24 hours

24 hours left
You and me
Me and you
Until we leave
In two very different directions
To two very different places
24 hours to talk
24 hours to kiss
24 hours to see
In how many ways
Our bodies can tessellate
And sleep,
Your knees behind my knees
Your chest against my back
So for a while
We can pretend
That we are going in the same direction

20 Dec 2009

Portrait of a Shirt

In the day, it belongs to him
Its soft crispness accentuates
The angles of his masculinity
Its uniformity defines his place in the world,
his belonging

In the night, it belongs to no-one
Discarded quickly when lipstick stains
Begin to grow on the collar

In the morning, it belongs to her
Its size, shape and gentle creases of wear
Veil her femininity
Between the bed and the bathroom

Her perfume will remind him
Until it fades away for good.
While she hides away,
Mascara stains appear on the cuffs

Bidding a goodbye
That lasts long after she's gone
It lasts until the laundry's done

five-thirteen a.m. (insomnia)

I know you can read my poems
I let you, so it's OK
I try not to censor myself because you can read my poems
(I know you can, I don't know if you do)
I try to keep them real,
Expressions of me, my thoughts,
My varied, sometimes contradictory truths
That change as often as I do,
Never staying quite the same for too long
But always recognizable as each other
(Me and my truths, we are one and the same.
Or at least we were, at some point)
I try not to censor myself
(It's a bit stupid, I don't even know if you'll read this)
But there's one poem I kept for myself
(Just one, I'm not too greedy)
I wrote it when I last left you.
It's not depressing, soppy or too strong,
Just facts in poem form.
I know it won't stay mine for long.
I'll put it where you can see it soon enough.
But for now... It's staying mine.

16th Nov '09 (5:13am)

Dada Poetry and Fun with Wikipedia's Random Article!

Chanelling Tristan Tzara and his Dadaist poetry magic, I decided to write my own few Dada poems using the 'random article feature' on wikipedia. I'd click on random article and use that article as inspiration to write one line on a piece of paper... which I would then fold up and put in a scarf. Once I had 12, I pulled them out of the scarf at random and came up with the first poem. After I recorded it, I wrote another 12 and mixed them in with the first 12 (now 24), but pulled out only 12, recorded them, and wrote another 12. I mixed the 36 together but pulled out only 12 and wrote the third poem. A triumph of randomness? Perhaps.

DADA POEM I
It’s the act of tearing an object
Maybe I’ll find some money on St Teresa’s Day
Until I find you again –
An outdated, faded fleur-de-lis, barely visible above the doorway
Flies out to one of Cassiopeia’s stars
Why do I want to see you again?
A small village, in a small county, in a big forest
Limbs all akimbo
Body in limbo
The river winds its way through Vorarlberg
Enough to let me fly far, far away
Almost over!
Angels for Oliver!
Crystalline Mountains and freezing rain!

DADA POEM II
A small village, in a small country, in a big forest
Icelandic patronymics in Hollywood Viking films
I bought a bunch of crossed products
Until I find you again
Small villages, cabins covered in ice
Crystalline mountains and freezing rain
Stars swing in the skies: I’m dizzy now
Limbs all akimbo
Body in limbo
Nepalese villages, mountains and rice
Maybe I’ll find some money on St Teresa’s Day
It’s the act of tearing an object
Out of one of Cassiopeia’s stars

DADA POEM III
You used to want to buy a boat and sail down to Sicily
There’s an Indian butterfly in my doorway
I wouldn’t die for your sins
A flower sits on my window sill, turned away from the train
The flame burns longer than you think
What happened to that?
Stars swing in the skies, I’m dizzy now
It was a perfect day,
The creek flows 5 miles south
Cable cars between table tops
Third time lucky
You’re pushing me.

Alone

I'm sitting in bed, alone
Thinking of all the things I have to do here, alone
Listening to the man upstairs repairing
And, yes, I am alone.
And although I'm alone,
I'm thinking of you,
And I'm thinking that I'm not really alone,
And that if you could,
You'd be alone with me.
And we'd be alone together.
And we wouldn't really be alone,
We'd be two people,
Not sure where we're going,
Not sure where this is going,
Not sure if this is right,
But enjoying being alone, together.
Enjoying the perfection of the moment.
And just waiting for the snow.


October 17, 2009

A Dream

I thought I'd forgotten you,
Left your ghostly presence back home
In a chest full of old clothes, broken toys and cheap books.
I thought I left you in that niche,
An alcove where to hide lost love and heart-ache,
Distant enough to let life continue,
Close enough to refer to lessons I should have learned.
But you were here last night.
I saw you.
The rest,
The circumstance,
My subconcious eye decided to leave unfocused.
The photographer focused on your smile.
I'm sure you were here.
How else could your face have been so clear
If you were not right next to me,
Your features clear as day,
Photosynthesised into my mind by night
As though your face was next to mine.
And as I woke, I saw you there
Your face was on my pillowcase.
I pressed the snooze.
Went back to sleep.
When I woke again, you were gone.
Were you real?
Were you here?
Did you kiss me as you left?
I'm not sure,
I'll never know
I just know your smell lingers in the air.

Untitled Poem III

I can smell you in my wardrobe.
Have you been hiding there?
Watching me while I sleep?
Trying to surprise me?
I can smell you in my room
Although you've never been here
And everyone else can only smell turpentine.
I can taste you before I go to sleep.
I dont know why.
So strong, it's like you're here.
I can taste the dinner we ate together
Five nights in a row,
Even though I have brushed my teeth close to sixty times
Since we last ate together.
I can feel you in my bed.
As though you were lying there when I turn off the light
Not touching me,
Just lying there,
Waiting for sleep.
I can feel you in my bed.
I'm sure of it.
You're still there in the morning
It's not untill a few moments after I wake up
That you dissipate into nothingness.


May, 2009

Untitled Poem II

It's cold around us
The winter air, carrying snow
Pushes against the window
With the wooden, white-washed frame.
You say you love me,
Then you love me,
Then it's over,
And we lay beside eachother
Like two discarded bits of string
Lacking in any intentional shape
Loving eachother in out mutual, unintentional shapelessness

June 2009

ending to a wasted love story...

This is an ending to a love story I wrote, though I can't find the rest of it. I think it's fairly self-explanitory.

"This is the point in the story where it can go so many ways, depending on the choices each of them make. The first and primary choice is his. He can stay, watch her go, or he can follow her. Considering his options, he follows her, because he knows that’s the choice that will make things clearer for the both of them. He raced down the stairs and caught her wrist. He did something she didn’t expect. He told her that he loved, always had and always will. When she first met him, she wrote that she knew she would get hurt, but she loved him so much, she would accept it, she had to. For her, it was one of those moments where you have to choose between what you want and what you need. Every time she imagined this scenario, she told him she loved him. She told him that they could start again, and she was his. And they were happy, happily ever after. However, there is a certain amount of pain prescribed to each relationship by the other-worldly beings that control our hearts, and it’s only when that amount of pain in exasperated that we realise that love will not fix us. And so she said something she never thought she would say; she said that she loved him but that he, and their precarious relationship had hurt her too much to recover. She said she would always love him, but asked him never to say he loved her. She said this without her voice trembling. She said it without stuttering. She said it with tears in her eyes that hurt so much in the freezing night air. And she turned away, and she left."

Amorphous Literary Construction

I found this on my computer today. It's a bit strange. It's neither a story nor a poem, but kind of a hybrid of both. I'm not sure what it is. But I kind of liked it.

"I was thinking about one of our future conversations. We always have these in my head, when we haven’t spoken in over a year. This time we were talking about the cultural differences. You remarked on my accent (this you really did, when you first met me, when you first went to bed with me and I was so nervous I would talk incessantly while you kissed my neck, my whole body, and you said my accent was sexy). You asked me questions about the heat, I made quick calculations of degrees from Celsius into Fahrenheit, and wondered if 47 C would really be over 100 F. I asked you questions about thanksgiving (was it really like the movies and TV shows made it out to be?). And why thanksgiving? Ah, I remember, I was going to be finishing the semester around that time, and you invited me to spend thanksgiving with your family. I wondered, in a window of sanity during which I remembered you were just an extra pillow lying next to me, if you would have wanted me there, with your family for thanksgiving. And I thought of all the times you asked me how I was, or offered to fly to Europe to see me. If I had once said how much I missed you would you have come? Was it a total joke? Or a thinly veiled offer? And I felt the worst pain of regret wash through my veins, mixed in with my blood. I felt the tears in my eyes. So I closed my eyes, knowing that despite the dark I would not sleep and, in a moment of zen, peace or maturity, I held my breath until the tears passed. I knew that if I let that first tear roll past my lashes, out the corner of my eye, an entire world of pain would fall on me, and I wouldn’t breathe, or move, or do anything by cry for the next hour at least. And the pain of that moment of sanity would be ecstasy compared with the wave of pain that followed the first tear. So I bit my lip, and waited. "

Part of a story, perhaps

Here is a small bit of a small paragraph I wrote, I can't even remember when, but a long time ago. Having just found it, I'm thinking it may one day, turn into a story.... perhaps.

"He always made her fall more in love with him. Without saying he loved her at all. The closest thing was when he said she was perfect and she should never change. That was the last time they saw each other, right before he left Paris for Valencia. She guessed the main reason was that it was too painful to say it out loud, especially to each other. How can you love someone who happens to be in another hemisphere? (As though it was a random throw of dice, landing where we did). Well, you can love someone so far away. You can tell yourself, but no one else. Because when you start telling people it’s love, it’s real. When you start telling the person you’re in love with, it’s a gamble."

Untitled Poem

I miss what seemed to be an intuitive caress
through it, I could know you
I learned you, like a song I can now play without looking at the notes
Without looking at the keys
I memorized you, so I would need no photo to mime the crevasses of your face
I was you, for a while, so close we didn’t need to speak at all
Every morning since I left you, I pretended I haven’t
Every day you didn’t write, I made excuses for you
Every moment you didn’t call, I waited
The agony of missing you pressing on my frontal lobe
I felt an aneurism coming on
But with one letter
Barely more than a syllable
You rip my heart into even more than two
Many more than two pieces
I take a break before reading it again
Making sure you meant what I thought you meant
Making sure you weren’t just baiting me
Do I write to you?
Do I acknowledge what you have so fleetingly mentioned
As if you thought I wouldn’t mind at all.


May/June 2009

Sometime

Sometimes, when I least expect it
Your taste comes into my mouth
I stop for a second to take you in one more time

Sometimes, more often (usually while I watch TV)
I can hear your voice again
And the tears come out of me because I want you to talk to me

And, most often, it is your memory
Your eyes and mouth, the way you looked
That comes before my eyes

Then I wonder where you are
If I’d find you
If you’ve moved on in the world

We were both away from home when we met
So I could never know where you go
Outside the beachside Roman town

And I wish I could tell them they were wrong
That we’re not over each other
That you cared enough


March, 2008

Goodbye

I’m still crying
I started last night, while I watched you sleep
I made sure not to make a noise
Or shudder with a sob
I knew it would have wakened you
I left you tearstains
On a pillow that wasn’t even yours
I don’t think you knew
I stopped breathing in the morning
While you kissed me like any other day
Laughed, smiled and tried to make me do the same
I cried when you left
And pretended I didn’t when you got back
I told you I had a cold
I think you knew I was lying
I cried when you went to the bus stop
I hoped you wouldn’t notice when I wiped my cheeks on your shirt
I started crying in an empty bar
I cried on the plane
And I’m still crying now
I told you to tell me we’ll see each other soon
Even if it was a lie
I came up with all these magical things to tell you
But when you were going to school
But when it was the last kiss you’d give me for god knows how long
I didn’t dare open my mouth to say them
I knew my voice would shatter
My face would stop being beautiful to you
I knew I would begin a domino effect of hysteria
Like I have done now

April 2009

Response to a Photograph

Why does this photo, resting on my screen, look like a lunar wonderland
With the first bare human feet resting so precariously on its lunar surface?
Why do you, almost-stranger, inspire me more with your lunar feet
Than a million ex lovers, with a million ex kisses, on a million ex lips?
I like the way you pictures look old
Not perfect or classically focused, like life
I like the fact that your imperfect pictures
Make my imperfect pictures all the more perfect
Why is it that seeing your pictures makes me want to write?


April 2009

Pastiche

The summer wind came blowing in
From across the plains
It lingered for too long
And still you were gone
So far away from me
And now the summer wind has left
Travelled up through the Kalahari and Sahara
Bringing new white sand to the Canaries
And you’ve finally almost come to me.
Now I meet you so soon
And maybe, I’m still in love with you
But there’s no more summer wind
No more blistering burns or sweaty nights
Now the winter wind is pouring on my window
And I’m glad to see the summer wind go
And leave me alone
And leave us with the rain
And maybe, I’m even glad to see it
Leave me with you


April 2009

Burn Out

When we burn ourselves out, what really happens?
Do we lose our passion?
Or do we just lose?
Do we become hollow shells of what we used to be?
Eggs, cracked open, empty, left on the blue laminex counter that my mother always fought to keep clean.
Perhaps.
But what is worse, is what we do to keep from burning out.
We become selfish, egotistical and complacent.
We also lose our passion.
We allow ourselves one freedom and become addicts.
"Just this one weekend for me", turns into complacency
Forgetting why we began to burn out in the first place,
(Which was to keep everyone else happy)
Remembering why we stopped writing poetry,
And writing poetry again instead of emails and making phone calls.
‘I just want this one weekend’
And it turns into a lifetime for ourselves and no one else.
Pretending not to be indulgent, but inspired
By evocative black and white shots
Or a contemporary symphony
And then we write about it
In the plural of the first person,
So that we can share our individual guilt, collectively.