Release
Let’s get lost somewhere in town,
and scuttle down these cobbled streets
to pubs discreet from public eyes,
and magnetize to cosy nooks,
among the books and wooden beams,
where streams of consciousness combine
like vines entwine and climb the spires,
like fires desire and feast on flames;
this hot exchange shall only cease
when bodies crease and breaths release.
But maybe it’s the cure
It all begins with an idea.
I drink like I’m trying to kill something inside me,
chipping away at it day by day,
unhooking its claws from my soft, internal flesh,
and occasionally bludgeoning its viral stranglehold
with a night of seppukurian abandon;
choosing for myself the most delectable,
grandiose of weapons
with which to cut me core to core.
I wish only to feel better,
to be free of that incessant writhing;
thick chains and dark anchors,
not weighing me down,
but suffocating me in place.
I hear the way that others say
they could quit at any time,
and I believe them; it’s easy leaving,
but they cannot see the fight I’m in;
I cannot let up
or it will win.
One more
I fixate on the heartbeats;
breaths swell like waves in caves.
I time the rise and shy retreat
to assure myself the ends will meet,
cos sometimes it seems to take them too long;
a moment stranded like forgotten songs
left to wonder if one day they’ll ever complete,
should the artist compose for my heart
one more beat.
Devoted
I stand devoted to the sea,
though she may never know the love,
there’s beauty in her fervency
that draws from deep to rise above.
I do what little a poet can
to cast a line into the swell;
with hopes for hooks, I haul with hands
to snag a lip or claw or shell.
I edge the tide in silent awe,
brace cold beside unwavering form,
bleed out and wash into the shore,
evaporate to join the storm.
Texas Hail
Throughout the broken night
their tears fall fast like Texas hail,
and crush the camps at city hall,
and rip the air with wails.
Four streets away from disarray,
we tightly lie awake,
and grip our bulletproof sheets, and peek
at tweets that make us shake.
Corks
I have a cupboard full of corks,
each one scarred red, with cored-out hearts,
each drilled by hand, then laid to rest –
or rather ‘tossed’,
in some feigned manner of casual
(after all, who cares?)
to the lower shelf, where nobody will find them.
And how I hope someone will.
Wait, they’d say.
What are these?
My pasture’s red
The blades of grass are tall and sharp,
curve like sabers from martian floors,
clink in the wind, spark in the night,
walk through till you’re ribbons,
bleed out till you’re slight,
feed my red pasture,
cut loose and lay,
rediscover the lover you lost on the away.
