.

It’s amazing that
after so many moments
when I have left you behind,
and staggered forth
into the misty morning,
you still claw at my collar
and twist at my heels
and drag me back down
this slippery slope of you.

Courage

Posted on by zaphodfreek

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.

Samson

Posted on by zaphodfreek

I could see clearly the
smooth pink of your lips
as they met and parted.
It reminded me of days
and of my love’s gentle sighs.
Your fingers also continued to fall
and rise and each time seemed
opaque and free.

And suddenly it was as if
love and fear and all the other
green prejudices of our minds,
that pour out on wet and windy nights,
were just droplets of rain
on a train window
and could be as easily wiped away.
Leaving only the creases
at the edges of your
subtle
brown
eyes.

The Way of the Day.

Posted on by zaphodfreek

Shall we dance,
friend of my heart?
Tracing trails of silver moonlight
with the toes of our feet
and the fingers of our beating hearts.

Tempting and heavy
is the gaze
and so full of eagerness
and badly hidden innocence.
Our awkwardness is
earnest at least.

On an island in the pacific
a young girl is laid down
for the first time
and listens to the stories of the old gods
and the stars.
And a dark skinned, blue eyed boy
sets his little paper boat
afloat on the swelling tide
and watches it burn
slowly.

In the light of that
smallest star of the sea
how can we smile indifferently
and throw ourselves at the world
with hats and scarves and envelopes full of truths?

But how can we not?

Tired of writing.

Posted on by zaphodfreek

Why do you persist
in this
line of questioning and attention.
There’s nothing for you here.

Small talk is not a skill,
neither is undressing
yet you do it so well.

I am here for my own self worth
not for you
or to move with you in circles.

Nor am I pushing your hair back
so as to land the smallest of indignities upon myself,
to kiss your lips.
Instead to see your face,
bland and pasty as it is,
and to lose it in the furrows and creases
of my mind.