First & last

“Everybody’s talkin bout it
Only the echoes of their mind                                                                                                           I’m going where the sun keeps shining. Through the pouring rain”                                               Nilsson (from the incredible film, Midnight Cowboy)

 

The ghosts

in blue mountain mist

when early morning

without mask of sleep

hiking the trail

moss, lichen, turning with seasons

from brown to red

snails leave their silver lines

bugs shed wings and legs

all becomes humus and is recycled

air remains still, days elongated

the stone in the field

is in the memories of many

who use it as their gravitation

where they first kissed, sitting atop the world

thinking themselves the only ones

when it is the stone, smooth with wear

coarse with textures varied

who gives them their fantasies

pearlescent when wet, like the moon

nestled in long grass

its reflection held against sky

I hear birds waking

crying to an unforgiving bird god

their beaked woes and delights

and the worm waits for false patter

to rise and be consumed

a ritual, as anything

the dust of ceremony, rising and falling

jewels encrusted in boulders

black earth laying deep and gaping

as open-mouthed children

stare at bewitching cloud formation

and wish to inherit the future

as their parents

dream of retracing

the lowing

of their former lots

…

The ghosts

in blue mountain mist

when early morning

without mask of sleep

I feel your absence like

blunt knife run along my spine

in the fallow chapbook of my heart

quivering her spent arrows

as I strain my neck in search

of ways to forget

the goats and sheep remain

black and white finger paint against

yellowed grass coarse as raw silk

a sharp outline of grief blurs

the edges of what I see

where you have all

gone

your lives full

and mine empty with echo

I think if I can ever reach the feeling

maybe I’ll join you

where it glitters and preens

like a girl catching herself

in shining mirror of

first times

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Turkish delight

I didn’t have time to un-knot my hair or brush it down

it used to hang to my thighs and I had to cut it

when the sickness came and I was green with bile

all those years I held my hair as my calling card

for I had nothing else

so when you see me this way you know

I’m not pretending anything anymore, this is me

this is the girl you once loved

I remember thinking I was old back then

what a laugh

and time is a cordial of horrors and trickery

what we need to know is, it’s all in the eye of the beholder

so if I feel tired and beat up now, remember, I tell myself

in ten years I will rue the day I forgot to dance

I dance now

bare footed with dirty soles

to the memories of

our liquid union

and planes do not fall out of the sky

the day is quiet

despite the tornado in my mind

I would let you in and not let you out

shut inside me like a favorite book

chapter marked by the sinew of my want

clasp you tightly with my muscular need to belong

within your kaleidoscope, a star in your universe

behind these accoutrements and forbids  I burn electric

you never get too old for longing

I want you to take me in your arms

crush me into sugared pieces

eat each one and never spit me out

I want to become you and stay

inside your candied warmth

where amber things are less real

set in time to wait out storm

but you care about them more

as part of your compass, to set your destination

I was born of your desire

I am now without wing

soon I will fade into pieces

and nobody will pick them up to eat

 

 

Moonshine

(inspired by finding an old photograph of a fancy-dress party I attended at University that I hadn’t seen in years)

One of them is me

but which holds the key? Later perhaps we

shall know our fruiting journey through

maze of youth

and slow pull of stocking

for kind of touch best found

in satiny afternoon glow

outside I hear my dim-eyed neighbor

mowing lawns until he aches silver

because his wife has turned away

nobody touches him anymore with

the dreams of yesteryear

so we sprint toward each

invisible finish line

with emptiness in our hearts

filled with busy distraction

nothing lasting, nothing to

endure or sate cold claim

of climbing into bed

unwanted or alone

the feel of darkness, our shroud

from terrible disappointment

and then

then I had it all and didn’t know

standing on the precipice

we laughed at our indomitable

facility to thrive

not yet diseased

not yet rawboned with stretch marks

nipping their silver lines like unwanted lace

or sagging pieces shaking to no

good beat

not yet diminished on shallow waxen wheel

of male adoration

though for me this was never

a piece I wished to carve for myself

it was the love of a woman I craved

like first drink from fountain

on a hot day with no clouds in sight

languorously we exult

in

crocheted certainty, time will stand still

make for ourselves exceptions and grand entrance

the labor of hope so easy and lubricated

then

we’ll never be shaken off

like a dull wet thing

nor left to gather dust

as something once favored

we are surely, gleaming warm heads

of our own personal state

if I could have heard the warning

should I have been able

to listen?

likely not for

day is long and hour far

we take lovers for bread and jam

hate yet a curiosity

our parents live robust

we can yet still, the freedom to

go home

there are structures protecting

the hollow timber of our hearts

from these days what we can we learn?

as growing up and away

truth becomes stretched and gray

friends falling away

the bounty of never-never coming to claim

her inevitable duality

delight in youth, for contrast is cruel

all should have its value

but we are flippant with our boon

and when the cold night comes

we usher ourselves to greater darkness

in the strangeness of change

not able to see what is portent

nor later

the freedom

released from expectation

to unfold our wings

take flight

no more a shining thing

but something effervescent

and filled with

light

casting its thrall

as long ago, diving for pearls

we claimed the moon

Absolution

I don’t know if there’s hope

When friend turns foe

I don’t know

Where in separation

Yoke and embryo

Glistening placenta gouache

The painter may

Render this potential life

Legacy of strife

In verdant whisker

I could have been born

Elsewhere

Or not

Chemistry

Cellular change

Alchemists with tears as

Coat of arms

We consume tangerines

The smell of orange rind

And cloves

Seasonal with moth holes

Moses climbs from his wicker man

Escaping the fire

And disbelieved share

Their bronze debacle

Lend me the mahogany deep of your voice

Bringing me back

From kimono exile

Remember

I have no power

But the truth

Of nude vanquish

Attributed to

Low lamps, proffered incense

Summoning believers

In thin macintosh bones

We are rubric

To gardens

In the rain

Bird baths for those

Needful of absolution

Those sounds made in silence

In the flat hand of glass

Reflects an outside world

Cold Winter sun calls through curtains

patient window pane lover

trees lose last of their leaves

surrendering to unclothed nakedness with the bravery of a wedding night

disiduous remain full, evoking woody balsam and night spore

surviving knife’s turn in weather

holding heat and color in humbled defeat of season

much like humanity

some can bearly stand the ravage

others seem to make a game of it

sustaining themselves on pride of survivorship

not long ago

I was a tree who lost her green

standing frail and nude

cold uneven feet on linoleum

my insides dissected by machines and tubes

the absurdity of being in pain and still

apologising to the technician

for my exposure, those things I had not adequately prepared

for who shaves their legs to ride in an ambulance?

or waxes bikini line in preparation for colonoscopy?

more men in my cavities than my entire sex life

humor in the macabre on the edge of the world

as all is falling around, the condemned laugh

I think of people fucking in hospitals and

it strikes me as the sanest response

take a stranger’s hand, strike your name on the dance card

feel the strong beat of their heart even as

their valium eyes tell you other stories

we escaped just, but we escaped

touch me where I was piecemeal

finger my edges with your need to validate

desire swells when we don’t die of our maladies

to feel once more, the warm assurance of another

weighing us back to earth

80 pounds, 90, 100, we climb through mist

to gain entrance

I sat in the coffee tinged dayroom

the same sun, the same season, a year ago

what a difference a year makes

then I was as light weight as a dry leaf

last fat pealing off me like a hot coat

nurses, seeing my bones, were mothering to me

they did not know how much that meant

because I have honed the art

of never showing my true feelings

I could be smiling as I wept inside

and you would only remark, how bright your eyes

illuminate the darkness, my love, my love, my love

which is why I need to dance

it is the only time, I am myself

aside when sexing the cherry and that I cannot speak of

for I hardly recall, what it feels like to be held

only the sheer joy of remembering touch

a hand reaching through blizzard

the nurse brought me breakfast

sat me in the iron wrought chair

in a soft voice asked me to try to eat

her caring eyes were my feast

it had been so long since anyone saw me

crumbling beneath my layers, sickness

devouring will

the illness brought me out of my exile

heart thundering

where you had placed your sharp arrows

all of you, who used me for target practice

did you think I hadn’t noticed?

I’ve been your punching bag longer than memory

it’s hard not to fight back, but I stand alone either course taken

so I packed my bags and sailed away

just to stop hurting, the ribbons of life lines

each year grief-stricken like those fish you got

in Christmas crackers, good Jews we weren’t

that curled on your outstretched palm

one direction meant fickle love, the other,

who knew? I was always left-handed

wherever you go, there you are

still injured, the pain lingering like unrepentant stain

a dying man sat down, began telling me his life

he said I was beautiful, did I want a date?

both of us in our backless gowns, how absurd

parody of finer times, when you took me in your arms

spun me around, bit my neck, caressing the

pulse

soon enough, early snow fell, sun still shone

I told myself you were waiting for me, when I got out

but you had lost your mind, many years ago

you didn’t mean any of it, those years didn’t exist

they were flakes of water turned to ice

deceptively beautiful

afterward, I drove over the speed limit, windows down

just to remind myself I was alive

but alive for what? To fall and empty myself in therapies chair

to have so much to say and nothing to share?

secrets in their eyes, glittering there

like drops of Winter, another year passing

how our roles change and still hurting

a nurse put her hand on my shoulder

don’t give up, she bent her lips to my cheek

kissed me like my mother did

once, when I was a good child

feeling in my belly, the sickness and defile

of many months lost and found

where are you now? In the woods?

as the sun sets and night falls

ushering creatures from their lairs

I walk beneath the moon and think

of how I am alone, wherever I am

giving up the part of my heart

who always hoped

I feel I have been awake a year

tossing and turning, reaching for

your touch like a thirsting pilgrim

lost in nightshade

you were never

there

only the moon and those sounds

made in silence

as we live and we age and soon

we return to earth

what we take with us

the memories of

wanting you like

flame burns wood

to create brightness

even as they both lived

one must consume other

in this mad

world

Fear – Candice Louisa Daquin — FREE VERSE REVOLUTION

Fear for a child is very different to the adult and exactly the same the child inhabits another decade, in the past, another life before they knew they were who they become the child wets the bed because she misses her mother who is beautiful, ethereal, slender and absent the smell of her still lingers […]

via Fear – Candice Louisa Daquin — FREE VERSE REVOLUTION

I wish I had never existed