Annnd here's where I put the writing :))
My poems used to be super technical and elaborate – until I realised even I didn't wanna go back and read them... So now I'm switching to something briefer, less draining :D enjoy!
(Update: so this ^ was a sheer lie but I still hope you enjoy :D)
Soft sheaves of rain
Fizzling from the sky.
Citrus light behind greywork clouds,
Trees whistling, birds stealing into their
Bundled nests with a lilt.
Supper cooking on the
Maize-anointed stoves. In my mouth
The aftertaste of lychee and wind’s wet
Tailoring tape looping down my sides;
Clinging to the whittled doorframe
A string of drunken bells.
Sour grass perfumes the air –
And the coolly sprinkled flowers –
Let this be my grave.
Streets: kitsch plays: cigarette smog till I see
Those eyes, yours. Learned to love this shoddy life.
Screened glass my bride, the dancing roads our wife,
Then coffinnails. Fool martyr, look at me!
We’d court her, Babylon or Gomer, knee
And hand and mouth all wine-stenched bloody on
The bricks: your mistress now: and steel; cold. Gone
Without your ballpoint, old man. Look at me!
Gone! taken? – heaped atop your friends maybe –
A mound of brilliant corpses toasting to
Their thousand dark loves… Quick: come: look at me
Beneath your green moons, gypsy fires. If you
Can hear the roadside weeds now; hear; hear me!
Defrosting – muck-rolled – if it must be true –
Without coercion
And freely
Wholeheartedly.
I take you to be
My husband. Promise
To be faithful to you – in good times
It’s not so difficult – the shade
Young and cool and unfrightened,
Trussed branches mimicking our locked
Limbs, the fruit still green, sour. Fingers
Rilling through the soft tingle of your
Short warm hair. When did
Dawn's tide take you?
Or: bad times:
There weren’t many for us:
Water doused the mirage; delusions
Dampened; deadened. Swift mercy. Evening
Twisting colours wilful in the sky and
Rooftop wind brushing my face,
Throat. Heart’s death’s dust. Come
Sidle into my lungs.
In sickness I’ll
Gladly exhaust you, loveless
Dearest bride, accomplice, cruel covictim.
Crying by my disinfected bed. Not
Love. We said. Then why? Kneading on my
Wrists: Celexa keloid-pink on the little
White square of a table: saying you
Don’t watchdog me for free.
Hiccuping and eyes red.
Knots in my guts.
And in health – yours
I hope: in time – let my leftover
Wages and worthless ages be the forever
Return of your dowry.
Joints expiring like
A balloon giving air. Till
Death do us part… oh fanciful the
Child’s covenant. Wife, mine –
Love – all the days of my life. Will I
Call your ambulance? Write you into the
Will? Never touch? Swear and you too
Never tell the truth? And in some
Other world take your form – your
Unsquandered liberties – your boys and
Laughs and nights and rustless heart
And you mine?
Drying your eyes:
Yes I do
I do
I do.
Paintwater London: only half
Unmerry: glass nightfog, lit through by
Pearls of quieted backstage rouge,
Rosewine, sherry.
Giuseppina repaints her
Dark arch brows with Angelica’s pen:
Smiling Hesperus will wear them out yet:
Retrying the month-old headband
Bright with Persian jewels
About the oceanic sable of her hair – a
Little too neatly styled, now – a little
Foreign to the gentle stagelight
Sweatbeads that once
Teased out tiny snaking locks
Gold glued to her warmed cheek; –
And softer about the Venus-kissed
Bend of her belly: less taught,
Fonder – mouth sugar-soused from the
Swandown pillows in her carriage that
Safeguard the delightful jars
Of confection snow,
Sweetmeats… and now Angelica
Slips on her Greek sandals; ties the old
Saffron sash on a new tailor’s dress, a
New Artemisia; new Alceste.
Throat like a fine vale spring – voice
Like icewater they said; bright
Black starling eyes, only a few
Crescents younger than Julie’s,
Always upturned, always stirring into
A sparrow’s sweet little maliceless
Laugh… oh Julie’s
Shut herself up alright
In some studio, her own – it gets so
Cold in this season, rainwater London
– Is she still seeing that Gaëtan? Who
Was the English boy over her
Shoulder, when I didn’t stop her last week
In the alley? Does she still have the
Scarves I sent her? Are they old?
Wool not silk – silk’s in fashion
But it gets so cold in this season –
Oh Julie, Julie. Strumming humming
To a guitar, then toss it again.
You’re no opera; you’re only the
Best sweetest sound in all God’s garden,
Among all His soft-footed angelic girls.
Don’t you know? Oh Julie. Scalds
But always streaming,
Air Julie, candlewax Julie. Would’ve
Liked to make little Angelica’s friend
Maybe. Surely never letting me
Put her in a gallery… ah
Tug on my sleeve – smirking – what’s it
Now, naughty Pina? Oh but
I’ve dined already and Mrs Billington
Is very kind indeed but… yes
I’ve heard of your little contest yes
… Of course you would, brilliant
Giuseppina. Rest assured you’ve earned
Your old age’s surety. Oh make
No mistake – I’m old already – Venus
Clings to your arm but her love’s
Sickened of me. Young Copia
Overspilling wheatstalks and
Crystal fruits from her horn,
Passioning Pax, sparrows, stagelights.
But I’ve been made a Demeter,
Traded the woods the nymphs
For Cora… oh nonsense. I only hope
To die in spring; so I won’t leave
Her stuck in a winter.
Forty-one: I’m not
So young anymore. Weary
The sun like a primordial stone-tressed
Sorceress, her hand, white heat.
Oh love
Should we have stayed at home, stayed
You in strange blathering Massachusetts
Behind electric windows, acrophobic,
Tall over carfuls of wild
Wonderful urban fibs?
And radio. Opera
On the radio.
Oh love
Heavy in my arms, filling the
Crooks of my failing skin, crinks dark with
Tan or age a mingled waste – liquid
Now that you’re reserveless, defenseless,
That awful clinical rot: dozen tranquilisers
Making love altogether, burning through
Soft smiling capillaries
From the underside.
Foul beer’s left your teeth
And anger from your face, faultless,
Always faultless. When I had the momentum
To leave. A row of Bp. Elizabeths.
Should I have stayed home?
Shampoo smell surpriseless
In your cold hair; and
The quieting sweet musk of a body,
Old, stories weighing bending overspilling
Like nectar from goldened petals.
Wherever that may be.
Should we? – should you have
Stayed home?
Shifting powder’s gleam
Like stars, soft pliable over the
Milky dips of dough, vellum-veiled,
Limbs breathing in sleep.
Icebound sands of sugar a
Sighing supernova on your sleeves;
Flour tangling cheap homely
A homily under my arms.
The fan whistles over my hand,
My joints; something stings.
You put them in the oven, little coins
Of indulgence. Glancing at me:
Thanks for helping. I mean it. Want
A bite once they’re done?
By God I know, I know it’s sweet.
By God I knew. Rinsing under the tap.
Laughing: don’t tempt me.
I’m on a diet.
Blood of Christ,
Garnet of the globe,
Fire of my limbs,
Scar of my sorrows,
Lover of vinegar and tears,
Kiss of the sick sun,
Soul of my soul:
Inebriate me.
The eels in our pond
Swim faster today, jerkier.
Wild morning mist stifles our
Shack-thatch with cold tinklings.
Pale brown rings inside your teacup,
While the kettle lilts a watery
Armageddon into your porcelain courts:
Rosehip soft-faced galero: absolve
The bend of these fingers
Hardened by a trembling hilt: boy,
Highness, angel. Dip your
Cup – arm – blameless hand
Into the stream.
Some days
Even I am unsure what’s real,
What’s cruel age’s trickery,
Rheum rising like steamed milk
Over the gwyllion-stitched skyline.
The strays today with the foul fangs
Tracked sniffing to your door –
And I stood joints aching all shaking now
Ready with a rod, hot bursting stars in a
Black sky – and did I see them turn
And bow their senseless heads? –
Seafoam grizzle on our
Glasswork heads.
Night comes
Sweet prince. I string up
Our shirts again, tangy soapwater
Fizzling into the wind. There is nobody
To disturb us, bury us, forget us.
See: the doves are scattering
Seeds to the yawning fry; crows
Flitting over the kneeling herds
Will bear our bones
Away.
King of poets,
What is this?
Why do you steal away my words?
You’ve rooted the buds from my garden,
The constellations from my sky;
Given me parallelism to wean the senses,
Parables to lull off euphemism; you
Cauterised the wet wound
Of my pen.
Do you need no hymns? No songs?
Obscene as I am – I’ve traded Venus
And all her sable shrouds
For you, for thorns, seasalt and oars.
With a breadknife you’ve
Hollowed me, king of poets,
Ivory hilt into my rags.
Why?
Yes your womb may still
Bear sons for me: yes and still be
Husband to me. Smoldering soot
Trussed in the bitter bodylike spell of
Wild grapes, spilt down dressfolds. He
Cups my breasts: milkless, unbroken, soft
Shapeless. But yours are dark, firm
Once, when the men lived to embrace them;
Now I; and silver washes your head
Bounteous and they
Melt again.
Lady Love, you have costed me everything.
You’ve blackened my eyes with cinders doused in brine;
You’ve dashed my brains out on homeward concrete;
You’ve sunk my heart with nude barnacle-bitten anchors;
You’ve pierced my tongue sidelong with an arrow of quicksilver;
You’ve wrung my guts dry, dripping in your unaging hands.
Come now, Lady Soul, that is a petty complaint.
I’ve given you Light that guides blind herds by braillike warmth;
I’ve given you Folly that reanimates the sinner and absolves the dead;
I’ve given you Desire that chars you as effigy, then weds you as bride;
I’ve given you Word that seals every wasting pen with berceuse gold;
I’ve given you Bread that bleeds grapevines and births the stars.
Lady Love, you are a robber,
Ravishing as you are – and ravenous.
Oh, Lady Soul; but I say you and I
Have made a fine exchange.
Take me into your lap.
Velvet and steel
By night’s wasting rain already
Delicious, wine-sponged:
Swirl down my waist,
Cut thighs,
Anklebones.
Slicked dark
From my breasts the haedis-horns
Plop abloom, shivering out
Their silvercoin pieds.
Kiss them open.
Wearied tallow-soaked sigh
Soft in the
Seat of your hipbones.
What woman – what queen
Can love you like
This?
The lion looks
From his vine-trussed throne,
House of cedar-trees and cypress,
A bower of fleurs de luce
Knelt at his feet.
Show me your teeth:
Marble or chalk?
Are your claws gilt with age? Or
Is there new-molten silver
Limned beneath the nails?
Lilies and roses
Have loosened their petals,
Strained their anthers
To witness this; and the
Daisies too, the small violets.
What will you be, king, beast?
Whitesand-maned: will you
Startle the dove?
I see you,
Perfect bride, fingers
Pinching a quivering silk-hem
Off the floor.
Pleiades’ nymphs are
Binding your hair with moonflowers.
Bruiseless girl – I watch you:
Eyes with the saltsweet laughter
Of susurrating seas.
A beckon, tenderness;
Deathless; you swivel, dart off.
Are you coming back?
Soft sparrowlike
Ankles have stolen you
Away, away, away.
O sad matrix,
Disappointed flesh-palace.
Weeping a weeklong blood.
Have you not known? –
Straggling shreds and strings,
Mad flailing wailing, a pious
Permafrozen void.
O poor half-babe;
Eyeless to dream,
Mouthless to scream;
Tearing like petals from their bud;
Distending the virgin innards
Of your frightened mother.
Unborn daughter, my love,
Little dove,
Daughter of my daughter.
Blessed be the fruit of thy womb.
And I too, sometimes
By the Moon’s dictates,
Groan my grimetossed griefs for
A grace half-grown. Young
Rust, perfume.
Dust.
Sun
Sweet, fizzling like soda,
Warm full daisybulb
In the Virgin’s silken sky.
O happy
Deceitless child-angel
Of Love; you flutter down, fill
My veins with the
Crackling bubble-stream of
Heat; snatching a comb of folly
You slew back my hair.
Plump luscious light
Brands me with
A pulsating kiss.
Bridegroom.
Come.