remembering

Something must be said

Posted on by zaphodfreek

These long, hot middle eastern nights
Are killing me.

I lie awake imagining
The smell of lemons
And those odd squashed figs
That you gave to my mother.

And thoughts turn greyer
Like irish summer skies over Glenteenassig
And everything becomes bitterer sweet.

This throbbing isn’t just between my ears.
Not anymore.
It’s deep in my chest.
And it rises up my throat
With each encroaching minute.

The low slope of your nose
Is still in my minds eye.
You always seemed so unjustly guilty.
And all these words can’t be helping.

Instead let me be brief:
It would be nice if the idea of you
Would let me sleep.

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You could pack a bag with all that baggage

Posted on by zaphodfreek

You left
All this stuff at my house.

Does it have some significance?
What does a toothbrush mean?
This body scrub looks expensive.
Don’t you care about these socks?
Their mouse faces like distorted grins.

Or is it that you fear that I could
Hold something over you through them?
How can facial wipes remind you of a person?
How can they not?

It’s not that I resent it;
I don’t know how to be angry with you.
But this towel still smells like you,
Your pair of slippers are still lying by the door

And I don’t know what to do.

A splash of urine on my slipper

Posted on by zaphodfreek

More of a dash than a splash
Of hot, pungent urine.
Yellow from an apparent
Lack of hydration. A lack of
Fluids.

And on my slipper of all places!
My old brown vegan slippers.
Yes. Vegan.
Because somebody cared so much
And I, perhaps, too little.

And all of this because I find myself
Distracted by the thought of you.
By the thought of what you would say
If you were here.

Not ‘here’ here mind.
But perhaps in the next room,
Playfully deriding me for my
Inability to close doors,
Lounging on the sofa
Draped in my soft grey blanket.

Maybe,
Pushing your hair back
Over your ear
And looking up

As I enter

The room.

I should be changing the sheets

Posted on by zaphodfreek

The pillow
Where I have lain my head to rest
Is steeped deeply with you.
Your delicate scent but also
The slow curve of your cheek,
The gentle rise of your breath
And the lashes of your
Half
closed
eyes.

When I close mine I can almost feel
The the groove and judder
Of your spine beneath my fingertips,
Your feet, warm,
in the small of my back,
And the moisture
On your open, waiting lips.

Sepia Toned Loving

Posted on by zaphodfreek

You lower your gaze
To your feet.
A hand emerges
From deep within a woollen sleeve
And pushes a few strands of
Yellowish-brown hair
Back over a yellowish-brown ear.
Your lips part minutely,
And yet so generously.

Standing under a flickering streetlight
We have been sent back.
Back to a time when
Colour was an idea
That you read about in books
When you should have been working hard
In the fields.
Toiling in flannel and corduroy.

But now I notice your brow is furrowed,
Eyes cast expectantly upward.
I have been staring but not listening.

I send a prayer out
Into the night sky above,
Silent and profound,
And lean down into you
To hear yours.

Belfast

Posted on by zaphodfreek

Nights like tonight
Are what living was made for.
Even if I nearly
Ended my own ability
To keep doing so
By standing in the road
Waving at your car
Until it was out of sight
With the starlings
Wheeling about overhead.
How did I forget
It could be this fun?

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.

Rushing Forwards

Posted on by zaphodfreek

Some nights the ghost of love dies
and is replaced by some bemoaning, sorrowful creature
and no faces come rushing from the mists
to fill the void.

And the stars seem colder and more distant
and the moon has vanished.
The sudden taste of darkness
is bitter and motionless on the tongue.

On nights like that
I cannot help but long for simpler days
when but a single pair of eyes
seemed to cloud my vision
and I strived not for something
but for someone.

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?

Of All The Luck

Posted on by zaphodfreek

All of these stars above us
Are as distant as your eyes
On the days when you betray,
The days you dream about him.

On those days I am a dreamer too.
I am a dancer in the dark, my mind
Full of deep reds and cigarettes,
Flower boxes and the Suffolk coastline.

Your gaze, for now, drifts back to me.
Your stars shimmer in a haze and vanish.
I relish the hours of neglect
And dream of days and her.