nine lives & the lottery of dreams

^ That last one frustrated more than all the others combined. Grr.

#11

there are men in the fields,
bronzed backs glaring at the sun.

i am not among them, the women
say i am not of them.

the elders give no comment,
lips locked in secret mirth, looking

to the rest of us who weave between
the drawn lines, blind to those already
fallen

#12 Long Distance Call

Listen,
my voice hasn't reached
you yet, it's in transit
among the stars
collecting dust
more ancient than the sun.
i hope it gets there
in time, unchanged.

#12.1 Neither Here Nor There

I danced with a cartographer,
who couldn't measure the distance
between my head and his heart
so I resolved to chart it, shaky
hands trailing ink blind
to the risks of hidden pitfalls
and unseen currents. It's up
to you to follow the stars
I've lit.

You're insane Jigs.
I love you for doing this.

Heh, thanks m'dear. *snugs Kammeh*

#13

I wanted you to believe
in something, anything, other
than me; your persistence
haunts my carefree steps
into stuttering recoil
and I beg you to stop
using your faith as an axe.

I can't stand the mess,
there's too much blood and shit everywhere
mocking the surgical precision of thoughts
cast adrift. Will you take off
the gloves, when the time comes to touch
bare skin?

Spoiler

Blurgh

^ Wanted to delete that, but Kammeh wouldn't let me. Gotta leave the crap alongside everything else, no?

#13.1

the sky's pall
is thick enough to cast doubt
on the existence of stars
and my memory's superficial
light doesn't come close
to encompassing the enormity
of space, lost between
pinpricks of fire, now
forgotten.

#14

I remember nothing special about you,
just wide spaced teeth and a smile
that lit your eyes.
I was only twelve, maybe less
not old enough to realise later
I'd split blood and bone
in an augury just to recall
a single conversation we had.

Just a note: you may have already noticed, my output is winding down. It may just stop soon - I'm not happy with what I'm producing and I want to shift my focus back to writing prose. Happily enough, the motivation is there! So we'll just have to see how I go in the next few weeks.

Cheers

#15

murder, she wrote in spiral
shaped sea shells on the beach
one limp Sunday morning.
waves crashed against it, a ceaseless
foaming madness on the lips
of the ocean trying to censor
her first attempt at poetry;
a draft written with salt encrusted
fingers and hair straggling down
her naked back. today,
she didn't bother building sandcastles
doomed to crumble,
or bottle her message for some distant
boy to find. murder, she wrote
for the moon and stars, one limp
Sunday morning.

Spoiler

I appear to be in a morbid mood o.O

#16

I think I'm addicted to grief,
to the way it organises and prioritises
life with methodical, grey fingers
tipped black and bleeding eulogies. Is it
wrong to want it so much, that peculiar warmth
and desperate nostalgia
glazing the eyes of parents busy
preserving
their lost children's rooms, just so
not a spec of dust can intrude
on the frozen tableau; not
a word can breach the silent
sunrise of mourning even
as birds chirp above tombstones
blooming in the ground.

#17

She stands
atop a cliff both white
and grey, and remembers
an age when she was not
so old. Condensation
drips down a face
too worn to know it's made
of stone.

#18

I want to take you out
but can't imagine where
you'd fit best --

chinatown is weird, I find
the fortune cookie mysticism
unnervingly accurate

(I know you'll say
it's because I think in vagaries
but there's more to it than that)

and little italy depresses me,
it's just one shoddy pizza shop
run by an Indian guy with a British
accent.

everywhere in between is uniform
and bland; post-WWII architecture
glaringly out of place, a slick comb over
trying too hard to hide what used to be
is now gone

I think I'll leave you where you are
and hope you find me instead

#19 Woman

bear me a child,
that I can repeat
the past, correctly
this time.

bear me a child,
that I might see
myself exposed
in full.

bear me a child,
that this mantle I weave
of guilt and failure
can adorn its shoulders
tomorrow

bear me a child
I beg you, only
once I'm gone.

20

An old man on the street tried to tell me once that he spent a lifetime polishing his fears
until they were utterly perfect, gem-bright and kept the night at bay.
I wasn't really listening, recalling his gravel words only later by the fading light
of the moon. I did drop some coins in his tin cup - his hand was shaking, involuntarily
I think - and I'm pathetically grateful for that now. It's these moments
I want for myself, small, unguarded, true and - fuck I hate to say it, but
pure.

I wish I had the courage to actually speak, never mind the message.
when the time comes I freeze, my hands clamp down and my heart sings, it really does
but only I can hear it.
My mouth moves and the pantomime begins, to the detriment of all
meaning I move further and further away from ever being front and centre
in the greatest show on earth. Why am I breathing so hard?
It's not like I've been dancing or fucking or performing anything
so when did I become so acrobatic at avoidance?

I've been writing letters to myself in code since I was a boy
that I haven't been able to crack. If I could I would tell that boy to stop, don't bother, forget the pen and paper
and just speak! sing! anything to break the suffocating silence that follows screams. But I can't.
All I'm left with are questions fencing in the dark, too quick to follow. I would answer
that old man now, if that's okay, I would say to him that I have done the same, imperfectly
and there isn't enough light to see by, just scattered reflections bouncing
off of one another that are every bit as blinding. Hey, I would ask him now
as humbly as I may, could we swap please? Take mine, they can't hurt you
and I'll look to the stars from here on.

#21

Faith lies
in wait, ever
patient; intangible
otherness beneath
the cornerstone of
science, cracked.