Tag: poem

balled up

If I lie on my side 
and fold into myself
again, and again, and again
kneading my need 
into the solace between 
my knees and chin 
perhaps, I can bring out
what knaws at me within 
and face the day anew

untold

Have you or have I
rewritten the story?
I recall like yesterday
How I recoiled
How he called you out
How you insisted, then persisted and convinced, yourself
How I went along,
against all my instincts
because I wanted to destroy something that night
Because the one that should have stepped in, hadn’t
Because I should have asked him to
Because he shouldn’t have had to Because I shouldn’t have had to ask
Mostly, because all that came since was born of your love and my spite
Oh, what a story it would make

deliberation

He sighs
big heavy thoughts
of granite importance
Necks crane, seats shuffle
in a ripple of replies
I scribble my mine
in hieroglyphs so cryptic
they barely make sense
Having failed to convince
I slink into subterfuge
fixing anything that will
stand out to be fixed
The heat releases the stink
of years of mulling
rising from the carpet in constellations of dust
like fatal flaws drawn out
to be caught in the slab of light

Out there, hope unfurls
like a leaf in the spring sun
laying itself out for no one
but the sky above

Mired by foresight
I once admired
I am not inspired to raise
my voice above the din
if to be let in only
to give weight and body
to yet another tide
that will recede and reveal
nothing that wasn’t
already cast aside

looking back

Had you looked back
you would have seen

me
waiting for you to turn

back
to see if I were

waiting
for you to turn back

these turns

raking my thoughts
churning all the words
unuttered, cemented

into silence

tuning out

I’m a master of last words
gone unheard
Running faster
towards disaster
than fall leaves under foot
Still, I stop to capture
stillborn laughter bursting
forth from yet another
struck dumb with wonder
at their footing crumbling
and the bridge giving way

I stopper the song
from seeping into my veins
It cannot stirr my senses
to see through the haze
I tune into debates
on the uselessness of faith
And think of time wasted
waiting for change
to come from beyond
and release me from blame

love of the day

Today, I fell in love
with leaves drooping under frost
in raging red despair
And with tree stumps
sitting lost amongst bushes
trimmed back into restaint
While ivy took advantage
to reach greater heights

I fell in love
with the mute garbage bins
sworn to secrecy
And the stark sky overtaken
by a confusing haze
I drank the autumn draught
and spewed some words
on your crackled withered heart
To see if it could spark
enough light for the dark season
But silence boxed away
all rhyme and reason
worth the harvest

shifting

Did you think I would flip
on a dime-store line
after 25 years worth of time
And that in you I’d find
something unexplored
through your imploring eyes?
I’ve seen the tides come in
and sweep my castles aside
and took it in stride astride
the latest crushed hope
the door to freedom would open
my clam shell heart
Like the heat of friction
could fix my mixed-tongue diction
and shape a fiction
in my mind so as to find
solace in you
Let us savour
this year’s flavours
as I fall out of favour
with the changing sky above us
and sand giving way
beneath our feet
hushing our decrees
while we shuffle dreams discreetly
I grow tired of beseeching
for the chance to appease
So I will give in
to my tether and
talk only of the weather
and the unavailing
view from here

Becoming

I am every expectation
ever deferred
Every word not uttered
and song unheard
That last bite
I refused to swallow
And that path
I would not follow
Every act
not staged
Every praise
that rang hollow
Every reference unframed
Every joke rejected
Every image
not captured
And every thought
Uninspected
I am every claim rebuked
every lie stored unused
every shame stashed
and every wish bashed
I am all the waiting
for answers
to questions and calls
I am from every place
I’ve been and all
I would not see
And shaped as much
by what fell away
as of what was left to be

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