My Intended Artistry (MIA)
It’s Sunday, and it’s morning.
You’re sat up at the breakfast bar,
elbows propped, coffee in hand,
legs crossed and bare,
pearly in the breaking light,
a pale, blue button-down does little to cover,
and I too feel exposed with this obvious grin,
not so much ‘staring’ at you
as ‘bathing’,
dabbing at the pinks in your palette,
every bristle coated in your color,
your magic,
and I ready myself to paint a masterpiece,
but stop short.
Head tilted, stepping back.
I lay my wetted brush,
and soak in primal views.
I could never paint a picture
quite as beautiful as you.
Raw
If I could scream
for twenty minutes straight,
I’d still have so much left inside.
I long for love to tear me open,
rip and split the shell that hides
and strangles me till I can’t see.
It burns to even fucking breathe,
cos every word has brakes applied
and sings like stings in both my eyes,
and punches me from inside out,
a hammerfist fights through my chest;
it thumps and roars against the cage,
throws itself against the bars, and whimpers through its rage.
Witness here the ugly side to passionate enaction;
the equal, opposing forcefulness of raw and fierce reaction.
I am the medium
You are poetry.
And to think I nearly mistook you for a muse
when all along you were already written.
All I can do is paraphrase
your rhythm and your rhyme.
Let it breathe
Easy tiger
let it breathe, like wine;
the nose, I’m told, is key,
before your lips and teeth and claws,
before your heart and mind implore
that you embed and bury deep
and sink in deeply fruited sleep
– far down, far down, drink up or drown
or swim the viscous, ruby death,
and with your final, burning breath,
remember this: demise is sweet,
but death by love is still defeat.
Resist the urge, and take your time
to drink your love like fine red wine.
Enter
Don’t hold me back, or dare to slow;
why should I walk when all I want
is to be free of chains, and throw
each part of me at walls to see
if something sticks, and patterns show,
depicting just how fast to go,
or bleed in streaks – the colours speak
to what I must already know;
I cannot tell what love I seek,
but I shan’t enter soft nor weak.
Beady-eyed
‘Tree Frog’ by Candace and Joe Zetter
I am the bead amongst the reeds;
consider this my only warning.
Poised by night, and held till morning.
Stay awhile. Come hide and seek,
leak not a croak, make not a creak.
As you attempt your nightly deeds,
beware the bead amongst the reeds.
I am the fresh, the flush, the mesh
and weave of leaves where you can rest
inside, entwined, in pillars of dew,
where the air comes to settle and the sun slides on through.
Succumb to the rustle. Kick on back and concede,
and pay no attention to the bead in the reeds…
Strut
Untitled, by Saskia Neville
Dress yourself in royal quills
and strut upon the palace walls,
but you won’t fool me with your trills,
cos through it all we hear your squalls.
That’s not to say you don’t look grand,
your colours mesmerise and stun,
but just be careful where you stand,
for in the rain the colours run.
Just threads between
Throw me down, we have the time,
and taste for flushed and salty skin
that simmers as we crawl and climb
upon, beneath, between, within,
and rolls the black and blue of eyes
that match the bruises on her thighs,
reminding me to treat her gentle,
hold her down and drive her mental,
clasp and press and wrap and writhe
and nestle as the gasp subsides,
till all that separates our skin
are threads that dance on pulsing sin.
Laid Bare
Who knows what form –
who cares? Who dares
to comprehend
(or try pretend)
the fair, the storm,
the wild, the norm,
the fear, the fire,
the cold desire
that shivers for the glare that tears
and fells the jungle of your temper,
bare and open to the weather,
plain to see (and hide, in turn).
The days, they freeze.
The nights, they burn.
Absorbed
True, we cannot stare into the sun,
instead we turn about our gaze
and look for ways it plays and runs
through bare and lazy coils of fun;
and I’ll admit, I never saw
the sun like in those eyes of yours;
they swelled and held the earth’s attention,
soil and roots and bark within them,
marvel how as bright as brown,
as dark as light, drawn deep, I’ll drown,
and gladly sink below, beneath,
beside, reside, subside, release,
and through the skylight, watch it pour
the sun into those eyes of yours.
One sip at a time
My first poem of 2016. Written on a napkin in the First and Last Chance Saloon in Jack London Square, Oakland, CA.
Spread butter on your paws
and settle in, and drink your gin,
wherein you’ll find another sin
to claw at flaws upon your skin
you cannot shake; they snake and scar,
and follow you to wooden bars
embodied by the final hour;
the stiff and sudden empty power.
Taut
‘Align’ by Lydia Hunt
Something’s wrong.
I’m sore from all the plucking
and the tugging at my core,
I’m stretched and taut and split and caught,
and finally I’m seen;
tearing at the stitches,
my color itches for the switches
that relax the strings that tie me,
the cables laid inside me,
they twist and try to hide me
in a monochrome design.
I’m drawn (and live) in line.
My face toward the wall until
you will that I align,
so turn my cheek, and have me speak
the way that you define.
But I’m tired of all my wires,
your desires, and this game,
and you best believe I’ll draw upon
this pain to fuel my flame.
I dare you to approach me.
My poise is wearing thin.
This trap longs to relieve you of
the color in your skin.
A jealous witch
A fairytale.
There was once a beautiful witch who had fallen in love with a man as equally beautiful, and in turn he too had fallen for her. But she was a jealous witch, and could not help but notice all the attention her beloved drew when out on the town. The girls would smile, chatter and giggle amongst themselves; eyes darting, daring. She tried to ignore it. Ignoring even the red desires that danced in the pulse of his neck, smirking across his face. Until one day she could take no more.
“I’m sorry, my love,” she said, crafting the tendrils of a thick green spell in great swirling motions above her head,
“I hope you see, why you can only have eyes for me.”
And struck upon him an envious curse that prevented him from touching anybody other than her. But it wasn’t enough.
“What promise is this if I cannot help but keep it?” He cried.
“What worth is there in my love for you if by magic I cannot but adhere?”
And so he would go out every night, doing his utmost to try defy the spell.
The jealous witch looked on. Bound to her, but how he tried to throw himself at every bare inch of skin or self respect. He drank, he danced, he laughed, he leered, but he could never touch, nor take, nor taste. Drunk and defeated, he’d return to her in the small hours of the morning, wreaking of his efforts. But they were, at least, his smells alone.
But love transcends the physical, and it was not long before his heart sought out a kinder soul. And though they knew they could never touch, he fell hard and true for a bright young girl one night in town, spending every night thereafter in deep and wild conversation; of life, of love, of fear, and fantasy. The jealous witch became more jealous still.
In the black of night she concocted another spell; one that would rob that pretty young thing of her every uniqueness, and become of the witch a perfect clone in all but soul. So that when he returned home, the witch welcomed him with the eyes, the voice, and the very touch of his young beloved.
“You shouldn’t be here.” He said. She held her hand to his face.
“No, you don’t understand! You don’t know what she can do.”
He took her hand and made to move it from his flushing cheek. Then he paused. Feeling the electric touch of her fingertips. Her touch.
“But…how?” He said, his hands drawn in by the gravity of her waist.
“It’s impossible. Her curse…I can’t-”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said,
“I found a way. I found a way for you to love me.”
He took his hand from her waist, cupping her face in both hands.
“I have loved you forever,” he said, his stare intense,
“only we had not known it yet.”
She placed her hand on his, pressing it into the soft flesh of her cheeks. Then she drew him lower, and under the cotton of her clothes.
“Then know me now.” She said.
And he did. And for three moments, she was happy. Then he laid to rest.
But the witch could not remain so, toiling with the enveloping look in his eyes, and how she knew that gaze was not for her. Were she to transform right now, revealing herself from behind that pretty guise, his look would burn. And she too burned at the thought. Not being his star. Not being anything. Not being. Her eyes grew dark and green like the hot, muggy heart of the jungle, and she slipped from his side, snaking off into the terrible night. Returning later to bed, and drenched in red, she curled up close behind him.
“Darling,” he said, only half awake,
“for why are you so warm?”
“Rest now,” she said, feeling his clothes soak through,
“it’s my love, is all. My love for you.”
And they all lived happily ever after. Save for his bright young girl, who became forever asleep in sticky crimson, but moments after he had died inside a lie. And for the rest of his days he would never discover what became of the witch who tried to shackle his heart.
Connected
How reliant we become
on being so connected
My journey’s just begun,
but I find myself affected
by the absence of your chatter,
and the beating of my heart,
which has slowed to but a patter;
I’m but a piece when we’re apart.
Though, why should all this matter
when we’ve hardly got a clue?
Each word’s designed to flatter
as we toy with what is new.
And yet, I hope you wonder
how I’m not what you expected,
and perhaps, like me, grow fonder
every time that we’re connected.