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

 

 

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The expulsion of love

Where are you now?

Sitting on your stoop, first light, cats weaving between

coffee in hand, watching sunrise,

what are you thinking?

You are not thinking of me

the door is shut on us and you turned the key

it took only the loss of hope that gentle thing

and I became a stranger

so many days, months, years and still

I know you less

is it that easy? Was it that hard?

The expulsion of love

still live, dying on the floor.

I met you when the coals were

burning hottest, all I wanted was

a reflection of those feelings

you took my hand and guided it

into your clasp and pressed my back

with a deep

push into another world

the world of you

where I have been these many years.

They weren’t just words

though if I strain I can hear

the first you whispered

our curled against other in dark

your fingers creating universes

I felt their beckon

as I had not before

the press of you and the beseech of me

it was as if once inside

you claimed that part and as your possessed

I never struggled to be free

it was what I had always sought

to be needed at that scolding temperature

we barely survived our love

it burned and that heat was

the very raging heart of us.

Now day is long

you are gone in so many ways

absent in your once fine mind

emptied of the gentleness I knew

a stranger to me, a welted memory

it is not death, it is not life

I cannot talk to you, the only one I would

I have no solace in recall

it is like being tortured

there is only time, and they say time

heals all, but that is a lie

perhaps for you, already forgetting

I recall too much and everything

is a red road sign to us always.

The day I stood nude on white balcony

I did not recognize that girl who

had stupidly wanted forever and you

she wanted the innocence of us

how neither had ever fallen before

how you were virgin of touch and I

closed and shut up

together we opened the universe

you, it was only you and

it wasn’t me but for the echo of you

enfolded and besotted as no

future can replicate

there are some times only

once and never again

moments and feelings untested

who meet and create together

that celestial place in time.

I think of you now with a crushing feeling

as if someone has come within me, a trespass

thrown out all the certainty and warmth

leaving me emptied and discarded

surely you know that and pass it by

as your armored heart does not

recognize me anymore

there is nothing more awful

than to fade and diminish in regard

until you are no more than

a throwaway comment.

I walk the streets of my memories

like a widow in her veil

watching myself dry into a statue

of torment and you? You I suppose are free

it was always your selfhood to

change and alter in fickle flick of wrist

the time, the hour, in this case the girl

who stands in her memory palace

trying to rid herself of the feeling

it will only ever contain your shadow

and the footsteps you left

some bloodied, some too deep

to ever expunge that influence or

the sound of your whisper calling me

over time and space to some created place

where I am ever yours and never

free of that promise I made when you asked

me to submit and wed, the marrow to

your existence.

I did not understand how easy it was

to break and smash the very articles of

us

oh my love, oh my love

I never said it before, I never said it afterward

where did you bury my soul? And where

is the key to unlock that prison I inhabit now?

where being alone, I hear at night

the fidget and torture of your touch

over the fading moon an outline of

you and only ever you, it has become

an effigy to something once

consumed me whole and kept me digested

within you darling, to your very core

where I heard your life blood rush and gather

I became then, the child of you

she cries out now to your emptied eyes

turned from me, reduced to ash

as cold and unfeeling, as if never was

the burn and sear of branded emotion

we called us two and now only one

the loneliness is destroying me

inch by inch, I claim further madness

for you were me and I do not know

how to exist without, the belief we were

sewn in harmony with

each other’s binding, become all I know

all of me born, the day you baptized me

with your claiming eyes

deciding it should be me, you take

as your mate in this world.

Now our world has decayed to naught

you will not return, or have a thought

for what you left behind when you

closed that door

and

without sound

left the key to

rust into

red

water

Its shining watch

Then make me a tree

that I may reach through earth

lengthening root

climb up, take form

gather again, that moment shook

from memory never

where moon was twice its natural size

reflected in your angry eyes

sitting in idling car

my sticky throated youth

your still punching vigor

movement then, as taught immemorial

of lovers who are not yet.

…

watchful of your thin wrist

flickering just before touch

warm air, window down

languid stroke of time

painting all these years hence

something you have

absented from, like unpicked fruit

in turning, strange and unfamiliar

I dial that feeling

quite often

not fantasy, no

something real

painted over

turned to shellac, too hard to prize

open again

…

I watch her in time

the girl I was

wondering at her thoughts

as I know them almost

unformed and loose

like her hair, thicker and tumbling than now

the auburn xylophone of her back

I could fall in love with

each of us again

the blush of your pomegranate lips

how your dark eyes soak up light

extinguish it black

no wonder, I say … no wonder

…

yet, would I be here now?

if I had not

beseeched night in stolen lament;

if it is meant …  let her call

fate or you obey, though months had passed

a moment, as electric as fire burns oxygen

like fingers on your neck portend soft doom

female silhouettes of trees sway in night breeze

would they have whispered?

no don’t do it, don’t go, turn back

heavy keys in light fabric, jingle like steps

wide open un-rehearsed land rushing past

silence and folded roosting birds, holding their breath

…

it wasn’t lust

it wasn’t yet love

something other

we were always

in between, time and sense

every song written about

when you leaned, close enough

fusion then, a kind of glory

unspoken of to this day

sealing our fate

like flightless coin

run over many times

shall silver

in tarmac, make

an echo of the very stars

blessing

its

shining

watch

The Nightingale

Only anger

where there should be love

until we let it go

become nothing but empty

as we were before

ever finding

fickle road to emotion

all its vanity and its glory

the good and the not so

and in between, days of roses

turning their thorns into pricks of

passion and belonging

for I surely

have never dwelt in another place so deeply

as that space of you

nothing left after the hurricane

all memory fled and closed

like a cuckoo clock without bird

a hollow tree absent of owl

the indigo night and no

stars

lighting our way back

now, we can only go forward

stumbling blindly

a snowstorm, desert, running out

of reasons to put

one step in front of next

yet as humans we have this penchant

for survival at any cost

it is not always a pretty thing

sometimes our hair is gnarled

our very hide, matted and overgrown

we may never recover

the girl within who

let you in

but still in mornings earliest hour

before most things awake

there is a stillness, a hush

an abundance of hope

in slow shadows and still warm hearth

a wisp of your hair remains

caught in my brush

I will let no-one use it

it stands testimony

proof of breakage

I am not the girl I once was

coming to you with flowers

plaited with fullness of trust

we are both much older now

turning from copper

the green of rivers drowning

those early wants

carrying lightness down stream

leaving us in perpetuate shade

where you tell me to go on

without you

turn your back

becoming stone

on which I pound

my small fists until they

bruise, turn purple like

spring crocus pushing through

late snow

if saying it changed anything

you’d never leave

if love were a superpower

you’d always stay

but birds always migrate

come first cold night

every year they return

changed

still searching for

meaning in the

wetlands of life

I suppose I am

your soundless bird who fell from her

cage

wishing you would

scoop me up, make me

in your image

with the press of your devour

and when you

were absent long enough

the wide sky outside did not

beckon

I became a

nightingale

I inhabit

darkness

like a needle can pierce

velvet and leave

no

discernible

mark

Where you once turned

Without you I am a blank erased space

emptied of misletoe

I am the weed that grows fitfully from concrete

without nourishment I survive

but survival is too great a word for what I do

enduring time like chewing tobacco

to be masticated and spat

black and stinking on unsullied

surface

you are the spark within me

I used to have many years ago

a key I misplaced

perhaps I hung it from a tree I was climbing

and it was simply lost

though I suspect

the key drowned

fell to the bottom of the lake

and was unreachable

glittered as it did from the depths

my own hand claimed

by weeds and gravity

the need to be lost in that

murmuring ache

I saw the key once in a while

sparkling from below and for a few hours, maybe a day

I could pretend briefly like a long drink

I was wearing scarlet tights again and you were

pushing me in the shopping cart

my cheeks red with laughter

the rings on your fingers counting down the days

until we cut our hair and sealed ourselves inside

envelopes to nowhere

you were always better at

pretending there was a point

I did not know how to

make things grow in my garden

with you absent

the moon even

an eclipsing reminder

of those waning moments

before the storm

so still the skies

so hush the trees

like velvet inhabited nature

a majesty of peace

I closed my eyes feeling

the length of your slim arm

a pulse behind our skin

like neon lights left flickering

long after dark

your eyes reflected against

deep pools of water and gathered

tears all emotion spent and real

something sincere in every ushered

appreciation of you

even as I am the only one

still paying attention

for you are staring out of windows

watching migrating birds

cross colorless skies

they are heading away

and you wish

for something to stir

the calm opiate within

your spare and unheated room

feel something

again

turning to stone

slow and grave like visitors to a wake

sometimes it feels like preparation for

our own funeral

yet there is life still

catching and flickering

the smell of sulfur

the sound of laughing

when we knew nothing and we knew one thing

the resound of the other

making music in

all we touched

and you touched me

deeply and with the earnest of

something bound not to last

for a flame is most beautiful

when it is fragile and almost

gives out

lighting darkness and ourselves

just enough

until it is not

and there is cold again

in our cupped hands

beseeching the void

where you once turned

and all the world existed

in the love from your eyes

Want & Ritual

I grew up fetishizing

the nubile antonyms of beauty

Helmut Newton’s exploitation

penis behind camera stroking

sloe-eyed girls with tired mouths

smoking yellow papered Gauloises

nipples grazing peach crinoline

men’s eyes like dry stones, seeking squeezing

I grew up thinking

contortion and bondage was

an art form not

excuse for masochism

as unsupervised child, I’d look through

graphic design manuals

that inexplicably had vulvas and

perky breasts

to illustrate Pantone

it was after all

the seventies

what did I know? Except

women on beaches without tops

giving me francs for not spilling their dirty martini’s

Mon sucre d’orge, sois gentil, va me chercher mes cigarettes

always gentleman watching

the rise and fall of female throats

nicotine mouths, stained vermillion

long tan legs swept beneath chiffon

men taking them to hotel rooms

children

smoking the leftovers whilst adults

fucked behind closed doors

wondering

when I grow up

how can I lie beneath

a girl whose sweat glistens

like marzipan

and if she should

sip on me I think I’d scream

all my silver bracelets falling off

like metal flowers on hotel carpet

after all

life is a film

where we tie ourselves up

with want and ritual

December

The bells of the church rung

He said it’s why he didn’t turn back

That and blossom in the thimbling trees so early

He believed in signs and symbols, so did I

Before I was grown and knew the torn things inside

He was the boy who learned on me

I gave what I could, but kept two things to myself

My secret was, I wanted a child

My sin was, letting him take you back

Standing fighting at the top of his marble stairwell

Smelling of his mother’s perfume and congealed cough sweets

I saw myself falling, pinwheel, before he cast me down

The imprint of his reedy hands, a daisy chain around pale throat

His child in my swelling belly, with eyes the color of regret

He said it was an accident, I felt his hate as I lost my balance

Jabbing me in the back with whisper and sharp intention

Get it out, get it out, get it out

He didn’t know the truth of us, my child and I

She wore silver bells around her neck

And in his mother’s sea blue bathroom of mirrors

I stood watching the rapture of your being, take me over

And in the night, your father tried to tear you gone

With his thrusts into me like a spear and a blunt knife

Still my child you held on

Staring through my eyes at me when we were alone

I could hear everyone’s comments before they spoke

If you have that man’s baby, you’ll be shunned

And alone was really alone. Still I thought

I am not a warrior, but I would fight for you, daughter

Quickening in me like a secret slipstream of language

I felt our connection, you were more than blood and sinew

I watched my burgeoning figure, as I removed my clothes

Thin and narrow, except where you were taking form

Stepping into the bathwater, I felt something cry and give way

And the bath became blood

Hot water on, with the door closed and locked

Your father saw water running on the tiles in the hall

All pink and gorgeous

He broke the door down and saw me sleeping in gore

All pink and gorgeous

In the hospital they whispered words of relief

She’s so young, so petite, it was a mercy and a blessing

Any more blood and she wouldn’t have made it

They didn’t see your father’s fingerprints or where

He cut you out with the slow deliberation of an absent butcher

The whoosh and hiss of hospital machinery

The soft whisper of pretty nurses shoes sliding on lino

Your father watching over me, the violence still marked on his face

When we got home, the taxi driver said; take care you goofy kids

Your father dosed me with pain killers and turned his raging back

I saw the emploring milk leaching from my breasts for you to drink

And it was red

I felt the sting of your vanishing scraped dead from myself

My stomach still swelled with your ghostly outline

Your father moved in his wrath lain sleep and mounted me

I said; I’m hurt, it’s too soon, oh God!
But God refuses sinners and pearls

You were gone so you could not speak too

And your father dove into places raw, stitched and mourning

With his eyes closed he imagined nothing and saw nothing

With his fists closed he rose above me in darkness like a wraith

Not touching the spilt evidence of you

Not realizing he was slick with blood and tears bound in a girl

Till morning when he washed you off and with it, me

As I lay in the stained bed with my nightdress hitched around my wrung neck

Feeling the milk in my breasts, the wetness of your ever spending

Feeling the tether from you to me and back again neverending

Your father went on to conquer worlds with a rod

A rich man with the same long fingernails and sharp soul

He calls me once in a while

Tells me I’m still beautiful

And if I saw him, he would bring harm

So I keep us safe and I see no one

As we sit on the balcony and I imagine

You’d be tall and you’d be beautiful like climbing honeysuckle

Because you are my daughter

We raise our glasses to your December birthday and 27 years

And your father he cannot attend our moments together

He may hurt us again, he may seek to take you away

He stays in his apartment in the city and grows richer

On weekends he chooses whores that look like I did

When I was just a young girl

With hair down to my bottom and no breasts to speak of

He had me before I ever menstrated so we thought

You could not exist

It was true, you did not

Home from the hospital with a pad of loss between my legs

But that was a fall I can still feel in my displaced bones

Seeing the future with each tumble, seeing his fists open and close

Alone now and you have been dead 28 years almost

And I light a candle

For what I was not meant to have

Though I would have loved you so

And I do

You speak to me when I sit by myself and the night is quiet

You tell me not to be lonely though it is impossible

I smile at you because that’s what mothers do

Spare their children

Any pain