the constant mystique of well-organised chaos

7

i feed my desires
in a legs-spread
spine arched
sticky fingered
violent concession:
head tossed back
hair falling to hardwood floors
last gasp leaving me
dry-mouthed

so gone

slow motion movie replays
behind eyes closed
circular repetitive breaths
in out in out
exchanging sighs
suspending animations
detaching body from soul
in singular experiences
I grip and I writhe
under aural waves
and surf liquid pleasure
crashing in moving out
dragged back
carried in from notes
that smother sucking
energy in balls of
white light levitating
my skin from bones
sticky crescendos
and heart-stopping basslines
your voice uttering words
without thought
my lips catching tears
wrenching senses at once
blinking back wetness
vibrating below skin
welding feeling to
knowing one last gasp
breaking the surface
fighting for air

6 September, 2004

this is not a postcard home (for anne sexton)

Anne, must you?

Must you diminish
yourself into a pale-armed ghost
feeding dreams of father and
cigarettes, painting yourself
on Harvard walls in greys and blues
Pink teacups and Pucci prints

Drunk on whiskey and words
proper hair and ladylike stare
subtle acceptances and gracious
appearances, were you ever
a part of bridge club social sets
cashmere-gloved ladies lunching:
no.

Sent away, adrift, torn from
babies to rehabilitate
recapitulate
somehow rebirth into less,
though I heard.

Anne, I heard.

I heard
and I flushed mother's
Mandrax
Valium
Lithium hard

I heard you
silently screaming back
locked in a thousand
confessions,
A means to an end

The pen drops

The words stop.

18 September, 2004

1/2 & 1/2

the scales tip
by threes
in messy seductions
and rope-ends
wordless wonderment

think. realise.
put in a place
of movement
true vision
unlearn and deprogram
the unforgivable

extract pain from
sensation, tattoo
from skin
scar from soul
stretch a buttery
expanse over all
things tangible

grudges are just
regret wrapped in
longing - a coat
that never warms

grace found in
surrender and solitude -
a pas de une
a quiet ticking hour
a will to rehumanise.

18 October, 2004

the bauhaus method

her wind ripped
at my legs
till rawness
chafed my knees

and I, in skirt
and heels did
nothing but stand
there

and take it
like a man.

she never once
asked if it hurt.

18 October, 2004

deaf/dumb/blind

I've pulled out the things
words
events
memories
manacled fused
once to flesh

packed away pain
in a box of
wasted potential
time's trinkets
turned a stone ear
to the screams

a brutal concoction-
I called it love

the indifference now
a looped note
in G minor
rings
oscillates
drowns

it was a
fog laid low
now lifted

18 October, 2004

excavate

words lost momentarily

now found in steeled
tempered amalgamized
sorrow

now unceremoniously
control-shifting
their way through
bits and bytes

now rebirthing as
caution is thrown to
winds heaving westward

now brightly unearthed
artifacts of a history
never fulfilled

18 October, 2004

...and i loved you

we whored our memories
collectively
separately
for the price of
recognition
sense of belonging

tripping through timezones
making do
sounding off breaths
levelling planes
and searching out
s o m e t h i n g -
emotional glue
or the next best thing

was it real to you?
was it ever that
s o m e t h i n g
you could hold
as I, tightly bound
to you
found my heart's
covenant written upon?

we slipped
we lied
we forgave
until...

the adaptation
bore a face
a personality
a life
a devastation -

that which the use
of old tools now rusty
no longer my facility
could simply not
fix.

I'm sorry for
specifics:
abruptions
tears
screams
hating
time
oceans
fibreoptics
inevitability

but not for
her
you
or me.

19 October, 2004

black treacle

everything coming fastfast
superfast
a rapidfiresuccession
of sideways
split-images
some without feeling

some so drunk on
emotion - a force
to impel me to the
floor in a puddle
of plasmic tears

bear with me this
burden
this road

this painstakingly
woven scrapbook
of memory-slides

shit, man. it's
all been said before

I can hear you thinking
but
this time more acute
in its presence
this time without
regression

this time more
aware in its
longing - not for
amends

but for an
absolution or
somehow to exorcise
the demons that
strangle me at will

locked in no regret
a drive to step up
have my say
have my peace.

19 October, 2004

hands up

I was not born
with anger:
this cynical
observation that
osmosized from
skin to skin

scenting bones
with match-head
strikings against
flinted heart -

you set to spark
a fire now
glowing ember-dust
crackling like
old leaves beneath
my running feet

the finality only
a barrier frost:
and my fear of
walking through
but

continuations
beaded with current
circumstances -
something that
I
personally
can't handle.

the cliché applies:
it's not you
it's me.

20 October, 2004