cloud gatherer hold me down

that when caressed in receptive hands soothes the blood of it's divine chaos

2012-01-11T12:06:00.003Z

~ my open body, amongst other things, a graveyard for phantoms and fossils.
~ i hold between my finger and thumb the clouds that trap your thoughts.
~ i pledge allegiance to the day and night and the love in between;
~ worship the saints (mine, not His) that line the windowsill and romance my animal heart.
~ i receive letters typed in cryllic script and remember the day the river burst it's banks.
~ i (lose and then) find myself threading a rosary; memories set in amber.
~ possessed by a wild curiosity about the intricacies of the hearts of strangers,
~ i listen to you speak of the movement of wings - butterflies in your stomach.

to go too far

2012-01-02T20:00:00.004Z

our lives a pilgrimage
composed of cyclical journeys.

i have travelled around the sun
on more than thirty occasssions.
the last two of which with you.

our faces shining amongst stars
hanging in the cavernous sky.
discovering the joys
and limitations of the body.

and as though i haven't already,
i want to go too far.

for those who wear the letters meant for ones they've never met

2011-12-29T10:52:00.005Z

stories oscillate through the solar system. more real than the illusion of mirrored rooms projecting reflections into infinity. i hope that one day they will be the images we choose to remember. the moments of significance we attach to particular days. and should anyone question - the offer of a knowing smile.

two suns rise beneath northern skies

2011-12-28T00:07:00.003Z

the soft grey light fools no one.

the wind
is wild
and the naked trees fight back.

*

i'm careful
not to break anything.

a daughter
of the air and sky
wrapped in winter and warm.

*

a dream -

i slipped
the silver ring around the moon
on your finger

and shared
with you everything unspeakable,
because sometimes
words fail.

*

rain taps
morse messages on the window.

another layer to the music
of the day and my heart
awakening.

there was no precise point of commencement

2011-12-03T23:55:00.001Z

there was no precise point of commencement only the quiet rumbling of beginnings softly tearing the seams stitch by singular stitch. a living thread dreamed to life with instinctual inclinations towards the sacred act of acknowlegement in the preservation of personal truth.

2011-11-27T19:51:00.000Z

day knows of me. of my movement.
but night. night is more familiar.
more gentle.
reaches down to wrap around
the contours of my sleeping body.
a tender lover. a protector.
cradles me in dreams.

doth roar my bursting heart

2011-11-27T19:25:00.000Z

~ doth roar my bursting heart, oh sacred stone.
~ the confessor cried wolf once too many times. drunk me too fast.
~ in crafting personal mythologies i sift through the rubble to find the roots of my self.
~ it never comes easy, but are you watching?
~ i draw small circles, knowing not who to trust.
~ believing we are more than hollow bodies, i listen.
~ the bird in your hand sings so sweetly.
~ all night i listened to the wind, but still only understand fragments.
~ the stones around my neck. the possibility of fossilised memories.
~ all our other lives. scattered runes in thirty two year old skin.

"...because the cosmos is also within us.."

2011-11-25T22:55:00.008Z

beneath this giant dome of midnight sky
i gather a sense of scale.
look for meaning by joining stars.
reveal the answer that fits today.
a kind of pareidolia.

the meaning is not stuck in my throat
where sentences form an orderly queue.
but where the words are proven
in the act. in the thank you,
the living of the hymn and the prayer.

~~(title taken fron a quote by carl sagan)~~

having left the cacophony of the city

2011-11-25T19:07:00.009Z

breathing the scent of damp earth and dirt. lungfuls inhaled and let go. the air moves. it starts in the boney fingered trees, or so it seems. at least that's when it's heard, after the crow's warning. it wont be long before the seduction. the cool, somehow velveteen, caress. standing, eyes closed, senses alive and greedy we cross the day through dusk to night. in it's wake, half expectant. tempting the iron bird throwing shadows on the roof slates below to break free and with us soar.

2011-11-20T12:06:00.004Z

i woke with the taste of blood in my mouth. broke the skin of dreams embroidered with hair onto this quilt covering my body. my body with it's heart that waxes and wanes with the moon and contemplates the notion of home. the kind built of bricks and memories with floorboards that always seem to breathe flowers through their dark gaps. growing wild under foot i braid them around your face as i imagine it in the rain as you sail these winter seas with arrows strapped across your back.

prologue

2011-11-19T22:12:00.007Z

you wouldn't want to live to be one hundred and ten,
but you promised another eighty years.

who am i to protest?

i wear the smile you gave me and lie
as still as i can, failing to imagine
a million green miles stretched ahead in
a time where hours are measured in colours.

i turn to you with sleepy eyes
and you comment on the way the sun lights my hair
like you did when we were new.
when i blushed and silently said 'thank you'.

not to you, but for you.

now i press closer and marvel at the body
whose hardening edges reveal a tenderness.

savour the feeling and contradiction of loving
your skin against mine yet wanting to penetrate through.
the desire to reach deeper with indelicate
metaphorical hands and touch the core that is you.

in this tangle of bodies your eyes say it all.
the fine line between inner and outer crossed.
leaning in to kiss you i know
beneath hands like yours angels burn.

in all it's guises. language. a love. one of many..

2011-11-15T22:04:00.010Z

on the longest day i ever knew
hope grew
with the swelling of desire
and i hung on words
with hands i knew as mine.

dirty hands
hold the cleanest of hearts
and she makes mine beat faster.

she made a man with words for wings.

all i can do is string them together.
wear them as jewels and ponder
the meaning of it all.
(and the reason why we need one.)

holding that picture
i love of you as a child
with your eyes of silent poetry
i fail to conjure the words...

the falling of the sky

2011-11-08T10:24:00.002Z

bells ring through the fog. a deceptive silence quietening inner noise. a remembrance. how calm the wild sky can be. facts and fictions seep through the surface. hearts are caught in nets and pulled from the river. there are no palms crossed with silver today. skeletal trees resemble dendrites. form a pattern against the dove grey day. behind which the afternoon glows. rubs against me until i shine.

swinging from my collarbone the keepers of names

2011-11-02T09:53:00.001Z

i'd been collecting the diamonds
you scatter through the night
with dirty fingers not knowing
how to keep them safe.
lying wrapped, chrysalis-like,
in ink stained cotton
hoping you don't loosen your grip.

2011-11-01T21:52:00.002Z

i embrace the tendency towards reckless abandon as a form of denial. but turned on it's head it translates as acceptance. so dont stop. at least not yet. instead come to me crouched at the water's edge in exchanges with birds and we'll bury these lightweight bones with their secret cavities and religiously write on these crumpled bedsheets until the words resemble a mandala.

of science and religion. gravity magnets choice and chance

2011-10-30T09:17:00.002Z

needing not to reinvent
the beginnings devoured
with swollen lips.

the taste lingers still
upon eager tongue.
greedy memory.

speaking of certainties
i adore the way you seek
my hand with your own.

touch the centre.
make me shake.

you are no dark horse
and i draw in definite lines.

lightbearers shapeshift only to the untrained eye. divide the winds by more than four.

2011-10-27T20:37:00.002+01:00

once i entered
the hollow belly of the oak.
his skirt raised in beckoning.

pondered the spires
that pierce the sky.
grey fingers pointing a/way.

the brickwork beneath exposed

2011-10-26T09:33:00.003+01:00

sleep tight. night flight.

a mosaic of sound
through which a pin dropped
quietening mother of pearl,
crystal voices.
pulling the threads tighter.

i sing to the gods
who made it
that you would reciprocate
so beautifully..

"she wasn't doing a thing that i could see, except standing there"

2011-10-23T00:19:00.002+01:00

a sky of violet
diluted with morning.

erik satie plays.

whilst sleeping
you undress my dreams

slowly fading the memory.
old bite marks on hands.

at the vanishing of the light i wonder
for what it is you pray.

i think about the lone flower on the stair.

and you
born from dust
blown and shaped by the wind.

~~title taken from a line from "a girl i knew" by j.d.salinger~~

the clarity of the evening only blurs what it means

2011-10-15T19:25:00.012+01:00

on this darkening day windows
pour gold on the stone.
trees rain confetti.
old lives shed to start again.

..me? I'm the world's wife.
married to life.

the city a feast for the senses.

the saxophone tune a woven ribbon
of notes rising to curl
round the corner. a girl
holds her coat tight
around herself. heavy curtains,
a movable wall,
concealing the lives inside.

foreign tongues sing of their day.

i think of the darts
down the horse's spine and swallow
the ring i need not on my finger
because it means more
than I understand.

learning to sing like the trees and the grass

2011-10-10T19:12:00.001+01:00

correlations are mapped
between undetermined lines.

between the moons
- my third eye.

the heart's burden,
that knows
like a changing seascape
the delicate kiss
of water and sky.

of fragility and power.

of white static fizzing,
but not behind bone,
where there is anything
(everything) but dark silence.

tender are the hearts

2011-09-19T18:42:00.002+01:00

the sun leaves it's signature across the hills
in the movement of the shadow clouds.
the loch shimmers like a van gogh.

tender are the hearts
that tremble in the light.

rain stain heart flame.
reminiscent of something
not unlike the ritual of the bonfire.

*

today. a cool, apricot skied morning.
one of last breaths.
yet the mask hides not her eyes of glass.
that see what, now?

2011-07-27T20:00:00.002+01:00

this summer of crushed bones.
marvelling at the reluctance
of dry eyes to see
the shades in-between the edges.

so many shades,
very few of which are grey.

and such a strong nostalgia.
if that is the word.
for woods in autumn.
of laced windows dissolved
in clear white winter light.

mostly of the kind of harmony
found in the balance of contradictions.

2011-07-19T13:51:00.010+01:00

beneath a rose moon on midsummer nights.
bowing unto the singing hills.
I am plural. a perfect nest of soft.
revealing one petal at a time.
I plant seedlings in the crevices
and wonder.
who is wiser, the one with feet of moss,
or he with "odyssey" written on his soles...

in praise of dirty hands

2011-05-30T10:31:00.006+01:00

and on other days
the streets are quiet
beneath a sky like milk
that glows from behind
and all i can hear
are the birds i cant see
seeking, im sure, the flowers
in the garden of my belly
craving more care
and a pair of willing hands.

2011-05-29T22:08:00.001+01:00

~ scratched across your chest the words "here be monsters".
~ i want to say yes. i want to say sorry.
~ let me come to you, more whole than you've ever known.
~ the hymn is in the falling, so spoke dostoevsky.
~ and i had often wondered from where the music came...

"there was a star riding through clouds one night, and i said to the star, ‘consume me.’"

2011-05-29T00:07:00.004+01:00

with me i bring the earth and sea,
fire and winds. carry the moon and sun
on my shoulders and chose my weapons

wisely. binding myself
more tightly spilling
into the sky.

i dare. you,
probably.

to part the curtains i imagine
of lace and of shells. to see.
skin's hidden secret stretch marks.
invisible - a different kind of growth.

uncharted territory in blood red.
sparking divinities. epiphanies.
i am becoming.
(a) stranger.

~~title from 'the waves' by virginia woolf~~

"The air was blue, you could hold it in your hand.."

2011-05-28T11:10:00.003+01:00

moments as beads fumbled through fingers
like a rosary. that would be the worst fear.
it implies a lack of attentiveness to now.
an impassivity distorted into kinesis
in which pointless movement indicates life.

it's not about worlds orbited, but
the combination and culmination of those inside.
the absorption of dark and it's opposite.

refracting and reflecting light sculpted
into various guises all of whom possess the sky.

even the ones that leave you seasick.

because always behind the clouds still or fluid
stars stud black forming wordless worlds.
guided by more than the tangible senses
unto which like a net we stretch ourselves
and whisper encore.

~~title from "the lover" by marguerite duras~~

love letter to..

2011-05-08T20:35:00.004+01:00

you tilt your head in anticipation.

your best self concealed
behind the kind of eyes
modigliani would be proud.
the blackness only serving
to enhance their potency
and provide a dwelling
for ghosts.

you take a bite from the orange
as though it were an apple.
skin cracks. teeth pierce flesh.
your mouth ready. for sweetness.

yet you believe yourself broken.
hard to love. the eggshells though,
they hold your weight. and your feet,
they carry the world.

a world where i think i want
nothing more than to crush the stars
in fists that open like flowers
into crumbs to sustain us.

besides
the dark tends to bring a clarity
no light can produce.

eat.

hello, beautiful

2011-04-28T20:30:00.003+01:00

~ in the beginning beneath a dome of painted stars. an omen?
~ hello, beautiful.
~ in the time it takes for all the possible answers to create your truth you become twice your natural size in my thoughts.
~ a master of patience through gritted teeth. in peeling these layers i witness you bloom.
~ i read that the trick it to die daily. to shed the shit. and it's already tomorrow, but my world is tilted in your favour.
~ in the warm honey light of the setting sun bathing my face. in your eyes and in my arms. it's in a million small places.
~ sometimes i have it all.

of clouds. and ways

2011-04-26T19:55:00.001+01:00

perhaps you’d have let them
lead the way,
but the needle scratched.
the music stuck
and they became something less
than pioneers
with nothing to offer
besides a shit shot
with some poison arrows
that used to lie
scattered like flaming confetti
at your feet.

2011-04-26T18:38:00.004+01:00

you were the first to remove your shoes. to feel sand shifting beneath soles/souls. igniting memories of childhood summers when blood and bones were alive below skin that smelled like sunshine.

not much has changed since those days except we now take up more space and the clocks mistaken for heart beats become more persistent in their measurement of time and it's passage.

also, i love you. you who wrote our names in the sand now being washed over by the water singing the song of the moon to the rhythm of wings in metaphorical flight as we forever rehearse the kiss..

i embroider my pillow with charms and surrender to the fire

2011-04-18T20:51:00.006+01:00

the night so black and thick with silence dissolves what you think are the edges.

not to distract from the fact
im dreaming of fish the colour of pearls swimming in the bath

i hold my breath,

but awake to the sky paling with the arrival of light slicing it's lines of intersection through these late night tales that melt into day and the battle. which is the question. of whether you have the stomach for it. the courage and strength to surrender.

pity me not for daring to call it love. for being helpless to the laws of ascension shot from the chests of prophets and held between and in each breath.

an ornamental ode

2011-03-31T16:06:00.002+01:00

the fall
from grace.

the refusal
of the gilded cage.

a choice.

but i take responsibility
for this.

for the apple cores
lined up like defiant soldiers.

my ornamental ode
to free will.

to thread them on string

2011-03-30T00:24:00.000+01:00

memories
imprinted and collected like still lifes
framed by the significance we attach to each.

the scene:
the lovers. homeward bound.

and the sun
sliding down behind mountains
turning the sea molten amber like the water caught fire.

i plait the loose threads

2011-03-25T14:50:00.007Z

~ i plait the loose threads crushed against pink drying to a powdery white.
~ day comes. the stars are rendered obsolete behind the sun consumed by blue.
~ in this bed your sleeping body forms the shape of a question mark in places touching mine like the answer.
~ the contours of bodies the coastlines of sacred worlds.
~ the willingness with which you offer yourself to my hands. the gift of surrender.
~ from the street below a patchwork of conversations dance their way through the open window.
~ tread carefully. an open envelope spills love onto the floor.

miscellanies

2011-03-22T10:10:00.000Z

i open my window even on the coldest morning.
moving through the world the world moves in me.
i am a woman most days. but the girl never left.
i rarely make promises. but when i do -
trust me.

i love to read your face with my fingers.
i take the scenic route. almost always.
mapping your body as the landscape it is
i tuck it safe between ribs.
i feel the blood in my veins. and sing.
badly
...but still.

i have a penchant for giants.
regardless of physical height.
write small cartographies in order
that i might understand and remember.
because i am scared of forgetting.
i feel the recurring symbols
of my interior world etched into bones.

i love the fat full bud of a peony
before it bursts into bloom. i love
the metallic scent old coins leave on hands.
i am possessed. by a hunger.
the kind i never want sated.

in more than just the gentle hours

2011-03-19T21:02:00.003Z

in more than just the gentle hours with their careful clocks
and looks of knowing, but the ones that are less clean
and sharp edged too, i ask of you to make a home in my navel.

*

the warm air clouds the mirror revealing a note to ourselves.
a confession. a reminder of our inclination to speak in prayers.

*

love is massive.

like the music of the spheres. maybe

2011-03-19T19:21:00.001Z

there are times when lying in bed i swear
i hear the ticking of a clock.

only there is no clock.

i can pin point the exact location
from which the sound quietly emanates
despite it's source
remaining stubbornly hidden.

curiously, im not certain
it's purpose is to measure time,
but to keep the rhythm.

only audible when my body is parallel
to the ground it feels
like a forever reminder of a before.
a pulse that will continue to throb even after...

nocturnal revelations

2011-03-12T05:28:00.001Z

as the light penetrates these dirty windows i wonder with what eyes i see these recurring dreams. nocturnal revelations calling me to remove the layers and show more than the simple muscle of the heart. but to cut it open and bare it's contents. the strength of each vertebrae synchronously exposed.

i want to eat them. the flowers

2011-03-12T05:27:00.001Z

i want to eat them. the flowers.
pull them one at a time
from the purple glass
and savour the taste.
the combination of red and green.

instead i lie here watching
the lights moving across my ceiling.

all day the ashen sky marbled.
and moving through swirls of energy
i silently willed you to bring your gods.
to unknot these riddles and listen.

my skin is singing to be touched.

a study in white

2011-03-04T14:55:00.001Z

what strikes me is the way
we justify the failures
because it's easier
to say it's complicated.

except it isn't. not really..

language, and the
representation of words
for feelings, often lacks
in it's accuracy of expression.

truth
is an interpretation of definites.
a matter of internal (mis)connections.

to scratch the surface
is to start. to master the art
of the non-verbal ancient tongues
is to begin.

what's required
is a fusion of both, with heart,
to penetrate these bodies of glass
possessed with the tendency to cloud
in parts opaque

and broaden perspectives
enough to understand.

non omnis moriar

2011-03-02T18:47:00.007Z

these empty rooms,
if they were to break
into a thousand tiny pieces
would fit into my cupped hands
and i would eat.
the way diego consumed frida.
in death and life. burning.

and the root-fingers torn
from the shifting ground would cling
somewhere that wasn't mine
leaving all that was
to speak in a language
lacking ambiguity.

the sun would crown
your noble head as it always did
beneath a changing sky
whose clouds are forever
in conspiracy with feelings.

and if not now
then looking back we'd know
the dancing was exquisite.

*

"non omnis moriar"
(i shall not completely die)
~ attributed to horace

"The dove's my will today.."

2011-03-01T10:23:00.000Z

"..Mad in the wind I wear
Myself as I should be,.."

~ from WORDS FOR THE WIND by Theodore Roethke

walls. and what's written there

2011-03-01T09:05:00.003Z

i could draw a map of how we ended up here.
impress under glass my fingerprints
for you to remember the ghost of their touch.

the taste of blood fills the mouth.
black widow solitary picking meat off bones.
picking up pieces.

no promises made of a picture always pretty.
but more.
more primal. raw and real. i feel it all.

and love.
it rages.

lines and dots. and their meaning

2011-02-27T21:26:00.003Z

to be less electric
would to be but a shadow
of one's self.

so you turn away
and leave, whether
you know it yet
or not, for good.

the opening
of windows and doors.

symbolic exorcism.

an attempt to rid
your disenchantment
lingering on my skin
along with the dirt
beneath my nails.

leaving me

to contemplate those
that became mythic
in proportion
after they were gone.

same song. but different

2011-02-17T17:33:00.000Z

during tumultuous storms in white
shadows come out to play
swaying better judgement
taking up room
until i am not me
but them.

blinded.
using language as a fist.
i hurt.
you.

long lost battles leave their legacy
concealed behind the reflection
in tarnished mirrors.

an understanding
of symbols and their significance.
the non existence of forgotten things.
only edges become obscured.
then reappear.

trust me when i say my back
will only bend so far.
only so many times
the same circle can be walked.

i will stop.

observe the choreography
of the things that bring us to life.
the point, we are taught,
is invariably about what happens
along the way.

history was not lost on me.
it made me. is mine.
but write my future it will not.

i turn to the teachers.
the orchestra swells
and the heart
remembers itself.

conviction,
as naive as it may be,
rages. and you, my friend, will witness
the burial of the shadows..

the clarity of mo(u)rning

2011-02-16T09:07:00.002Z

yellow flowers shrivel in their vase.
a wild fluctuation of spirit.
small parts die
in the process.

in the struggle
to unbraid knots
some are tied tighter.

days
like pockets stretch.

the surface is broken.

falling. every day

2011-02-11T21:36:00.003Z

moments of metamorphic light splinter
on the doorstep. the threshold. my alter.
the boundary dividing inner and outer.
places i move closer to myself somehow.

my eyes shift through shades of green.
tiny mirrors. but there is no name i know
for the exact colour of the sky today.
it changes with and is the light.
a whole spectrum of possibilities.

science says
there can be no light without space.

..so we grow.

february. minor coversations

2011-02-07T10:09:00.002Z

during minor conversations with the evening
it's damp vapours permeate skin.

this is where i live.

by morning a marching band
play their drums and whistles
through the window held tight
with poems.

and im in love with the light.
it's the same old story.

deciding what's next and what's to come
of almost ghosts and wishbones
that dwell near the sound
of my feet moving across the ground.

the circles i draw there.

and the itch between my fingers.
fingers wish sometimes
they were feathers.

i miss the birds.

nostalgic for their songs
and the places they lead me.
towards everywhere that is home.

and i with the days am growing

2011-02-02T16:52:00.001Z

backwards glances recall miscellaneous remains
of old lives and skins littering all (y)our varying landscapes.

fragments of memory stick to skin until they cant be peeled apart.

because it's all one.

and with all things considered im just getting started.

the hunger returns with the wind blowing her unrest.
sending the dust of a million stars flying.

like the deep exhalation of a long held breath.
the grip loosens unable to hold it's fist of sand.

the red things below shine.

and it's a simultaneous flow of movement.
passing through the days the world moves in me.

sometimes still nights

2011-01-04T10:18:00.009Z

sometimes still nights.
of quiet knowing.
symbolic gestures.

like the first of the new year.
one for making stars.
offerings. prayers.
of setting fire to our wishes
and watching them burn the sky.
underlining the day in red.
letting you curl your bones
round mine like tangled roots
and vowing
to wreak havoc every morning
that the night wont leave.

you should be proud
of a spine that refuses to collapse.

a subconscious desire
to learn you with my fingertips.
the body as i left it.
in a room flooded
with light through dirty windows.

words fail me.

how we got here i know not.
only im grateful.
not so secretly
for those who rarely speak.
at least not in words.
invisible ink in unopened letters.

in my dream a skeleton in the sky
made of stars waving
through the shadows of winter leaves.
a trick of the light
captured the movement of wings
across the black and i was able
to see through you.
a stained glass version of you.
and your arrival
through old exit wounds.

porous is the heart
but not the stars on my pillow.

where it starts. inside or out.

2010-12-16T19:37:00.001Z

take all my broken pieces
and start over again.
rearrange the reflection
distorted in the patterns
etched in the glass.

out of focus.
except for the ego.

i wonder,
if we were born
unhearing and silent
would we associate thought
as coming from the head?
and if so,
is it (the brain)
the source
of who we refer to
as 'I',
or is it the heart?

i should step outside myself.
out of this wintersleep.
into something verging
on orchestral.
symphonic.

sing to me.
i am beginning to breathe you.

teach me like some holy war
the way time unravels
and falls at my feet.
that although the picture
remains unchanged
we can't be shown
what we're not ready to see.
that scars hide on the inside
and the only walls
are in our minds.

no longer straddling realities.
choose one.
as though life
is averse to overcrowding.
dilution defeats the purpose.

so bring it on.
press hard.
harder.
let the ground
shift beneath my feet.

as the evening grows in size

2010-12-07T23:17:00.004Z

like a thief stealing kisses if only they were stolen rather than given. exposed like the light keepers that the senses perceive at once concealing and revealing the stories never told including those nestled in the soft part behind your collar bone. miniature landscapes shaping all of your selves into whoever you are today.

*

the evening grows in size and you return again. hands full and with snowflakes caught on eyelashes. wondering what the night sees when shadows are thrown on this city that sparkles and the collusion of realities blurs the way symbolic echoes reverberate in the moments just before waking and you find yourself re-aquainted with the answers before you know the questions.

cryptographic meanderings and morning litanies

2010-12-03T09:25:00.003Z

circles around me.
in me. tree rings.

choirs of bells shatter not
these windows laced with frost.

the scrape of metal on stone.
not exactly the red sea.

of doors closing
only to open again.

the magnetism of maps.
human atlas of sacred geographies.

the art of tasseomancy.
ritual. superstition.
of ceremony rather than habit.

the longing to stretch.

and clocks.
always clocks.

beneath this cloudless sky

2010-11-25T12:18:00.006Z

beneath this cloudless sky there is nowhere to hide. the epitome of naked. motives are questioned. their magnitude in relation to hearts. i trace the constellations in and beyond my own flight path and wear the contradictions like a second skin.

earth quakes

2010-11-25T09:56:00.012Z

the moment when the light
begins to dissolve the night.
that is the poem.
part of the poem. but really
it's everything. the whole world
is the poet and the poem
singing it's miracle and lament.

the room is perfumed with incense.
your conscience is clean.

as though through magnetic force
the river pulls you
with the liquid silver motion
of it's cold cold water
to cool your own molten feelings
pulsing strong. rippling out in waves.

and try as they might they cant
seem to muffle the resonance
with their indifferent faces
whose emptiness can be read
like the books that pave your floor.

this is the time of year
where even the birds have left.
fitting really. both you
(who is him) and
your absence eclipse the rest.
even the stars still do their twinkling
between the comforting glare
of the street lights.

there's a significant lack of elbow room
in these shallow graves
decorated with bloody teeth.

yet you feel a hand,
your own, reaching through
the bones of your chest. the cage of ribs.
pulling yourself out...

the lover. the prayer

2010-11-20T11:15:00.004Z

the morning is tinged with blue. im exhaling warm clouds and coming to the realisation that this body isnt big enough for me to scratch the names of all i love. i'm moving onto the walls. the already written pages. making new maps. searching for the life behind eyes. even those whose smiles cannot disguise their disenchantment...i worship the god in you. all of you. in me. in the books and the trees and earth and i eat all the rainbows. the strings of words one pearl at a time. until what? until i reach the hearts and mouths from whence they came. and then? nothing and everything. only the knowledge that my desire continues to expand until i can no longer touch the edges. and you. carved in stone made flesh forever standing in the centre of the storm.

this is no night of quiet stars

2010-11-19T01:46:00.002Z

a dare perhaps.

to do more
than dip your toe in this ocean
as all the unswum seas
smash against the contours
of our earthly bodies in which
you have as many lives
as skins.

where the movement
of your body gestures
at the meaning.

this self portrait in words
growing
like the shadows
as the day stretches
out into dark amplifying
the thunder in your bones.

this is no night of quiet stars..

even in the dark. red.

2010-11-10T10:27:00.005Z

inwardly the worlds secreted culminate and bond, pearl-like, as the night erodes the boundaries until mostly blood remains rising and crashing like the sea then the tide turns into the discovery that you're the price i pay for the skeleton key held hidden beneath my tongue with the power to unlock every universe you give birth to.

*

*

“My only way of speaking is through fragments which are like
Stones that must be lifted with their share of shadow
And against which we stumble
Being more scattered than they are.”

“But perhaps every day we can gather up again
The torn net, stitch by stitch,
And it would be, in the higher spaces,
Like sewing the night together star by star…”

“Say nothing: what you were going to say
Would only drown the sound.
Only listen: the doors have opened.”

~ Philippe Jaccottet, Le Mot Joie

forced through the hole pierced in time

2010-11-03T16:46:00.001Z

undead eyes. sibylline. separating and pulling the threads together. the ones that shine. each of us the heart. breaking and swelling. creating moments eluding the notion of circumstance. real yet awaiting realisation. and all that defies articulation. in the chaos. in the still air that sharpens the sounds of this barely believable annunciation. the shape of the words thought and (un)spoken, the colours with which the world is composed and seen, all symbols. the truth's shape changes. dependent on the angle of perception and your painted heart.

regarding visions

2010-11-03T14:25:00.001Z

the inbetween time.
a world of subdued colours
and bare bones.

ghostly white hovering
over the ground.
as though the fields
were breathing.

the quiet teachers.

emerging
through the apparent confusion
of silence,
a hazy simplification.

secret worlds
violently throb
in invisible places.
hidden
beneath the smoothness
of the surface.

behind smiles.

premonitions
of things unknown,
only felt.

unrepentant
non-confessions.
glass chimes.

i am the point
where the light splits.

becoming
increasingly concave.
forever expanding.
forever allowing for more.
looking for a bridge, or
something, i cannot find.

*

"all the lands are ready to rise
from the map.
to shake off their skin of stars
to tie the blue bundles of their seas
on their backs
to set their mountains with fiery roots
as caps on their smoking hair.."

~ nelly sachs, from and no one knows where to go

last night a dream of flying

2010-10-31T10:27:00.000Z

last night a dream of flying. faceless figure intent on harm. myself aware vividly of every movement. the body's edges. breathless. it floods with fear. until refuge. chanced(?) upon in a wall of doors. and a fleeting image. a hooded female with painted face. ghostly quicksliver. the metalic sensation of a knife piercing the flesh of wrists and ankles. the wounds through which grew wings..

until my fingers bleed

2010-10-29T16:59:00.003+01:00

there are very few
situations that actually
have a point of no return.

it's all drama.

like when we die
the names change.

like the blood
that colours the heart
embroidered on sleeves.

more than shards
of porcelain and cinders.

flood me.

im ready
for what comes next.
forever elsewhere and here.

and all the charms and remedies
detract not from the star fields
whose glitter dusts our heads.

where even the walls
are filled with music.

cobalt.

and those things not intact
we stitch together. in here
where everythig is real.

where eyes turn inward,
away from the mirror
that reveals
not even half the story..

*

“the beginning of all wisdom is to look fixedly on Clothes until they become transparent… the thing Visible, nay the thing Imagined, the thing in any way conceived as visible, what is it but a Garment, a clothing of the higher, celestial Invisible […] what is man himself and his whole terrestrial life, but an Emblem: a Clothing or visible garment for that divine me of his, cast hither, like a light-particle, down from Heaven?” ~ thomas carlyle, sartor restartus

"i suggest you try looking at a mirror in the night: it's dark, it's black, you see almost nothing at all; and yet this nothing is something quite distinctly different from the nothing of the rest of the darkness. you sense the glass, the doubling of depth, some kind of remnant of the ability to shimmer..." ~ musil

"..as long as it talks im going to listen." i said "yes"..

2010-10-23T15:53:00.011+01:00

the outline of my mouth.

the way my hands know your face.

these are not words on paper,
but crossed bones
against the white of your skin.

in the hope of not losing them
i knot my memories.

and you rise to the surface.
in one way.
penetrating deeper

reconfiguring the order of things.

performing some kind
of mild erasure.

a feeling
of suspended 'reality',
when in fact
it's us.

living.

the creation of history
in the process of moving
through time

like all love stories,
like snowflakes,
like echoes,

the same.

unique.

*

from the rain
"..nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. it will take as long as it wants, this rain. as long as it talks im going to listen."
~ thomas merton

"everything we hear is an echo. anyone can tell that echoes move forward and backward in time, in rings. but not everyone realizes that, as a result, silence becomes harder and harder for us to grasp - though in itself it is unchanged - because of the echoes pouring through us out of the past..." - w.s. merwin, from 'houses and travelers'

the night punctuated by squares of yellow light

2010-10-06T22:20:00.001+01:00

listening
to the sounds of the night muffled by water
unspoken thoughts break the quietness
and all the questions and statements
swimming around are apparent spirals.

movement occurs in fits and starts,
but circular.
like history repeating itself
except names and faces change
until (if ever)
the revolutionary epiphany.

lately my eyes search for the lines
where light becomes shadow
so gradual on a wall or pavement,
although, most of all
i adore the sharp edged shadows.
the kind you could slice
with precision
despite cupped hands
overflowing with rain.

it's about the certainty
of being one or the other,

i think.

a way of being
so unfamiliar and intriguing to one
whose multifaceted interior
is inclined to see every angle simultaneously.
where lines are rarely so defined.
a world where i am the colour of cherries.
i am the slate grey electric sky.
i multiply.
i believe in people.
and you might be all the proof i need..

days worn like pearls

2010-10-01T22:34:00.008+01:00

malgorzata maj

*

greed. one of the seven deadly sins. apparently. yet i remain forever hungry. swallow the world every day. or at least i try. songs form in my mouth like future memories recalling to mind the time you brought plums with no nocturnal ambiguities obscure in their clarity. then later, pockets fat with feathers and leaves. talismanic treasures. like runes. or, carved in stone winding like a secret through the grass, the inscription composed in a language unfamiliar to our tongues. our wor(l)ds caught in the branches to hang where the green used to be and i like the image of our insides exhaled and held in the net of the trees so much so i long for ribbon to tie them there. like spring blossom that lasts longer than a season. and i realise it's not necessarily that we're looking for answers, rather for someone with whom we share the same questions and immerse in the wonder that forever fails to fit inside of the edges. moments made sacred by the sheer fact they exist.

and please when it's your turn show me slowly..

2010-09-05T09:40:00.006+01:00

rising from the (un)dead
im tangled in piano strings

gathering leaves & pressing
flowers in these brittle pages
collecting gold holding time

or a moment at least

whilst marvelling
at the spectacular colour clash
of the flowers in my window
drinking this milky morning

and the magic
in the absoluteness
of nature and her (un)
certainty.

my mind strays
aware of our own fragility

i try to describe the night
with my five senses
like the way sunday feels
when you awake
recalling the shadow
of the rabbit in the moon

and the way the acoustics
change in accordance with the light

and you grow another heart
to beat softly in time
with the twinkling of the stars
and their morse code messages

lying in green
beneath a blanket of petals
and leaves raining down
on your eager body

whilst the elements
seduce your skin
and you can taste the weather
on your tongue..

something like sehnsucht

2010-08-12T12:55:00.008+01:00

do it just because.

because of the flower
in my hair.
the silver wing
around my neck.

because the blue
changes shade
dependent on her mood.

because the wind
blows through the house
and rattles all the windows.

because we are all corners
and curves.
not one or the other.
but both.
or none.

do it mouth to mouth
and break the skin.

do it because im cannibalistic
in my desire for offerings
of blood and guts.
deeper than transparent things
like raindrops and tears.

because there are only
so many times
you will see the moon full.

do it only completely
when you feel it
pressed hard against your edges.
a haunting or possession
tightly held by ghostly hands.

do it because to not is to lose it.

because i want to see
my fingerprints.
everywhere...

even still is moving

2010-08-11T13:11:00.004+01:00

maurizio anzeri

*

dream places,
like all fragile things,
are always best
in winter

when the sun is low
and shadows long.

when shallow breaths
taste the chill air
laced with cinnamon
and fire

and delicately

is the only way
to hold anything.

like old china tea cups
and christmas tree baubles.
(the painted glass kind.)

and hearts

of course.

conversations with the darkening day

2010-08-08T21:34:00.004+01:00

the wind breathes her secrets
so the lovers listen.

listen.

she rises.
some kind of ancient queen.
blood stirs.
skin feels porous.
lips stained the colour of lust.
the night caught fire.
and it's instinct mostly.
that, and wanting nothing
except everything.

following the river home.
looking for the places
you go in sleep.
painting ribbons
of red on walls
built by no one but you.
relishing the imperfections.
missing the horizon
almost as much
as the taste of green.

and the sky.

god,
if only you could have seen the sky.

the corners are sharp tonight against the sky

2010-07-31T22:06:00.004+01:00

wincing at half hearted attempts
at anything.
everything.
swallowing the sweetest deception
offered amongst the band of thieves.
waving no flag.
it wasn't meant to be, i say.

and perhaps believe it.

show me what you're made of.
who you are.
how far you're willing to go.
keep growing
into and out of yourself.

no.
more than that.

then ask how it feels.
and i'll say
something like an atomic blast.

where sensation expands in waves.
collides with edges.
as though helpless.
like iron filings to a magnet.
when everything is sucked back.
to the point of origin.
and released.
swollen and tender.
hungry and exact.
in that moment at least.

and we hold on.
as best we can.
like sand in clenched fists.
powerless
to the inevitability of movement.
and the tendency
of realitites, like the wind,
to change...

2010-07-27T12:45:00.005+01:00

having this
overwhelming longing
to be seen.
really seen.
with more than eyes.
inside out.
for someone to say
oh, yes.
to vibrate
on the same frequency.
it stems from that.
to be touched
somewhere
deeper than the surface.....

consequences. a test. or dare..

2010-07-21T15:19:00.008+01:00

sometimes amid the noise
i sing my heart out.
regardless of the ghosts
who, as always,
are hungry. looking
for a way in.

as though they ever leave.

so, go on.
crack these ribs like a wishbone.
already there's chaos in the castle.

you're caught
between my teeth and fingers.

bare the bones in your back
and defy the laws of probability.
approach from every angle.
learn to read lips and eyes.
carry this heart because,
not despite, of
it's million red strings.

..........

"..If you can
love without politeness or delicacy,
the fox says, love her with your wolf heart.." ~ from how to love the dead, by jack gilbert

the madness of this milky morning. every day.

2010-07-10T10:50:00.002+01:00

there is always a choice i thought.
but then some things sneak up on you
quite unexpectedly.
like sleep.
and love.

lying here i notice
the clouds are moving the wrong way
like the melancholia that moves in
for days at a time.

and the heart of me,

aquainted with the night and this mind
that never stops
-perhaps a flaw of inhaling too deep
and the power of becoming-

wishes you could read,
like braille
with non-eyes,
the invisible ink that paints
this ever-contradictory portrait

of me
in words.

movement. in silence or not

2010-07-09T19:12:00.006+01:00

as if returning from a dream you had before you knew you were sleeping. secret somnambulist. vertical, i think. carrying prophecies that melt from solidity into everything you cant quite put your finger on. thy kingdom will come. and when it does, would you even know?

though you sleeping beside me are no wiser than i about futures

2010-07-06T23:45:00.000+01:00

less audible but more perceptible through their shockwaves are the drumrolls proceeding the chance encounters that later prompt the question "what took you so long?" especially when, on those kind of drunken nights in the garden beneath the moon's eye in northern skies caught in your energy filled with light, im held in your mouth and hands as the stars whisper how we are our thoughts brought to life and more than a little mystery...

to whom it may concern. sincerely.

2010-05-29T13:44:00.007+01:00

i would ask your forgiveness. if only i was sorry.
for disappointing you with my reply.
but destiny is the only Plan i have.
love. life. death. the rest is less certain. less specific.

i am she who only closes her eyes in surrender.
unable to tell whether it is the world or myself
giving or receiving the kiss. variations on (and
an expansion of) the main love we are taught to crave.

apart from the fossils and phantoms in these bones.
i am the heart. and the heart is a secret nihilist.
so fight it.
i am the sea, the boat and the dreams that fill my sails.
i am the voice calling you back and letting go.

i am a story. breathing. partly told through scars
decorating insides and edges. certain only of everything
undesired. but ravenous for more. so, please excuse me
as burning beneath these walls i stand. wide open.

hymn to hunger

2010-05-21T21:52:00.002+01:00

i've had dreams(?) like that. where spatial contours merge into the (dis)harmony of every kind of potential. hands cover eyes. voices whisper "teach me". and you waver on the edge of almost knowing. be my mirror. golden bird. angels dwell in darkened rooms. sometimes. every day new to themselves. where the sky is no longer the ceiling but a pane of glass in the cathedral window. and your breath on my thigh feels like the answer. kundalini arousing. stomach and lungs full of your voice. speaking of the thing(s) that define us. me, im listening.

then the clouds break and the world shines

2010-05-15T10:48:00.003+01:00

today the rain is so soft.
something like glorious.

2010-05-09T20:42:00.003+01:00

and they know...prayers too, like last night's lost dream set your soul on fire. align your selves. there's no explanation for the mystery that we are a part of. where intentions are like glass and you part the sea and i part myself. the memory of skin can only imagine the way you taste. the silver-edged clouds keep saying the same thing. what is it i hold? apart from time? life, clues, patterns, answers, histories, origins. and the idea of you. the world cupped in hands with maps designed as we go. nothing more revealling than the atlas of the heart. collected stories pulled from dark and colourful corners. you resemble lightning. i am quiet thunder. the picture remains unchanged. seeing not what we're not ready to see. only on both horizons this smoke dancing against the sky.

2010-04-23T23:04:00.002+01:00

she said
"my mouth holds my ineloquent heart translated into words
and if one of us doesn't say 'stop' someone's going to fall..."

what comes at night in sleep (dreams and their meanings)

2010-04-23T22:21:00.005+01:00

unsure heavy breaths drink air tasting of green and dirt. i kiss the sky and squint my eyes. no stars. no point of reference. no 'you are here'. feet have a mind of their own and keep moving. forward i think. along the muddy path that feels like soft cement between my toes. through walls of trees who see all, but don't speak. at least not to me. not tonight.

solitude breaks and i hear them. in the dark behind. as though following the sound of my heart beating fear out into the night through my ribs. my bones. shamanic drum. feet move faster to a run. then stop. lungs inhale deep and hold it there. they're here. wild. strong. dangerous. protective. all teeth and musk. savage and beautiful. standing stone-like i pray that they pass. seemingly indifferent to my presence they do.

the forest receives my relief exhaled. but they stop. in their tracks. on their way. my heart almost. eyes lit by the moon previously unseen by mine shine when heads turn. gazes meet. electricity softens. words, their edges and limitations disolve. feels like home. beckoning in a language silent. (un)familiar. waiting. so much i understand. about dark and light. about balance and when to jump. i will not take root. i pull. and with them i run.

under dust and dirt, all this

2010-04-22T00:18:00.004+01:00

i guess i would be a strange place to bury any kind of treasure. still, a few have done it. planted their gold deep in this house of music where evolution and regression are witnessed on a daily basis. places among the tiny ruins caused by damage done before, but where growth occurs ripping through the tangle of crossed wires and the pre-made blueprints they had thought i would measure up to with passionate indifference. you see my shadows but even they change depending on the way the light shines. perhaps the way emerges when we realise that we're all haunted. haunted, but not doomed. how can we be doomed when we each hold the key to doors already unclosed? so, like a book you open me. you open me because i let you. because you come in my sleep when i sing in prayers laced with the scent of the night's own hunger. your skin i will paint with fingers. decorate with X. and show you how it happens so slow, the blossoming.. and yet it happens...

for now may not be always

2010-04-08T10:44:00.000+01:00

fingers fumble fail to untie these stones tethered to ankles as my back breaks to see behind the black of your eyes. slightly edges soften. caught in the complexity of caution whilst holding your self wide open surrounded by walls. each a pulse with a body drawn to that which throbs on the right frequency. the transformative energy of nature, both human and not. you know. that place where everything hard dissolves and to slip between strings becomes possible. where i cant distinguish between drum and heart. music and me. it's like that. what's in a word? well, my heart mostly.

the difference between

2010-04-01T20:00:00.006+01:00

feel the weight as everything
so far undisclosed
spills in crystalised confessions.

all boldness and fear.

carnivorous flower.

bones loosen and
everything on the periphery
becomes the point.

brace yourself.

i come
in various shades of myself.

the structure of elements alters.
as though like tiny globes.
interior landscapes change.

i could swallow you whole.

like the blessed and cursed
water between worlds
drowning the space
behind cracked ribs.

the opposite of rocket science

2010-03-27T13:23:00.002Z

it was never in a hurry. everything
in it's time. the hidden hand withdraws.
you say it's all clockwork and chemicals,
but that explanation can only be stretched
so far. take the heart for example.
how it aches for what it cannot touch.
sometimes to move retrograde
is actually forwards. pulled by the moon
like tides. through the inertia of the flesh
that manages, mostly, to hold it all in.
the appearance of being opposite
from the outside. an illusion. a kind of
armour protecting everything that is
more than the machine.

shape shifting

2010-03-23T00:18:00.003Z

the night
amplifies the quiet noises
where nothing
only my certainty falters
and i swim through stars
too big for you to swallow.

and now. and again

2010-03-17T09:16:00.005Z

a thousand songs hang around my neck in no bad way. tunes of small dangers. bigger lusts. can you feel me inside of you? my mouth is ready. a different kind of hunger. i recall every beginning. every end. gilded threads extending from somewhere deeper than marrow. holding on to everything that ever meant something. still life. in all it's interpretations. tonight i look like this. in the dark dancing in circles swollen with interior dramatics. dissecting old skeletons. offering bones to the pile. each story a subdivision of the whole. reminding me that someone is always leaving. leaving a hole. making space. so many layers overlapping. and despite myself it feels like falling.

where i am. dreaming

2010-03-08T11:13:00.003Z

the art of suprise.

caught in the creases i imagine
your body leaves on my sheets.

i will you - rise to your feet.
slip out of your skin.
graze my knees.

evensong

2010-02-24T19:58:00.003Z

all the monsters i am squint at the faint lines drawn on the wall measuring how far you grew like the certainty of the shadows on the ceiling that only come to life at night. nocturnal in a quiet way. lucid in crepescular light. sometimes no modest proposals crave attention on the periphery only my favourite kind of lunacies. there are things that should never be said out loud. i say never say never but warn of deep rooted tendencies to slip through nets...

terra incognita

2010-02-13T23:13:00.006Z

where the sparks fly the drum beats louder
and all my selves are in attendence.
the signs point to an extension of edges.
of possibilities.

i saw you behind the words.
your secrets are safe with me.

movement can be so slight and slow.
the beginning lost in the stories.
unnoticed until eyes are cast back
in the future. the world a divination
whose dots are joined into something
that makes a kind of beautiful sense.

map makers.

a ticking clock embroidered on the horizon.
a reminder to devour the days.

the biggest sky i ever saw

2010-02-09T19:50:00.008Z

he said
they might not even be there
any longer. already ghosts
deceiving our eyes.
except
there is no deception,
i thought,
when everything is true
only in another time. but
who's to say it isn't now?

standing
on the edge
of everything
tongues polish
these memories
in the telling
of stories
uncensored
until we cant
be peeled apart.

there are moments
the bright white centre
can be felt,
but touched not,
and lightning surges
from bodies like roots
extending.
connecting. and we see.
with more than eyes
i can see. and sing
as we hold
each other together.

dear world, burn me

2010-02-06T21:53:00.004Z

gluttonous eyes of skin
stretched wide like a net
forcing the inevitability
of mass collision
and ingestion
until your whole self dilates
in response
as the world gets bigger
and you see
the river holds stories
as women
wash the days from their clothes
and morning mists
wrap you in their knowing
that time isn't and never was
a straight line.

pressed against the stones
the dirt
the sky
the world
made beautiful sense
and whilst the earth
turned red and green,
all i saw was gold.

as far as my eyes can see

2010-01-18T01:11:00.005Z

i dream
of salt water

between
the edges.

unfurling
beautiful mess.

bending rules
or opening.

playing dead
until shadows pass.

curled
in your palm.

sometimes yes

2010-01-13T21:01:00.005Z

if i were to say "sacrifice is love made holy", with what would you reply?
and would i even understand? reading the pattern of your words,
peeling them back until red turns gold and drips and i start to wonder
for how long have you been wielding lightning bolts from your palms..?
..and what of these invisible walls? are we not gods? come closer.

~~inspired by "sacrifice is love made holy" by panos tsagaris~~

even when the walls crack

2010-01-02T18:05:00.007Z

sometimes i think my heart beats so hard my blood sings.
"but for how long?" they asked.
i dont think it stops.
butterfly effect.

upon finding an asymmetry of sorts

between actions and words

the trick is to read between the lines.

the cusp

2009-12-31T15:45:00.006Z

blue moon knows not of the occassion i shouldn't think. doing what she does from memory. or habit. or because it's the only thing she can do. her destiny set by gravity. infused in each mote of dust. doesn't know that the skin between moments has meaning because we bestow it with such. all hands on faces and bells. bells heralding the second where the future is now. where now swells with blood thick with possibility. where prayers are whispered like invocations from our primitive core to everything we know without knowing.

secret storms

2009-12-20T00:39:00.002Z

morning is milky light
encompassing the whole spectrum of white
like someone told the world to sshhh.
silk roots extend from everywhere but feet,
whose soles read directions
scratched in dirt with feathers.

fingers write secret messages
in clouds breathed onto glass
before evaporating.
and you thought no one saw.

she listens. witness
to the building breaking of bridges.
the world has her own plans.
today's gift is a slow waltz.
snow is never in a hurry.
with eyes closed i hold out my tongue.
and burn.

he kept the world in his pocket

2009-11-28T09:46:00.002Z

they look like they could come alive. if only you knew the magic word. all skin and veins. giant circulatory systems. etched in delicate, ancient, watery patterns. between the rise and fall of pregnant earth bellies. or lungs exhaling. blowing clouds hard and soft until they feather or curdle the sky.

then us. unskilled in technicalities. knowing nothing of co-ordinates we read, map, plot routes. journeys. fathom, invent, chose destinations. no trail of breadcrumbs. only pieces of heart. scattered. marking the way. traversing time and continents. walking on water.