Lonely

The grit. Between the toes, and on that scaly, peeling heel of mine.

The moist earth breathes, and my feet feel summer.

On the first day of autumn.

Watched an abundance of romcoms lately,

To placate my yearning side.

500 days of summer.

Then autumn.

No end.

But the garden is breathing a little more easily now,

Freed from the wandering willy, and convolvulus

That power hungrily creeps across the sanity of upright plants.

The hot terracotta pots absorbed the water

Removing 10 years of my life,

In one split second of sensuality.

I am on the verandah of my grandfather’s house,

Eyeing the decreasing amount of pot plants;

Succulents, verigated somethings and somethingelse

My memory will not lend me.

The mosquitoes bite me,

The flying ants fly en masse

Dying too soon

In puddles of pot plant overflow,

Or in wicked reflexive smacks.

I am as day dreamy then

As I was at 5 when drawing the abstract pillar;

As I am now

With low concentration

Low self esteem

And the dread of my grandfather being almost,

Maybe

Dead.

That was downstairs.

The dark, damp downstairs.

Upstairs three juvenile males

Make a meal of an evening

Throwing around musical jargon,

Entertainment elitism

And good looks in general.

The female, of my name,

Has left

With her art historical,

Anthropological sister

And her mother of a mother.

Tonight I shared with them,

Spontaneously

Food and thought.

And, dissent on the education system.

And, they may have just empathised?

Whatever it may be,

It may be just delusional heart break?

I am alone.

And I feel it.

Font.

Back to the corner of memories,

Silently slipping away into a shadow

Of feelings, and rubbed out blurs

No longer etched into my mind.

So, I must now sit down,

And sling the corner shadow

Over my shoulder

To my periphery

Lest it be lost forever

In that unforgiving haze

Of non-formed nostalgia.

In the pit of my stomach lies

A slowly dissolving knot

Of withered jute fibre

That my hunger has been eating away at

All of this day.

I have, once again, given myself to a situation.

Given up to the situation.

When I breathe on this shadow

Fragments return to me.

They are sunshine,

Glints of quartz,

Wailing,

Shaking,

Vomit,

Fire.

Luminate.

They are people.

Tiredness.

Emotional exhaustion.

Ice cold river water.

Nudity.

They are sought after moments of intimacy

With people of Europe and the Americas,

People whose hands can move in the right direction

And very quickly too.

There is rain,

Sodden ground,

Slippery fish imaginations,

Lackadaisical  laughing

And more nudity.

There is wailing atop a mountain

In ice cold rain at 2am

After a connection with a Massachusetts gentleman

Of very few words

And very wide thoughts.

A man that would take only a few minutes to fall for

He elusively played I am sure,

He knew I was easy

And desired some emotional healing.

Then there was the three people,

Their romances,

Their confusion,

The many words spent

The many moments of arched, primal wailing

Face down to the earth

That gave birth to this complexity.

There is the lagoon.

The stagnant

Pollen haloed water

The now ominous trees of beech

Harbouring the tortures of the day

And now a pair of pants

Thrown in after a baptism;

A prenuptial rite of Autumn.

The fires.

The heat. The burns.

The bare bodied, sweaty hugs

With people who breathed you in

And they were at once you.

They were overwhelmed.

I was.

The letting go

Aside a pile of ash

And seeded grass

Head between my hairy knees

Covered loosely by a floral dress

The new age flower power talk of romance.

(The conversation never ended,

But I suspect it will.)

And then it was all downhill,

The hitchhiking

The embracing of the

Privilege

Of being an intelligent only child

With another intelligent only child.

We held hands.

And I felt it was contrived,

But I enjoyed the repossession.

The bread eating

By the side of this new civilisation of the mind

The embrace and ritual

Of not surrendering to our changed selves

Times two.

The karma.

The generosity of parents

Who see many girls tread

Through their son’s room

And only offer a bit of confusion

To the situation.

But, not so judgementally.

The lying on the bed,

The first in 8 nights

And the warmth

security of solitude in blankets

not entirely alone.

I was the third silent person in an argument

That I may have initiated

With thoughts of autonomy,

Emotional independce,

And seeking self-help un-guiltily.

But as usual,

The calm arose

And veiled my hard core emotion

Into rationality I offered them

Telepathically.

Analogy

as i lay amidst
tempered ginko shadows
hyper against that eddying sky
of dis-enthralling,
clouds
of self betrayment

i thought of
lying midst warmed night grass,
legs and heads
skyward;

eyeing the low tempest
that bred in our cores.

i could have
grabbed at that greyed green branch
and handed you a handful
of crimson stamens
to show my simple, homely love.

but that red, tome-like shadow
rested its dead weight of resentment
on this animal body

anchoring it to attachment.

the brotherhood clear,
this dead weight head sank
indulgent in breathing
indulgent in night light.

this fragility analogised
in that juncture pointed
below that civic sliver of entwined humanity;
punctuated by that lone black robot suitcase,
isolated in its un-giving.

i felt that pain, that frustration,
that turmoil of cycles
of mutuality,
of people;
their hidden agendas.

the basked path breathed
its warmth upwards
forcing that russian steppe cold fire
that brewed a foetus' life long
to the wedge on this shoulder,
to the grey haloed hearts
then.

then,
the tome spell was broken;
the resentment sought solace,
the loyal sought company,
and this wild fire sought implosion
in passing on the burden

that was the red tomb of resentment.

x

Samsara

my mind is restless, 

running many a mile with memories of my last few years' worth of india trips. 

i re-visit my photos, 

and even the map i have, 

hoping that i may apparate to this land that you so luckily inhabit 

currently.

i imagine the smell of wood smoke tinged with bidi scents, 

the rising fogs of the early morning, 

the coughing and spluttering of the race course 5am walkers, 

the mosque, the temple, the gurdwara,

the pressure cooker calls.

it calls me.

but so does the seeded, rustic, summer grass of our garden, 

the melting tar nether my feet on my summer walks here, 

the rattling of the mud guard on franki the bike, 

the tui's call at 5am, the morepork at midnight, 

the flax burdened with nectar laden flower beaks

that iridescent fist sized birds flutter about.

i can have both worlds; one with memory, and one sensually.

got my first christmas card today,

from grandparents

enclosed with two photos of us in 1993.

photos i have never seen/don't remember.

just got back from a dinner at a friend's house

a 3 minute cycle ride under a star lit sky,

and cradle moon.

gentle fresh breeze,

weaving through the balmy, muggy night of 20 degrees.

been uploading photos onto facebook

of various social gatherings and events;

 a habit i am getting used to as my laptop breathes its last breaths.

it is 1am,

and the balmy of the weather has got the better of me,

but so has the music.

my fingers have been unconsciously typing for a few hours,

and i no longer am resisting my eyes wide shut.

i envision ragged skeletal hands, with protusions

and deep purple veins

frantically trying to placate lost friends,

in lost times.

i am troubled to hear that your beautiful house

wedgewood hall

needs so much work on it.

which asks so much of you.

it is really never ending.

i suppose one can understand why some people

spend their whole lives flatting

to avoid money and energy spent on maintenance.

it is a vicious cycle.

but in the end it may be to mental priority?

we do prioritise love.

immaterial as it may be,

it imbibes materiality.

you give off so much love and empathy

that needs to be spread and not isolated

(in a chilled vacuum of apathy)

i just hope it is never taking its toll on you.

how i have sought silence,

and how now my thoughts echo

while my fingers search for the words,

in fragmented plastic keys that will

convey who i am to you on this night.

how strange this detachment is.

how strange, too, that claire mary wood

spoke to me as a body with warmth and love,

only to be ash a few days later 

flying with the pollen,

the atmospheric songs,

the meteor showers,

the twinklin' stars

and the sweetness that is death.

this wind strips me bare.

x

Verbal injustices

As I look down,

A half squirmish pile of vermicelli

Smothered in sesame seeds

Complimented with steamed peas

Grows into writhing eels with green hats.

Claustrophobically cling wrapped.

She is on her side again,

The purplish grey rings around her eyes

Tell of more fatigue.

She is no longer Iscariot the traitor,

But Jude the betrayed.

A ball of sadness unravels in the stomach pit

And, embodied in the squirm,

Reaches out piercing the cling wrap

Wrapping its seeking tendrils around her neck.

What would it be to put her out of misery?

My eyes are my power.

Walking steadily down the same corridor

I watch the imbalanced liquid in a tea cup

Teasingly swaying from side to side of cup,

I slow down

And then splash out onto the saucer.

This is the life of the resident;

Unsteadily giving and trusting.

‘Don't start yourself too short,
my love
Or someday you might find
your soul endangered
A natural beauty should be preserved
like a monument to nature.’

I quickly place a napkin onto the saucer,

Balancing the breakfast tray on my weak wrist

Weary of one slight millimetre out

My day would be ruined.

Revelation awaited,

The tea seeps across the bleached white napkin

Tainted purity

But all the more beautiful for it.

I live my life as a metaphor,

As an analogy to real life.

But in that I am sated,

Replete

Somnolent with gratification,

Of greedily drinking the sap of life.

-----------------------------------

The cracked outer shell

Is solidifying

But still ink drops

Trapped in water droplets

On the inside.

Seeking anew

Merging

Permeating

With no end.

The wealth of emotions

I learn of late

Are immeasurable in words.

Only Leonard Cohen could do them justice.

As are the relationships built with people,

They are all my lovers

And I revel in my harem of life.

But with a beady, naive eye.

I am the Mexican Hand Tree afterall.

Dull Flame

‘Through the down cast lashes

I see the dull flame of desire’

-Bjork

I stand at the crossroads on the landing.

The evening sun rays penetrate the gerbera petals

Once again

Harshly halo-ing the pastel co-ordinates.

The spider plant has been relegated to its suicidal perch

Above the toilet

In front of the venturi e(a)ffected window

That channels from the southern seas.

The towels hang roughly over the other toilet

Encasing it into a cubicle of wet colours

Each fighting for their space of dehumidified air

To humidify.

It was the cubicle, the humidity;

The sanctum I chose to dwell in

After a day of exposing my self

To the sunshine. To the grass.

To the people whom I surround myself with.

But now I felt lost. Heavy. Dejected.

---------------------------

I stay perpetually occupied.

I am not my best friend.

Not now.

I thought, in my wet cubicle, about the loss

That is about to hit

Of the lost friends this summer.

The ones who have died in the last few weeks

Been delegated to enter the road of perdition

Where pain is the least of their burdens.

The setting sun

Over those mountains,

 Over there.

But not the mountain rivers within

That surge upwards at the slightest loss

And drown any reason,

Or pragmatism.

Deluging my spirit into avarice.

And yet it is apathy I hate.

It is the dull flame of desire for life,

I have.

x