Artificial Days

This winter sun has left us,
The sky is tinged with blue and yellow.
The trees begin their silhouetted dance,
Strained eyes inside begin to focus.

The grass underfoot is burning
In the passionate fire of our heavy hearts.
I can see it, on the horizon,
That line of red beneath the deepening blue.

Lamps flood the room around us,
Light your candles on the stove.
Ignore the seduction of the night,
Bend your will to press on
In artificial days.

Sky! I sigh, please not tonight,
Night sky, your dark skin may be perfect
Your face transformed, sweet breath
And come to bed eyes,
But circumstance separates
Our tear-strewn cheeks.

Adult Haircuts

We are children of the winter
Early evening, reborn into the dark.
Streetlights are almost close enough to touch -
The stars come down to hold our hands.

A clock tower disappears
Into the freezing mist
That embraces us all
As if in a dream I half remember.

Its fingers curling underneath our scarves
These adult haircuts leaving us numb.
The cold makes us weep
As we rejoice in this gift of temperature.

-

I was a child
Reborn into an unfamiliar night.
In your car window, I think,
Those strange reflections glowed.

My eyelids were slowly drooping;
It may just have been a dream,
For I could scarcely believe I was alive.

Colours In The Sky

I thought it was a sunrise
Whose slender fingers
Tousled my newborn's hair.
I thought it was a morning
Whose breath danced upon my lips.

The fingers shorten,
Breath dies, light fades.
Woken briefly for that beauty
Before it is lost.

I thought you were a sunrise
When you walked into my life,
Your soul skipped blissfully through mine.
So beautiful, but setting,
It meant the same to me.

Aquarius

I was born to carry

Water with me

Collect the drops

That fall upon my head.

I carry every moment,

Your face upon my hand.

I carry them in my heart

Until it gets heavy.

You let them flow as tears,

Your hand upon my face.

I carry them in my heart

Until it breaks.

To Occupy My Time

Every little prop of my life
Has taken a short vacation
Believing me to be in the care of the others.

So for now, in the absence
Of, amongst others, my bath
This cake and I
Shall ponder the mysteries of love.

There is a sensuality
To coffee that is slightly too hot.
Whorish lips roll over its silk
And hold onto this, if nothing else.

An empty lacquer box of treasures
Lies waiting in front of me.
Open, the perfect model of acceptance,
It waits for my props to return.

You like your coffee with milk
And a worrying amount of sugar.

Waking

In a universe where nothing is lost or gained,

Where joy and pain are relative

And exist because of one another,

Where all things end with nothing quite yet different,

I must find myself on one side of a line.

This line, so beautiful, so bleak

That separates freedom from abandonment

Is made of simple strings

And the idle dreams of people before.

I digress.

Some days the ground seems flat,

And what we see is the limit of existence.

The feeling of freedom

Drifts peacefully in the air.

My voice reads a closing chapter,

Though we are clearly less than halfway.

What makes that close go on and on

Is the knowledge that, for all the distance run

All things end with nothing quite the same.

Dreams

I dreamt of a life
That went around in circles.
Each day the same, serene,
With the architect of these days
Imprinted on my mind and on my skin.

Now we drink cups of tea,
While the same songs play
In the corner of a different kitchen.
But we are back to where we were,
And nothing you can say to make it change.

My water is bitter,
With saltwater on my cheeks.
We used to cry as we sat
Halfway up the stairs.

That, my friend, was a dream ago.
Now it seems I dream of a life
And in that life I walk around in circles.

Sojourner

In all our human experience
We can only speak and hope to hear.
The most precious, serenely lasting
Cannot begin to be shared.

When I was a sojourner of the end of the world,
Where sparse, pink bushes in their stationary beauty
Blur on the horizon in brushstrokes of the last, lonely painter;
There, a dying tree muttered something -
That by this point, everyone's happiness had come.

A flower waits on my desk
To remind me why I'm here
Still clinging to that awakening scent
As if adorning my life instead of my skin.

And in the rain, on the secret hill
They taught me how to live alone;
And in the dark, they taught me to slow down,
They taught me how to live.

All Night

Stand still, decide where your eyes will stray
Do something with that strand of hair.
Speak slowly, in words like brushstrokes
Bright with the colours on your tongue.

Trace the rhythm of this next breath
A momentary wave on the smooth sands
Running along next to your heart.

The skin on the palms of your hands
Has grown old. Smile
And hope someone will memorize the lines.

Stand still, until I see the twinkle in your eye.

The familiar wood of the floor shines
And a photograph pinned to the fridge
Reminds you who you are.
See behind you; flour, sugar, spice
The warm lights that gently stroke your arm
And mingle in your hair.

Stand still, until, in your eye
That twinkle swells
With reminiscences and pain.

Hanging Gardens In Autumn

Flowers that hang from walls
So beautiful and so cruel.
Their soft petals, pink and white,
Are awakened by the breeze
And remember the sweet touch of earth.

Leaves, still so new; but
They have become cold and waxen
In the face of unrelenting heat.
Now free, if only to grow old,
Fall, and feel the warm embrace of earth.

Raindrops that nestle themselves in my hair
That clean the air, remind me of the joy of breathing.
That run down my cheeks and mingle with my tears
For the boy that hangs from a tree
So beautiful and so cruel.

Fading

The reflection fades
In the bright glass before me.
I remember a time
When you could see nothing at all
Through its lonely shield.

Now streetlights, leaves
The wall, not so high now
Raindrops and the cars beneath them.
Shadows play across my face
Shrink from the image outside.

A cup of coffee, behind me,
Offers no love, or help for pain
As I stay alive

Man Looking For Jazz

There's a man looking for jazz
But I've lost my way
I miss your smile
Waiting for me in the past

Migraine, tired head
Just rice to eat
Stay plain to avoid an upset.
No coffee, no music,
Hibernating for the summer.

Now the man picks up
His bright red saxophone
Taps a rhythm with his foot,
And feels the sweet tones once more.

All I do is sleep to numb the pain.

And now I wake
To find a world forgetting
And daring me to give in.

With only, I think,
Your sweet hair
And tender limbs for help
Waiting for me in the past
Wonderful, then
That this is more than enough.

Morning Star

Morning star,
In the smooth violets
The smooth indigoes
Of the crying sky.

Hush now, tears of joy;
I scarcely imagined
That it could happen again.

Now bright yellows, oranges
A vivacious red
In the midst of all this beauty,
Morning star quietly disappears.

Now the memory
Of morning star
Is all that remains.
My rest has been swept away.

"Hush your tears, dear boy;
You really imagined
That I was gone?

"Now, your life has been swept away,
But evening star, unchanging
Will always return;
Is always longing to return."

Friday

This station where I'm
Waiting for the train
Is free of clutter.
Wide-eyed, lovely,
Lonely people
On benches, watch the sunset
And feel space all around.

Like that new song,
The smooth cadences
Which free and tame.
Alive, with not a thought
Of sleeping
At the end of the day,
When all is cleared aside.

You dry the tears from my eyes,
And still my breathing
In the gentle flesh of your shoulder.
Joie de vivre encore une fois,
And quiet, solemn discourse in the rain.

The Art Of Freedom

The word 'never'
Is unforgiving
So is that corner of my mind.

The word 'psychiatry'
Is unnerving
So you hold my hand.

And the art of freedom
You teach me
In your hushed tones
And the art of love
And cinnamon
And now 'never' being alone.

That corner of my mind
Calm, sleepy
Will acquiesce a while.

Bittersweet

The breeze blows across my skin
And makes me feel alive. I know
I never really woke up today,
Drifting in a sleepy haze of
Other people's cares.

There's you, oddly silent
On a day when I don't need you yet
But I'd like to hold your hand.
There's a small patch of blue
Shining other people's cares.

Just wait, for the cold unconsciousness
To sweep across me once again
The sun will still be there tomorrow
But I don't expect to see it rise.
You'll tell me about the colours in the morning.

A notion that could be mistaken
For freedom. In reality, I am
Deflated, wandering and cold.
It's bittersweet, when will struggles to survive
The breeze blows across my skin
And makes me feel alive

Audacity

Pastel sky
And gently beaming
Lights, so far beneath my feet
The blurred lights
Make this feel like a dream

Sit there, eat
Sing aloud
Lie there
Sigh there
Counting stars and counting clouds.

No more than a whisper
And cars outside going by too fast
A softer world for you and I
Audacity to dream that it might last.