Penguin's Poetry Palace

Learning to Breathe

There is a hard clench of muscle
below my throat, a ribbon
of jumping skin over my clavicle.
The thrum of blood in my ears,
between my pulses, drowns me.
When my eyes close I am a red
seam pulling at itself, fraying
in the middle toward the ends.
I am a plait half undone, unwinding
into knots of fine, miniscule threads.
The hollow of my mouth speaks
and I choke on my own tongue.
Somewhere light dims and I am -

Tic

I hate that thing you do with your lip
curling back when you are a tiger
clawing at the meat on the kitchen table.
I watch the blood congeal inside your plate
as your teeth puncture the silence, snuffling
around your kill. I watch the clock tick
toward 8p.m. and think of nothing; cold
white static shifting behind my cornea
until the sleek clatter of cutlery wakes
me up against the counter, plates shifting
into the hot sink well. When you slink away
I sit in your chair, believe I have been devoured
And am warm, alone, in the belly of you.

Monday

In the blue morning you are painted
ochre over the shoulders – marked conquests
still so clear in the shadows.
I had thought the notched belt
was cliched (big beds and canopies alike)
and realise now broken hearts
are overrated in the morning as well as night.

Royal Woes Laid to Rest

What a terrible thing,
said the knight to the king,
to miss all this frivolity.

It was indeed a handsome shame
to watch the old courting game
with the greatest intended cordiality.

The king nodded and frowned,
the princesses were modest gowned
but still the princes were all ferocity.

And so the knight burst into the fray
then took the princess bright and gay,
dancing with all modernity.

Cheering King saw their close position
and gave the knight his permission
before long came merriment a plenty.

Origami

I fold sadness in little stars
patterned in fluro hearts
I bought from the corner store.
Slipping edge into edge,
climbing into itself over points
of accepted meeting,
they regularly appear crooked,
missing the pop to round out
their hollow cheeks.
It is better to make these,
(I think)
than to wonder what else
I can do with sadness
and hands.

Self Portrait

There was an image of me
cluttering up the side mirror
this time last weekend.
The sickly shudder of her body
grating against the car door
sank into my belly and shuddered
there like a reverberating train track.
I thought - this is me. That is me.
And was sick over the side, fine
hair damp across my forehead,
steaming against high cheekbones
and cupid's bow mouth.
We whispered there, her wrists
locked tight against my own,
and I didn't want to, but won back
my freedom like seldom rain;
accidentally.

Waiting for Storms

I demand the sea calm after the storm
even when the water spout shrivels
the palm trees on the coast.
This is something I am allowed to do,
I take words and use them against
the earth like boulders of sound,
crashing against the sand and spraying
elemental force through leylines.
These judgement calls are made without blinking,
watching the sun shift into the moon
and the body of the world buckle into darkness.
After I am empty, throat hollow and raw,
the silence is strong. I sit by the window pane
and watch the waves again.

Gallery

I imagine time stretching,
pinning me into place
(on the wall, inside the floor)
as the only way to stay.
I have no vocabulary standing,
I sit and lament justly, but have no tie
to the grumbling rabble.
No stroke-oil-thinner conversation.
I have colours and shape
language waiting for me
to collect and collate into terms
of appreciation.

Tourist

Pack up, go home.
I don't want you here,
one more notebook
with clinical sight and - no!
We don't want you here,
exposed to our extremities.
I have all these sails,
colours of a much brighter life,
I have this and more against
the knowing of you. Viral
complacent to existing still
in warm orange lights.
Go home, I don't need you
here.

Prospect

It takes so long to see the image
inside the painting. Thick strokes and thin,
jagged stalks congealing on canvas
and I want to tear them down, make them better
shapes and clearer shapes and dare them
to be so true as the original, so heart felt, so inside me.
Looking in on me looking out I cannot
make the colours into anything else, even writing
(especially here) so this burst of pink is no longer
colour, it is motion and fluid and hurts.

At the Stop

The stand is cold grey under mist
where we wait, marble statues
and I look into your eyes across
the long tiled street.
There you are a thin black pit
a shadow of space surrounded by
-anti. I call, closed mouth
and gasping for the air
air. Air I know you have
Give it to me
I scream across the mosaic and watch
the jagged vowels hit the purple plaster
the cool consonants shatter
into your hair
you blink.

Where Dem Boys At Srsly

I like the sound of your vowel,
he said to her one evening.
We watched the movement
of her fingertips to her hair
and crowed delight -
Audy had found - what?
Prince Charming seated
four tables away, glaring
at a salad (with whom no friends
were made) watches also
this little play on words
and whispers. The nemesis
pulls his fringe to the side
and smirks all delight
(the kindness of strangers
she thinks to the night).
Until sudden does the Prince move
to sweep his Princess off
her feet, the floor, her couch,
and Audy is windswept,
unkempt in the light of lovelovelove.

Meshugenah
(wait, really?)

Like loquacious nights lingering
on the mantle of your garden statues,
the man waits against the shadow
of a wall and brick pavement.

His neck bends so slight
as the light flickers in the window
of your second room. He turns,
wanders from the ivy to the league
of boats moored by the artificial lake.

One oar down and the boat is pushed
to the seam of water, lapping an island
off the far coast of - chilly wind breathes
against his neck and goose bumps lift
the wood against the grain.

You see that boat bobbing past the window
pane, and his dark form lying against
the belly of that beast and sigh,
"Crazy."

Scarlet Locks

Breath reflection slinks against the mirror
of your mother's room, again you have missed
the lipstick crossing your cheek and the print
of your lips against the frame
where your father's picture once stood.
The innocuous rap of rock to window
wakes you from the awkward slumber
of memory. The cheeky grin returns as you plummet
three stories feet down to the gravel lot.
Leathers and feral hair stand both lithe black
and you are flung across the growling beast,
roaring into an echoed night as Pandora
might from Haphaestus have stolen,
had she known how.

A line each from Lette, Audster, Nah and myself.

The Adventures of Irony

like despair, she sits
sprawled upon the window seat
watching the moon chase the sun
into shadow, behind clouds too dark to not be omnious
to sea, field, mountain
where her smile does wane
and again. This silence where she speaks
holds still, the sun and moon leaning inward to hear
a softness; a swift in drawn breath
her love plucked by the mountain's peak
and arching into those wayward arms.
She turned so slightly, and looked straight ahead, and softly said,
"come back for me, my love, and shatter this despair"
but dismayed she was when he tore out through the door
as the savage scoundrel he always had to be.
[because this is a romance novel. For ever and ever, until the world ends, AMEN]

aka edited to:

A Controversial Irony

Calliope sinks her teeth into my shoulder,
rough-housing gone too far and like despair,
she sits sprawled on the window seat
watching the moon chase the sun.
Love lorn into shadow, behind clouds too dark
not to be ominous for seas and fields and mountains
wane where her smile does. This silence
where she speaks holds still; loves suspended,
leaning inward to hear a softness of drawn breath.
Here her love plucked by the mountain's peak
arched into those wayward arms. She turned
so slightly and looked straight ahead, and softly
said "Come back to me" but dismayed, he tore
out through the door as the savage scoundrel
he always had to be, for all romance is a novel
for ever and ever
amen.