thick shackles broken,
lashing curved
together. moons
vanish in those wells,
intent on drying.
suddenly inside
him
and out, shut
in one second
by stairs unfolded.
left looking, again,
at the warmest hue of chocolate.
Take me, little death, in your sweet embrace,
Tell Hypnos it’s his time to carry me
From the lit plains of sunflower faces
And lay me to rest under moon lilies.
Shower me with your kiss – I’ll drink it all
And parched will start dreaming. Let us be shy,
Your blush will meet mine, caress, we will fall
As others have in life’s greatest lie –
But we, we will lie otherwise, ourselves
As one, in two, evermore intimate.
Under the lightless pillows we must delve,
Hide me, little death, for the sun is late.
I will sleep, and dream with you, always true,
Always true, and till the morrow, love you.
ix.
Shower me with your smiles, muse of my heart,
Armored with loyalty perhaps, and still
Your stare does make my lust suggest a part
In a two-piece game. Prohibited thrills,
Your voice plucks and plays with no strings attached
-Can't you see there must be nothing between-
You pay no mind with newly freed sighs hatched
From an innocent enough looking screen,
Hiding dark. Be content, muse of my eye,
Knowing not one dream has ever come true
There's no danger in my thoughts. But I lie:
I will pillage any chance to win you.
Taken, why did you have to take me too,
I wish no harm, except I might love you.
viii.
Gather this courage and ma
That day his world ended in fire,
Not in ice.
Only when the earth was scorched and tired
The air burnt with screams of fire
Would you wish for this advice:
When it's darkness' time to reap
Hope your world will end in ice,
To make you sleep,
But never twice.
I hooked my eyes on you,
Sun-boy from the dark precincts,
Fighting the stream of tunes
With your dashing accent.
But the sun doesn’t pick:
It casts and we all take you in
Equally, always with the same tricks,
The same for all the doting grins.
Another sun-child fooled me once
(A teaspoonful of sunlight, spilt and done)
And you do it again, as if by chance,
Just being yourself in a strange land of sun.
I had to panic, scream –
Fled for the nearest storm,
Got caught in the thunder streams
lost, hopeless, unborn –
But your smile unwavering
Ever shining, casting shadows as it
dances, shadows that remind me, again,
That the sun
It was only when Claude finished playing that he noticed the walls were breaking apart. Not literally, but there were visible cracks. He’d never seen the rips in the wallpaper peeling off like dead skin before – it was all just visual static to him. He brushed off his sleeve the piece of ceiling paint that had come to rest on his arm.
He packed her up, closed the clasps and left the music studio. Tim had cleaned the windows of the main hall and the light was coming through for the first time in months. He had to be around, somewhere. Claude slid as silently as he could, but the creaking floorboards sang in warning.
“Good mor
Painted horizons
Rudimentary freedom
Choking dreams inside
Excellent gusto
The careless swig of the mug
Dried seeds, frozen worms
It is only after
The clap of the door closing
Widened eyes light up
The constant gurgle
Chasing my bedtime away
-a sister’s shower
Ghost balls of paper
But the book is intact, still
Deadline approaches
I've learnt the art of wry smiles:
The slow coiling of the edges and the slight drop of the lids,
The arched back of the single brow and the sideways slant of the amused pupil,
We've got it down to the beat, all accounted for, all the steps memorized subconsciously
In the, now parted, afternoon mental repeats of our choreography.
I've learnt to delete every picture, every file:
With every blank space left behind, all the mirrored memoir shadow words
Have built a monument to us, an improbable homage to our world,
Filled with fences and lines restricting friendships, withholding benefits
Always for the better, always pushed around until nigh
Tea leaves swim
And on the surface
Birds fly by
The full moon splendid
Moves between the buildings, free
He watches – yearning
The balance between
A cool night and mosquitoes:
The open window
Stop – silent grief
I crush the spiral house
An accident
No stars this cold night
Just you and I, streetwalking
Eerie sparkling suns
Let me sleep tonight
Your sweet chirping, though quiet
Loud enough for me
Lungs burn up with coughs -
In the midst of the attack,
Clouds reply with storms
Cat-bellied sun soak
Singing duets with birdsong
First real day of Spring
Your words: they stain me,
Like an ink-blot bruise, right under my skin.
A drop from your mouth blossoms,
And I grasp the wretched bloom within.
I’m so afraid it’s fated to happen:
Once again, I’m the pawn of this game –
And here am I, believing I’ve some control,
When in fact, I have little else but my name.
I crave this ecdysis;
Take me, little death, in your sweet embrace,
Tell Hypnos it’s his time to carry me
From the lit plains of sunflower faces
And lay me to rest under moon lilies.
Shower me with your kiss – I’ll drink it all
And parched will start dreaming. Let us be shy,
Your blush will meet mine, caress, we will fall
As others have in life’s greatest lie –
But we, we will lie otherwise, ourselves
As one, in two, evermore intimate.
Under the lightless pillows we must delve,
Hide me, little death, for the sun is late.
I will sleep, and dream with you, always true,
Always true, and till the morrow, love you.