The Language Barrier

The Language Barrier

White face smudges
round my otherwise rosy lips,
a glove under my covers
or a striped scarf tied round my wrist.
The remnants of red lipstick on my pillowcase,
eyeliner smeared across my chest.
And every single morning I struggle
to release myself from this infernal
invisible box.
It’s not easy,
loving a mime.

Fingers Chasing Toes

Fingers Chasing Toes

I was seven.
My mother told me –
“swim towards the bottom,
I’ll do the rest”.
I gulped air into my lungs,
filling them to the point of bursting
and dove.
Eyes closed,
under water is a frightening place
where every second seems close to death,
at least when you’re that young.
Just when I thought I’d die for sure,
hands pushed against my back.
My eyes shot open just in time
to see the world flip,
and then I was above,
sputtering.

Ocho Rios

Ocho Rios

She draws with charcoal
on long sheets of oblivion (obsidian),
long-winged butterflies
above willowy grasses
blowing in the breeze.
Her hands move faster
than when they spin reeds into baskets
sold at the market for the lowest price
haggled for by sunburnt tourists.
When she turns her burnt face to the sun,
there is nothing but clouds,
ganja is thick in the air
from where the men sit carving elephants,
turtles, horses,
out of balsa wood.

In Loving Memorandum

In Loving Memorandum

Flesh withers as if summer flora
killed
by Autumn’s first chill.
She was the breeze on sultry days
and all of what we shaped from clay
could not compare to her form.
Lips like bees with their constant buzzing,
eyes like caves sunken
in contrast to the marks
like ants,
crawling over the powdery blue veins
at the insides of her elbows.
When they found her
she was curled inside the bathtub
in the alleyway between Main and 43rd.
Hands like birds crashed into glass
and legs like toothpicks snapped in half
her pale visage told her tale.
We wept.
Her head we found pillowed
amid shattered TV sets,
emptied bottles clutched in deadened hands,
remnants of her last supper –
razor sharp broken needle tips,
the plunger.
When we lowered her into the earth,
her mother cried, we laughed in mirth
for never had one dead looked so at peace.
Her eyes would ever more gaze
upon the lost sun’s rays
of which she will continue to outshine.

And to dust shall we return.

A Sonnet on Death

A Sonnet on Death

I dreamt I had died in a stranger’s place
where nobody knew my name.
There wasn’t among them a familiar face,
yet they treated me just the same
as they would have one of their own,
though stranger was I to them.
They took my body into their home,
made ready the coffin then.
In lace and silk they dressed me clean,
combed my hair and smoothed my face.
Then sat they to eat a dinner so lean,
before laying me in my place.
The gravedigger dug his hole, six feet deep,
to embrace me in my eternal sleep.

Written for the Storm During Literary Studies

Written for the Storm During Literary Studies

Raindrops caress parched dirt
where every blade of grass
yearns upwards, sighing
in the sudden onslaught of moisture.
I sit, trapped, behind fluorescent bars,
longing for the freedom storms bring.
Lightning dance ‘cross my eyelids,
like a pelican skimming ocean waves.
Outside thunder roars,
inside my mind turns to Yeats,
word definitions,
discord of booming professor’s voice,
student feedback.
My heart numbs but every beat screams for you.

Fakes

Fakes

Let’s raise our glasses,
a solemn toast to mediocrity
no vintage glamour glitter rock star
here.
Leather cracks, hairlines recede,
and all your records fall into obscurity.
How much would you dish out
for your fabled fifteen minutes of fame?
Sacrifice vocal chords, eyesight,
bone structure,
and all the love ever known.
Become that vision of lust and longing,
poster-pinup child material
for a teeny-bopper’s photo wall.
False perfection.

Chasm

Chasm

I cannot breathe as deep as the Grand Canyon
with all its valleys and hidden places,
that age-old wound
watching with its heavy-lidded eyes
ancient in its silence.
This between us is no blank canvas –
bloodied fingers, buckled legs, cold eyes
and you refuse to see past.
Paint-winged butterflies carried on the breeze
go by like carnival-coloured clouds
but every inch of sky is gray, gray, gray.
My lungs collapse.
I cannot breathe as deep as the Grand Canyon,
for never have I tried.

Developing

Developing

I can write you no sonnet,
my thoughts don’t lend themselves
to easy rhyming.
Ink-stained hands leave
charcoal-colored smudges
across this blank expanse of paper,
turning words into monochrome butterflies
chained to this pen of mine.
When it all comes down to it,
“I love you” just doesn’t cut it
it never really did.
My feelings for you are too fierce
to put down on paper –
they would shatter cave walls
destroying all art that’s come before,
leaving dust in their path.
And to dust shall we always return.

Flying

Flying

The rhythm in your skin
drowns out all reason.
“Why are we here?” it screams.
Resisting all bonds
all locks and chains,
you cannot be captured.
There is nothing left to lose
save for your plush velvet eyes,
lengthy limbs and tumultuous vocals.
Can we learn to fly without wings?

Breaking

Breaking

This is an ending, not a beginning.
You will write each poem off as just another fancy,
and I will continue furtively sending
crumpled scraps of poetry to every newspaper in town,
in my desperate attempts to finally strike gold.
I am a sunset in vivid fuchsia and turquoise,
streaking neon bright across the sky
but you, with your cracked ribs, vacant unblinking eyes,
blinding-white teeth, you are nothing.
When we fall it will be in pieces,
like a child’s puzzle torn apart.

Devour

Devour

darkness brings
raking fingernails,
bruising lips and hungry eyes
teeth that sink into pale, ivory expanses
of snow-covered hills and valleys.
When eyesight fails,
trust the rhythm of hips and heartbeats.
hands that long have dreamed on touch
find purchase, grasping folds of flesh
scorching every spot with their torrid touch.
in the night, everyone is a sinner,
slave to heaving breasts and tremulous fingers
pressing into the delicate places
between stomach and hips and thighs.
bodies arch and quiver
fingertips gliding over the smooth surfaces of skin
each shiver, each breath drawn inward by a lover with a gasp
rings divine off their forms
as they dissolve into nothingness, spent.

Splitting

Splitting

ruined lace
split apart
by the brute force of your rude, fumbling hands.
nothing is meant to stay whole anyways,
like cheap Christmas light bulbs
winking on and off and finally off forever
and fingers are twisting,
yearning for the peak, the pinnacle.
breath siphoning through squeezed lungs
don’t rush, do, don’t, do,
please, please don’t stop not even for a moment. Don’t stop
until blood cells burst
temporal lobe explodes
ribs crack open, like those of a corpse on the autopsy table.
let calves and thighs and hips and arms and shoulders and fingers and even toes feel,
feel and clench and yearn and yearn
and release, release, release
until skin is all that remains to separate;
melting away, peeling back like the skin of an orange
leaving nothing but muscle and bone and red, beating heart.

Contact

Contact
(this is a rewrite of "Untitled")

I long to be the raindrops
glistening on your skin.
The wind blows through my veins,
I’m alone again.
Stitch my eyes shut,
you’re a splendor overwhelming to behold.
Fill my hands
I need more, more, MORE.
Bring me to the edge
of the wordless,
where nothing but our primal urges
will spilt the night,
in two.
I crave the stars in utter clarity.
Wound me with your touch,
be my undoing.
This is where our eyes meet,
and this, and this, and this -
this is where I slip,
off the counter,
off the edge,
into departure of reason and sanity.

Untitled (as of yet)

I long to be the raindrops
glistening on your skin.
The wind blows through my veins,
I'm alone again.
Wishing on stars never works for me,
you see.
Stitch my eyes shut,
I'm not worthy to behold you.
Fill my hands
I need more, more, more.
You bring me to the edge of the wordless,
where nothing but our primal urges
will spilt the night in two.
I long to see the stars
in utter clarity,
I need to be wounded by your touch,
by my own undoing.
This is where our eyes meet,
and this, and this -
this is where I slip
silent,
into oblivion.

In Another Life

In Another Life

The sheets of rain against the window
remind me of your eyes,
so blue and wet like the ocean.
You used to drown me in them.
We were never as simple as an algebra problem,
leaning more towards complicated equations
things that made my head spin.
You were Romeo in doublet & tights,
I, your Juliet, in empire-waisted gown.
We were perfect right up til the end:
your cold lips and empty glass,
my blood-soaked robe and shaking hands.
In another life I loved you as I do now.
We were Cleopatra & Antony,
Edward Scissorhands and Kim,
Jack and Sally.
Doomed lovers, we are, in all our glory.
In another life,
I loved you as I do now –
obsessed, morbid,
til the bittersweet ending
curtain fall.

Human After All

Human After All

Heartbeats turn to whispered murmurs,
heaving breaths to nothing but lies.
She’s a beauty wrapped in bones and skin,
just something to keep the organs in.
Delicate hands, birdlike in their delicacy,
legs long and capable of covering miles.
Her eyes are the deepest colors of May,
just something to keep the flames at bay.
Her body is fragile and broken anew,
lying motionless beneath the autumn leaves.
Her lips are cold, blue and thin,
just something to keep her truth within.
The branches scratch the august sky,
scattering crisp leaves across the ground.
She is nothing but bones and skin,
just something to keep the organs in.
Her hands, her eyes, her body, her lips,
she is nothing but legs and hips,
the splay of her fingers
and the curve of her ribs.
She is nothing but bones, blood,
and skin.

“I Love You”

“I Love You”

Carry this with you,
place it in an unbreakable locket,
twine it ‘round your wrist
if it’s too much for your neck to handle.
Wouldn’t want to impinge upon your masculinity.
Lock it away in a safe, perhaps
where no one but you knows the code,
or better yet make it voice-activated.
Tuck it in your pocket
but don’t forget about it,
wouldn’t want it to shrink in the wash.
Or maybe you should just destroy it,
maybe its better off destroyed,
left unsaid –
rip it in half
or burn it
or refuse to take it from my trembling lips.
It means nothing,
or does it mean everything?
You were never quite sure
and now I doubt you can even handle it,
but here it is anyways.
Foolish words for a foolish man,
unworthy and unknowing.
Keep them well.

Stargirl

Stargirl

She was – black velvet,
satin & lace,
shaggy blonde hair in her eyes.
My hands found solace in hers
and my eyes were full,
but my heart was fuller.
She was saffron & dandelions,
all Spring-Summer-Fall
leaves drifting through her eyes.
I was not worthy to touch.
The curve of her hip
could have inspired Shakespearean sonnets,
and I dropped to my knees
to caress her milk-white legs,
like gleaming ivory in the pale moonlight.
For one night she was mine,
the swell of her breast
heaving with each sharp intake of air,
the feel of her knotted scars
under my fingertips.
She whispered in my ear,
“I can hear the stars,
they’re calling me home”.
When I woke, she was gone,
the spirit drained from her eyes
and the blood from her fair cheeks,
yet her hand still clutches mine.

Fairy Tale

Fairy Tale

He entrapped her easily,
with small promises
of romance & jewels
and happily-ever-after.
Little princess in her cold stone palace.
No white knight.
No faithful steed.
Just her eyes reflected in the cold steel,
as his knife flashed.
Sharp pain biting her,
burning her arms and legs and torso,
her heart slowing its beating.
She was so beautiful,
pale perfection
with her romance & jewels,
and her happily-ever-after.