so you have no name...i can yet name you; no bother
it is a simple thing to have a hole in your honor
and sideways now is always

and you remember how your scars are like twilight and cinnamon

if you keep the happiness of happiness
it was tonight... and yet
ours is to loom in troubled avatars
and i suspect
the winter in summer’s teeth
to sink at least as deep as goodbye
and hours will be hours
at a time

The streetlight is shaped like a lantern
And its golden light spills out in a clear, spoked pattern of darkness and illumination
Its shadows stretch long
And reach their fingers into your empty windows.
If I stand at its base, I stand at the center of a great perfect wheel of light that sprays in all directions.
I speak to you
Because you speak to me.
I wonder
If you recognize the surgical mask swinging from my arm
Soft and white.
They tell me your walls breathe poison
They tell me
That I shouldn't.
I stand and whisper to you
Who I am
Who I have been.
Perhaps the shade of a girl like me
Peers out your yawning windows
Through the spaces where the glass has been punched out
Past the ragged, yellowed curtains that sag limply from above
Out
From between the leafless ivy that twists its gnarled strands up your crumbling skin and digs into all your weaknesses.
Perhaps if I had shown myself a bit earlier
If my life had begun before it did
Perhaps we would have met in a different way.
It makes me sad that I fear you.
Your stone steps, carpeted with dead leaves, black metal railings leaning drunkenly to either side.
Your unnatural stillness.
But I do not fear to walk your halls
Not like the others.
No,
I do not fear you
I fear to become you.
That still
And that lifeless
Like a tree which has long since died and the core rotted
But the husk remains standing
As if it contains something alive.
Are you lonely?
Are you still afraid?
What does it feel like every night
When this streetlight above me blinks on
And peeks inside your high windows?
Do you rush to shut the drapes
Soggy and transparent as they are
Try to pull some tattered protection over the garish
Harsh emptiness you hold?
I stand here
And I feel you looking back at me
And I am sorry that nothing lives in you
And I am afraid that nothing lives
In me.
And if I were to go upstairs and peer out your top windows
I am afraid I would become see through
Like a strip of film
Illuminated.
I fear that I would be a projection on a solid world
And I fear
That somebody
Would turn out
The light.

He raised the scissors high, I felt them pierce my brain
I shouted out in agony," I came for a short back and sides so man what is your game"
Don't worry son the man replied I'm an expert at my trade
If I'm to truly cut your hair I must expose your brain
And so I surrendered to his skill and the scissors went in deep
Don't worry son the expert said, the incision will be neat
So he slashed and and cut and hewed threw pieces in the bin
I thought that he had finished but still the blades cut in
At last the expert stood aside covered in blood and gore
He said my name is Sweeny Todd as he showed me to the door
As we walked across the room he said that will cost a five pound note
It would have been much cheaper if I'd just cut your throat

~

Choices



Shadows move on sheet rock barriers
framed in time of late
Spaces filled with unknown visions
dance about with feet of clay
Gowns of nightmare carpetbaggers
thunder on the floor
Drippings in a mist of nervous breath
blanket my safe haven
and the sounds scream
in voices of past mishaps
Lost in lonely corridors,
wailing on aching skylights
permitting barely a moon glow psalm
to echo of their meaning
in songs from a distance,
of pleading skeletal desire

“I fear for I have no choice”

Doorways yawn in weary ovations
Slanted photos dot the landscape
Windows prove little relief from the cold
as heat pierces my cavities
Gaping wounds of frail memories
clutch at my last ounce,
measuring the words I am reading
Taking a breath, sweet, stagnant
Clawing for an exit only to find
it has stood before me all along
Baby steps, I have been told
Find that trust, slowly…make sure,
reach out for the hand
offered on a dreamscape message

“I fear for I have no choice?”

Eyes, so tired, weeping pools
out of focus since that day, open
(As if sunflowers float on silken wings
and glorious becomes an understood word)
slowly and tentatively,
blinking sorrow’s pathway free
to lead me to you
The imprint of that butterfly
marks my palm in red lines of love,
mapping my skin with a long awaited
smile, dry lips curve as I take your hand
trusting, for the very first time
realizing the feeling
which hath finally…set me free

“I no longer fear, for I have a choice”

We search once more for the crystal stream
Where poets wrote and young lovers dreamt
Of the beautiful years to come

But no more now is the crystal stream
Where poets wrote and lovers dreamt
Of the beautiful years to   come

The crystal stream now a fetid place
Of sewage and industrial waste
The hedgerows long ripped out and gone
The once green fields now barren ground
What legacy do we leave to our unborn sons
Now that the beautiful years have gone

But we poets still can sit and dream
And write of things that might have been
In our minds we still see the crystal stream
And dream of the beautiful years to come

Do not poke the sleeping beast
that hides behind another's mask
his words not written to inspire
but to wound and belittle.
He crows for attention, 
this loathesome creature,
with boundless ego
and tongue firmly 
rotting in pustuled cheek
he will not be the thief of confidence
he will not be the silencer of hope
for he is the keeper of bitter misery
the captain of a sinking ship
not one will touch his heart
as it sits within it's cavern of disdain.

Shhh..little poet.
Why so angry?
I know you hurt; it comes with
Caring.

Black is a beautiful colour
When used for emphasizing
Contrast.
Alone it is a candle
In a dark room,
Unlit.

Life bites, kicks, pulls your hair
And puts its pointy fingers in your
Eyes laughing.

Other times it is a sleeping lion,
Warm and soft to the touch; too
Full and drowzy with sunlight
To anything but purr.

When Life bares its teeth,
Remember how much a grin
May resemble a growl.

Tell me how it feels to
Scratch the King of the Jungle
Behind its palm-sized ear.

All that glitters
Is gold.

Shhh...little poet.
Why so angry?
There is more to Life
Than life.