nine lives & the lottery of dreams

#22

I heard shots fired
and sirens wailing
in distress the day
I first met you.

It was entirely unrelated

but the memory sticks
like the smell of chlorine
and the oppression of clouds
on a muggy day, witholding
that precious downpour.

I saw you, and the chance
association of mismatched imagery
faded into the background. the rest
as they say, is history.

partially inspired by sarg
#23 Hey sis, I'll be around

I have a factory of nephews and nieces
in production almost all the time
it seems there's a new one to remember
the name and date and favourite colour
of various infantile delusions forgotten
the very next day. I am a distant
thought, a hard to grasp idea, a blob
of colour and sound and texture
unknown to small grasping fingers
and eyes still shiny and wet and new
as the cacophony of tried and tested
noises grows I spare a thought for the factory
still hard at work, diminished with each
new product and badly in need of an
upgrade.

#24

We bathed in the glow
of the TV's bright glare,
it's unblinking eye wrought
of shadows and phantoms
chasing each other across the planes
and curves of your face.
you wanted to put on a movie,
the title of which didn't matter;
I was thinking about the cost
as we waited for the delivery to arrive
and later, much later, you cried
in my arms and said you regretted it
and I thought, at least the pizza
was hot.

#25

Well, sure stars are particularly pretty
and they glimmer and glint and shine
down on us, these celestial ghosts
are fascinating and mountains! oh the
towering curvature of mother earth's
upturned breasts, these hills and valleys
so green and hollow, it's all very beautiful
yes, yes, but Plato says none of it's real,
none of it's true, it's all shadows cast
by god's fitful flame that we're not meant
for, and we tend to listen to the words
of old dead men more than anything else.

#23 made me chuckle.

Edit: Ugh, we need another punctuation mark somewhere between a period and an exclamation point. Whatever it is, that's the one I would use above.

Haha, yeah well, it's entirely true. My sister is perpetually pregnant and yet somehow more and more little terrors are spun into existence. Hell, maybe the bloated belly is just a ruse, a distraction as she creates/kidnaps babies from elsewhere. It's uncanny.

#26

Sitting, half-slouched on a lounge
I wish I lacked the conscience and good sense
to start smoking for the aesthetic alone;
the lazy rings of addictive calm have haunted
the rooms of my childhood sending me
on dizzying highs that half-let me understand
Frasier, and laugh with the adults. I buried
my head in books often as I could until I was drowning
in heightened emotions aflame in a dragon's mouth
and all around me the whispers grew
and you accused me of not caring, of not trying
to get my head out of the clouds. I tried to tell you
I wasn't that tall, I'm still among you, honest
I'm no different but even were it true that I was blanketed
in such drowsy comfort adrift in the sky, I'd do my best
to return to the ground so I could look up and dream
some more.

#27

Outside, the sun peered through broken clouds
on roads black and wet and the car gleamed
with new promise; you wore a hat and red lipstick
just applied. it outlined the furrows in your lips
so big and bright I could only think of those giant fakes
that used to be so popular. I think they were candy
but I'm not sure, anyway, it was odd, this mouth
you decided to wear and I couldn't get past it
fast enough; you grimaced when you saw me looking
and said, 'I know, my lips are so fucking dry and this balm
isn't working.' We were on our way by this point
and I reflected later the reason I don't drive
is I like the sensation of drifting, of arriving
without effort, carried by nothing more than a fixation
on oddities.

#27.1

I wish I could replay
all my dreams in slow motion, rewind
fast forward and freeze frame
the turmoil of subconscious thoughts
clothed in flesh and riotous colour lost
to waking perception and uncaring
of logic slotting into place, complex
gears clockwork-oriented, as night
falls and perception is freed on starlit
wings. It's not so much I need
to understand my soul's desperate wish
for flight, as it is I want to experience
the headlong rush through space forgotten
to conscious thought still locked in
slumber.

#27.2

disconnected ideas, half nibbled already
dangle on the bare branches of this stricken
tree, not found anywhere else
in the world (so far as I know
but I haven't looked everywhere yet)
and I only water it occasionally, it's damn
tough and persistent and won't bend
or break in a storm mine or otherwise,
so it stands to gain from the heavens alone
and crooks its fingers accordingly, so thin
and pliable and ready to snap
at anyone doubting its existence based on sound
recorded or not, it lives to bear fruit
I've already tasted, unripe and bittersweet.

#27.3

It's a delicate tracery
the ghost of an outline
hesitating, this breath
barely breathed --

can't catch it, it's not
contagious I hope
to one day face it

unflinching

and they say it's skittish
and wild feline grace outstretched
in flight in fright and they say
don't ever look it in the eye
or you'll be as stone, frozen
in time --

it doesn't matter, I can't find
the definition I lack and I won't
diminish you with someone else's
reference. One day I'll write
my own and you'll find it tucked
away on a discarded to-do list.

#28 voodoo love

I cast the stones made from bird bones
and shake the feathers of chickens painted
lurid yellow and sing the old songs our ancestors
sang by campfires burning red-eyed newcomers
unused to scented smoke visions blown out
the mouths of toothless crones atop the chief's
headdress, and the stars listen in pointed silence
as I lure the witch-woman closer with a pattern
stamped by feet rough as the earth, hoping
the chaotic tattoo of my heart stitched on her arm
isn't real, isn't mine or that this chant is strong enough
to let her see this power she now has to enchant me
wasn't necessary to begin with.

Spoiler

...don't ask. I have no freaking clue

#29

Candlelight
simmers in a pool
of wax melting
down the sides already
congealing on the clear
tabletop

#30

Sureties exist, I'm told
they lie somewhere between
the footprints of giants fading
in the snow and the telephone poles
strangling the air with used guillotines
missed by satellites lost in the beauty of constellations
deafened by deep echoes of movement beneath the frozen lake
surface children skate across convinced of their own immortality.

And you're done!
I enjoyed stalking your thread. *nods*