Daddy Daddy, it was just like you said,
Now that the living outnumber the dead.
Where I come from it's a long thin thread
Across an ocean, down a river of red.
Now that the living outnumber the dead
Speak my language. Hello. Hello.
Here come the quick. There go the dead. Here they come.
Bright red. Speak my language.
However long the night, the dawn will break.
Wednesday 30 December 2009
Friday 25 December 2009
A dull thump on Christmas Eve.
Donna was bitter about Christmas coming this year. She wished to delve into as much bittersweet self-indulgence as she could. When the eve snowflakes outside her window fell in an uncomfortable silence however, she suffered a sudden change of heart. Donna decided to quietly wrap up some of the dull heart aches and pains that she should have dispensed herself of long before. A moral recycle is now essential, she thought. She would wrap up the aches and pains in a stone cold newspaper, put it in a cardboard box, and leave the box under the Christmas tree for Santa, with a message pencilled in on the front side of the box.
The instructions she would ask of him to follow were to, first of all, never look inside the box. Eyes-closed, he would then have to gently ease his hands in, fingertips exploring, until he would gasp enough courage to grab unto whatever ache throbbed to be released. Handle with care, she would further insist. Donna expected that his knuckles would often go numb during this thin-skinned investigating process: a matter not for the faint of heart to have to deal with, surely. One hand’s fingers half spreading across his eyes, Santa would pull the other full hand out of the box, while a nervous tickle would begin to scratch inside his closed fist. One by one, his gloved fingers would bloom out the tender December newborns.
Escaping from the old man’s curious palm, the aches would fizzle, shoot into the air, and spectacularly flutter into milky-white talking doves, carrying messages to all the wide-eyed babes in the woods. Wings flapped with mature anticipation. Pencilled in on the doves’ wooden lips, the messages contained an ensemble of wise theories and lists of hypothetical how-not-to’s. These theories carried the mark of Donna’s own stitched experiences, and were specially aimed as practical counsel for little knowing girls. From house to house, Donna’s dutiful Santa would free the message-carrier doves onto roofs where the gentle birdies would coo their way down chimneys, and into every girl's chamber.
Entering in a silent flurry, the watchful doves would paint tender dreams across the ceiling. Others would flap the air clean of any heartsick dust, while few others would knit their good luck feathers to the carpet. All of this, of course, would have to be done in preparation for their choral chirping. Beaks now set, ready to whisper Donna’s bedtime message to all the sleeping beauties.
Flushed butterfly lips kept away
From charming toads that hop astray
Will keep your milk teeth strong and clean
From suckling fibbed fruits sweet and keen.
So prick your ears and spread your eyes
And duck away from green croak cries!
Knock to unlock this wooden beak
And eat this truth bean while you dream.
This could, Donna thought, be the only way that one would ever be able to learn from another's experiences. Donna felt motherly of helplessly gullible girls, and hoped that, in the years to come, they would find Santa’s delivery of her words of wisdom to be a useful gift in their everyday lives as young women.
Donna assumed that by the time the doves flew back out through the chimney, the charcoal would probably blacken their delicate bodies. A white, pretty bird would thus turn into an exquisitely ebony raven camouflaging itself away into the darkness of night. To this thought, Donna smiled cordially, for not even her ghostly Santa, an expert in childish shenanigans, would know how to distinguish the black doves from the starry night. He would lose sight of them, and soon forget about them too. They would finally be freed.
Donna’s thinking was interrupted by a loud thump that the snow made when it fell off the roof under which her mind was at unrest. It seemed rather unfortunate that the snow would start to melt on Christmas Eve. Too short lived.
Still there, the dull aches and pains lay quietly. Perhaps she can hold on to them a little longer. Maybe till next Christmas.
The instructions she would ask of him to follow were to, first of all, never look inside the box. Eyes-closed, he would then have to gently ease his hands in, fingertips exploring, until he would gasp enough courage to grab unto whatever ache throbbed to be released. Handle with care, she would further insist. Donna expected that his knuckles would often go numb during this thin-skinned investigating process: a matter not for the faint of heart to have to deal with, surely. One hand’s fingers half spreading across his eyes, Santa would pull the other full hand out of the box, while a nervous tickle would begin to scratch inside his closed fist. One by one, his gloved fingers would bloom out the tender December newborns.
Escaping from the old man’s curious palm, the aches would fizzle, shoot into the air, and spectacularly flutter into milky-white talking doves, carrying messages to all the wide-eyed babes in the woods. Wings flapped with mature anticipation. Pencilled in on the doves’ wooden lips, the messages contained an ensemble of wise theories and lists of hypothetical how-not-to’s. These theories carried the mark of Donna’s own stitched experiences, and were specially aimed as practical counsel for little knowing girls. From house to house, Donna’s dutiful Santa would free the message-carrier doves onto roofs where the gentle birdies would coo their way down chimneys, and into every girl's chamber.
Entering in a silent flurry, the watchful doves would paint tender dreams across the ceiling. Others would flap the air clean of any heartsick dust, while few others would knit their good luck feathers to the carpet. All of this, of course, would have to be done in preparation for their choral chirping. Beaks now set, ready to whisper Donna’s bedtime message to all the sleeping beauties.
Flushed butterfly lips kept away
From charming toads that hop astray
Will keep your milk teeth strong and clean
From suckling fibbed fruits sweet and keen.
So prick your ears and spread your eyes
And duck away from green croak cries!
Knock to unlock this wooden beak
And eat this truth bean while you dream.
This could, Donna thought, be the only way that one would ever be able to learn from another's experiences. Donna felt motherly of helplessly gullible girls, and hoped that, in the years to come, they would find Santa’s delivery of her words of wisdom to be a useful gift in their everyday lives as young women.
Donna assumed that by the time the doves flew back out through the chimney, the charcoal would probably blacken their delicate bodies. A white, pretty bird would thus turn into an exquisitely ebony raven camouflaging itself away into the darkness of night. To this thought, Donna smiled cordially, for not even her ghostly Santa, an expert in childish shenanigans, would know how to distinguish the black doves from the starry night. He would lose sight of them, and soon forget about them too. They would finally be freed.
Donna’s thinking was interrupted by a loud thump that the snow made when it fell off the roof under which her mind was at unrest. It seemed rather unfortunate that the snow would start to melt on Christmas Eve. Too short lived.
Still there, the dull aches and pains lay quietly. Perhaps she can hold on to them a little longer. Maybe till next Christmas.
Tuesday 22 December 2009
Who said romance is dead?
"obviously te iubesc aussi
although if i was you i wouldn't iubesc me"
Probably the best rhyming couplet of the decade. All you poets out there, beware!
Thursday 17 December 2009
Ourselves Alone.
" - Love? It's such a silly word. We've never spoken it. It's just that when I'm totally me and he's totally him we swop. Do you know what I mean? His arrival is the best time. It's his mouth on my neck, his cool fingers touching me - I make it last right up until he has to leave. And then I row, I fight, I do everything I can to keep him with me and when I hurt him, I hurt myself. It's as if we're driven, that bed is like a raft and that room is all the world to us.
- You're lucky you can feel like that, you might not if you had to live with him."
- You're lucky you can feel like that, you might not if you had to live with him."
Tuesday 15 December 2009
Friday 11 December 2009
Featuring a kindred spirit.
Selves are always lingering to be found.
~ by a poet who knows too well that the card he was holding close to the vest was the lying queen of empty hearts.
~ by a poet who knows too well that the card he was holding close to the vest was the lying queen of empty hearts.
Chirping for Drops.
She hears the moth-eaten train raining in the distance,
Its heartbeat thumping in the back of her bark neck,
Her lumbered ribs swell and sweat
A drop trickling down to her timid pulp.
She swallows her breath down, waiting for the moth-eaten train.
Black vultures above her wisp the clouds away
As the smell of metal cutting vein deep
Stays sweet on their wooden lips.
An army of daymares come stumbling down the hill
With knives for feet dug deep, they limp.
Her shrivelled roots pull their sharp necks into the thirsty soil,
Weaving traps for Erl-Kings and choking gargoyles.
Victorious, yet she won’t step, root away
From the chooing rail that churns closer.
As the train spots the lit tree house in her shoulders,
A flashlight mirrors a flicker in the sky
She feels her parched spine tingled,
An unzipped rail teased by lightning,
She is being watched.
Three brothers clasp arms around her trunk,
One weeps a weeping song to her drying bark
While the other wails his promises of Burma shave
And another woos to branch her down a thousand kisses deep,
But the tree now seems deaf, her senses asleep.
As the train spits steam shots reaching the woods
Her three brothers now chant like woodpeckers,
Musical notes chipping at her roots
But her leaves now shake with forecast.
The train is still trying towards her,
Hopeful metal rusting, wanting to be one with nature.
The climax begins as she stretches out her trunk
Eager for collision, the swelling storm, the damp wonder,
He crashes into her mercy seat,
His final stop (birds whistle).
She sweeps what dust is left of him into the air
His particles spring to the sky, cocooning a thunder,
The sound of a drop in a tin metal can that haunts her.
Holding out her skin soft branches in the rain,
She wonders if her chirping brothers are the ones to blame.
[The rain choos:
“When will I ever be your husband?
When will you ever be my bride?
When will you take me from this place
Where hope and hopelessness collide?”]
Its heartbeat thumping in the back of her bark neck,
Her lumbered ribs swell and sweat
A drop trickling down to her timid pulp.
She swallows her breath down, waiting for the moth-eaten train.
Black vultures above her wisp the clouds away
As the smell of metal cutting vein deep
Stays sweet on their wooden lips.
An army of daymares come stumbling down the hill
With knives for feet dug deep, they limp.
Her shrivelled roots pull their sharp necks into the thirsty soil,
Weaving traps for Erl-Kings and choking gargoyles.
Victorious, yet she won’t step, root away
From the chooing rail that churns closer.
As the train spots the lit tree house in her shoulders,
A flashlight mirrors a flicker in the sky
She feels her parched spine tingled,
An unzipped rail teased by lightning,
She is being watched.
Three brothers clasp arms around her trunk,
One weeps a weeping song to her drying bark
While the other wails his promises of Burma shave
And another woos to branch her down a thousand kisses deep,
But the tree now seems deaf, her senses asleep.
As the train spits steam shots reaching the woods
Her three brothers now chant like woodpeckers,
Musical notes chipping at her roots
But her leaves now shake with forecast.
The train is still trying towards her,
Hopeful metal rusting, wanting to be one with nature.
The climax begins as she stretches out her trunk
Eager for collision, the swelling storm, the damp wonder,
He crashes into her mercy seat,
His final stop (birds whistle).
She sweeps what dust is left of him into the air
His particles spring to the sky, cocooning a thunder,
The sound of a drop in a tin metal can that haunts her.
Holding out her skin soft branches in the rain,
She wonders if her chirping brothers are the ones to blame.
[The rain choos:
“When will I ever be your husband?
When will you ever be my bride?
When will you take me from this place
Where hope and hopelessness collide?”]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
