February 2012
36 posts
2 tags
the sum of your parts
I tried to write an epic for you.
I tried to sing a ballad which glorified your gentle touch at midnight, your glowing smile at twilight, your graceful laugh at dawn.
I tried to croon an elegy for the moments that you have lost, that you have conquered and that have come together to make you, you.
But if America were to renounce money & guns, or China to renounce Mao & communism—
...
2 tags
collapse, my lungs are containers
silk skin emptiness reverberates alongside tattered eyelashes. i can feel the whisper of your song against my winter nights, against my autumn evenings. empty coconut palms long for connection with your swaying branches. ten ten ten ten ten ten ten ten ten ten. together it is twenty. and that is when i sung a song about moonshine eyes and glass cheekbones; praying for the slice of life that you...
2 tags
hollow is the chest that has one heart (nay, not two) which beats in tandem with breath alone, and not another drum
loathsome are the joints that click in the winter, when your lover has not warmed your skin at night
rusty is the voice that sings only praises of the self and not of the beauty that exists in another’s eye
fluid are the lungs that hold a sea of knowledge instead of the...
2 tags
the sea & sky
If the sea reflects the sky, so too does it reflect the world’s hidden depths.
I have seen corals that reflect the colours of a toucan, and seaweed that is reminiscent of the canopies of rainforests. Fish dart by, like hummingbirds on the summer wind; the drop-off zone at the edge of the reef teems with life— like the last flock of birds before we escape into the vacuum of space. This...
1 tag
charcoal moon
And I have sketched your body in charcoal along the canvas that lies blank upon my bedroom floor. I skirt around it every morning and every night, and every three A.M. when I wake, restless and pad across the carpet to watch the feminine moon. I have gazed upon your form whilst you gazed upon her, and memorised: the curves, the angles, the sparkle. Every impression I make seems to be more and more...
3 tags
let's go live
I have lain in fields where the grass was not as soft as your silk skin. The dew was not as heavenly as your fingertips caressing along my cheek.
I have entwined daisy chains and adorned you with them, calling you queen and my lover.
For you are.
I have not fallen in love until this day, the day when the clouds move with every beat of your heart, and when your darkened eyes command storms of...
3 tags
“I accept lostness forever.”
– Jack Kerouac
1 tag
and cold reflection from a fallacy
I have heard prayers to the waxing, waning moon, begging for a muse—but I say to you, she is cold and inconstant. She cannot commit, she will not fulfill. For as you begin to fall in love with her, she moves away again. She is deadweight that defies gravity in a land where there is none; is that so miraculous? Can she fulfill your heartmost desires? Can she bring joy in a land where she has...
1 tag
for we are unfixed in a transient world, nomads for a nomadic plane of existence. (have you) ever known the sting of winter in the desert of isolation, (have you) ever known? souls drift on an icy wind, sting, chafe, bite through bone, until nothing but red sand is left (and you have become an un-memory)
1 tag
windowpane
I have created a dream & a fantasy, which I have deemed it well to live in. I have drawn out long, laboured sighs, which frost the windowpanes of a world that does not really exist. For you lived inside a cottage in the woods, in the middle of a copse of trees—fir brushed against the soft brick, and oaks crept in, surrounding you in the night. I wanted to stride up the path, through the little...
depression is a oil-filled flower waiting to bloom and you’re the moon that refuses to shine and he’s the clouds that hang low and she’s the slow-coming dawn and i’m the one who watches and sees no beauty for
depression is a oil-filled flower waiting to bloom
2 tags
Allen Ginsberg said;
I saw minds crack when the dark Night came; They were uprooted like pavement, cracked like cement when an old, gnarled oak creeps its roots beneath. They snapped likes bones, brittle, not enough calcium— a sign that mother neglected her duties. Drink more milk.
Lightning burst overhead, as a promise of destruction, and the children applauded in...
1 tag
stages
I .
It begins like a whisper. It’s susurrous and smooth, an idea only that slides along your snakelike skin. Its caress is sweeter than than the blade, which gleams silver underneath the moonlight. You crack open your windows at night, and watch the world breathe slowly, a sleeping giant. How many others, you wonder, are taking in red instead of dark? You had never thought you would prefer...
14 tags
i learnt from the greats
I have measured out my life in iambic pentameter; within assonance, assiduous in its attendence, lay the key to my left ventricle. The right—
beat lonely as a daffodil, beneath the sky, blue as bluest blue. Where once petals lay, two eyes that knew more than I would ever know sprouted. Then that flower told me a story, which broke me down to my knees.
I shall compare you to a...
You were made up of half-hearted breaths; as if breathing were a dreadful necessity that you resented. I breathed for you.
It was exhausting.
2 tags
an epic of dreams
I fell in love with a dream, it seems —where you wooed me with words, and with promises of an intangible future.
We lay beneath stars together, stars that reflected our eyes and our hearts and our hasty breaths. I looked into the night sky;
but you did not,
for your eyes were blinded by the rising sun— and you named that sun after me.
I fell in love with the promise of a future,...
6 tags
death and life
I’ve been thinking lately a lot about death. I don’t mean that in a depressing way at all. I don’t mean to say that I am lying there each night, wishing for my pitiful existence to end, whilst the rain falls hard outside. Even as I sit here, through my blinds I can see two young blonde children laughing and running in their backyard—and I am thankful for life. But duplicity...
6 tags
“We are blind and live our blind lives out in blindness. Poets are damned, but...”
– William Carlos Williams (‘Howl’ for Carl Solomon: An Introduction)
4 tags
Time.
Time never stops. It never slows down, it never speeds up. It just beats, like a metronome; one, two, three, four, five. Sometimes, time flies. Sometimes, time is sludge that we have to wade through. Who’s to even say that time exists? Who’s to say that time is a definite fact, that it was intricately woven into the fabric of the universe, along with light and sound and matter? Do they...
2 tags
sitting with a cardboard sign and a milk crate
He’s the man you walk by when you’re late for work. He sits outside the train station; a part of the scenery, a part of routine. You barely even spare him a glance, too used to his presence to bother that slightest part of energy. But even when you were new to this area, even when you had never so much as seen him, you barely looked at him. You, in your Armani suits, you hurry past the...
11 tags
parisian dreams
It was in Paris that I fell in love for the first time. It was before I ever met Mario, before I had met the charming Italian gondolier. No, it was in the city of Marie Antoinette and Napoleon Bonaparte that my heart first breathed. With thumping chambers, I took in the sensation that made humanity keep on living. I had wandered aimlessly through the Lourve, along the banks of the Seine, inside...
8 tags
gondolier
It was then that I thought of the gondolas in Venice. I remember how expensive they were, how the old Italian mamas shook their heads at me from their balconies, how wrinkled old men laughed at the horrendous deal I managed to negotiate. I remember looking down at the immaculate black paint, at the pink, red, purple frilly cushions—meant for lovers looking for the ‘quintessential...
4 tags
2 tags
entwine.
entwine your legs with mine; while the sky sighs along flesh.
entwine your lips with mine; and break this whole heart into two.
entwine your heart with mine; and we will beat together in tandem.
entwine your mind with mine; and memories and stories will be fused.
entwine your soul with mine; and when we die, we will be one.
entwine until we’re one person altogether
2 tags
why I drink
I have found out why I drink. It’s not a pretty reason, it’s not a safe reason. I don’t drink because I love the sweet taste sliding down my parched throat (though beer does do that for me—but I don’t drink beer to get drunk). I don’t drink to loosen up my aching limbs, to dance the night away with strangers I have never met, to make easy conversation with the...
5 tags
something a little more hopeful.
Once, there was a tadpole who couldn’t swim very well. His tail wasn’t formed as long as some of the others, some of his brothers and sisters. They could swim very well, and they laughed when they went to Tadpole School, and they ate all their greens at dinner time, which Mumma Frog served to them a bit more than they served to him. He didn’t get to eat very much, you see,...
2 tags
bring me lavender on my deathbed
They told me that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, but I squinted through the dark and saw that it was only the Sun; mocking me, as they walked out in the elements, and I crawled back into bed. It’s warm and dark beneath the covers, like my mother’s womb, a barely remembered past. I do miss flowers, though, of all the things out there. He brings me food and water each day,...
4 tags
Gítardjamm
Dim lights lined the dusty hallway, a long, quiet hallway which led to that wooden door. He knew it well; he had spent the afternoon kneeling before it, tracing over the panels with his fingertips, learning every spot. He had smelt the polish, almost faded away now, and rested his cheek against the mahogany. And when he had strength, he had stood with the door inside him, and gone to his room.
...
7 tags
3 tags
China tea cup
I wonder what your eyes would look like reflected in a cup of tea; would China color them curious, or something a shade closer to introspective? If I had felt your gentle hands wrap around porcelain stories, I would have been content. So often had we sat on opposite sides of the table, our knees nearly brushing. Our feet nearly entangled together to create a beautiful story, but we stopped one shy...
4 tags
burn this bile from my flesh
There was something to be said for his clean, porcelain arms, wrapped around me tightly. I remember tracing fragile fingers down his chest, exploring crevasses and lines of skin. I felt every nook and cranny, and he felt all of mine. I had opened myself for him like a flower, and he took and took, and gave and gave. It was this symbiotic relationship, where I showed places of my heart and soul and...
2 tags
For God so loved the world.
I ran away from church, today.
The old walls were full of termites and mould, and the room smelt musty as the preacher preached. I sat and listened, my ankles crossed beneath my modest skirt, and my hands clasped neatly over knobbly knees. His words infiltrated my heart and soul, and I was a good girl, sir, I was. I didn’t have anything to confess to the priest, but that’s okay,...
2 tags
Break this hard-heart.
there’s something to be said for barricades & fortresses; nothing violent penetrates those walls, though we are locked inside the towers.
we cannot escape, but you cannot enter.
the courtesan longs for the days of innocence; she sings of the times before we tore the land apart. she fucks the king in his iron bed, remembering the days she collected lavender & poppies from the...
2 tags
He won't let me go.
So you pressed a flower into my palm, and told me that a rose was not nearly as beautiful as my smile. I blushed and shook my head, disbelieving you. I traced my fingers along your lips, and told you that you too were handsome, trying to deflect your love and attention. But you wouldn’t be shaken off, you wouldn’t leave my gentle skin unloved, untouched. Images of your women before me...
2 tags
I won't let him go.
I’m a little jealous of the girls that got to touch you before me. I’m jealous of the hands that caressed you, in the witching hours, before dawn. I wish I could have been the one to dig my nails into your back, leaving scratches of possession. They would peak out the top of your shirt, and girls would recognise that sign, knowing you were mine. I have these images in my head of you...
3 tags
don't lie to the night sky.
Empty sympathies line my walls like wallpaper; all different colours from all different people.
Do you see the way they tear your eyes from the hideous rotting wall beneath?
I have held your still-beating heart between my two fragile palms; I have poured the long annals of history into your right & left ventricles. There is everything about me locked up inside the very core of you, and...