ink

_________________


This talking is heady
and I am drunk
As a page
on the ink of poetry

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I write of nothing
She said, nothing.
I have to delve
deep into this void
to capture the words
to voice my absence
echoes speak of those
that are not there

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Shrill interruption of a fleeting thought.
Jarring shock disrupting 4pm on a Sunday.
Slap of cold water on warm sleepiness.
Heartbreak in the midst of springtime.

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words

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like errant butterflies
wafting on an idle breeze
words
with their fragile wings
try so hard
yet don’t get far

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pulling a poem
like a magician does
a coin from behind one’s ear
I tug at mine wondering
whether it was really
in my head
all along

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I like the crevices
between words
You can fit so much
of me in them

________________


This is a nod to secularity
that never wins
This other a simple bruise
from those without words
And this a toast to the idealism
of dead symbolists
All marked black
only to fade

unopened rooms

Walking into a room that hasn’t been opened in so long, you move slowly as if to avoid disturbing the thick curtains of past memories. You are so aware that every breath is creating craters in the fabric of the gloom that you almost stop breathing at all. The stillness is palpable and the experience seems surreal. As your fingers graze a tabletop it feels like you have lain your hand on soft skin. The smell of yellowing pages and the remnants of leathery bindings are uppermost in the bouquet of gentle decay here, but it beckons to you, like a comforting blanket from a childhood long forgotten. You cast your eyes over the inhabitants, the heavy vases, peeling wallpaper and the shelves of the bookcases, all covered by the protective, unbiased coat of time. You want to become a part of this place, to find your niche and fade into this composition, barely breathing.

wings

She was as a child when they gave her to me. In a plastic jar that seemed out of place without a medical centre around it. I placed her on my window ledge, where I could see her in the fading light of the afternoons as I worked.
I forgot her there.
I left.
She must have pushed herself out gently at first. She must not have understood why the world was such an enclosed place. Her wings would have begun to grow and she must have felt the inherent need to unfurl them. I wonder if she knew that they were meant to float on gentle breezes. There was no place for her wings in this forgotten world I left her in. They must have crumpled, not knowing what to do with themselves.
Perhaps she felt tortured; felt that no one understood how she felt inside. Felt there was no place for her. I wonder if she knew of her own potential. I wonder if she knew that she was stifled through no fault of her own. I wonder if she knew that she was a biology project that I failed to turn in.

ink stains

Have you forgotten
how ink stains
your fingertips
brushing softly
across the starched white
paper leaving tracks
of thoughts
passing through
as you stroke
your forehead
unmindful?

tea with honey

I like watching you make tea in the mornings. The gentle tinkling of cups and kettle give way to a luscious pouring that reaches my ears with a comforting fullness even before the aroma wafts through to me; my eyes still only half-open, just taking in the sight of you, pouring your cup of tea. I won’t feign to be awake for a while yet, call it ritual if you will. I will lie still, listening to you. The sound of your clothing as you move across the kitchenette, a gently rustle accompanied by the sound of bedroom slippers on old tiles, a familiar and much loved old melody that will never wear away. The honeyed sun is brimming over the window, and as it rises it will burst out of that restraint and pour slowly, languidly, richly into the apartment, lighting up at first your feet and then moving up slowly until, to my sleep-dimmed eyes, you will appear like an angel for a fleeting moment. I will close my eyes then, and hold that image in my mind’s eye, savoring the sense of completion you bring into my life, even before my day has dawned.

old pipes

The tap squeaks to life with an irked protest and there is a bubbling in the old pipes before water gushes out of the showerhead. It doesn’t cascade down in a smooth spray, but makes up its own way, spurting in different directions, heavily in parts and barely trickling in others. It’s a game we play, the shower and I; I try and calculate where I can get the most out of it, and it tries to distract me by spraying a stray shot in my eyes when I least expect it.

experience

Experience seems so stale now. It gets increasingly difficult to recapture that sense of delight and wonder with life. I could do this once, but everything was so new then, the changes had that curious mixture of vibrancy and calm that is so autumnal, that inspiration arising from the cheerfully destructive crackle of leaves underfoot and the fascinating nature of a single, singular leaf midway between deciding on the calm green or the fiery red in its wardrobe.
The days then held me close, offering rain and shine, both with such an open generosity, begging me to sample what it held forth to me. And I, I too looked back in suitable wonder, eyes reflecting the spirit of the day, charmed by my solitude that had drawn it out and urged it to reach out and touch me.

leaves

I have great admiration for those who write letters. Pour little pieces of the heart out into inkwells and scratch the defiant emptiness of paper ships. Scratch at them until there’s enough feeling and meaning to propel their missive over time and space into the hands of another. I have great admiration for those who think nothing of how their thoughts and emotions take on indelible, decisive meanings. Take form and shape and leave them never to return. How do they do it - give birth to something so tangible, at once fragile and yet undeniable, irrevocable, and then set it free into a world full of misinterpretation?