Patterns of Drops

My head has muddled itself
into six different
categories/ cities/ regional authorities.

I have a willy where a penis
used to be.

I wander through rooms
like a vague spectre
and wish I could become
a depraved addict
or alcoholic
but alcohol makes me sick and drugs
are so bad for you.

I'll drink too much coffee today
and eat chocolate, then complain
I can't sleep.

I have thought of suicide but then
who would comfort my baby
when he cries in the night,

and who would open my purse
when my son needs to borrow $20?

I am taking in air
like a lost and hungry child,
feeding it to myself
one inhalation at a time.

This has slowed me down
till I have only the present moment
in an oxygen bowl.

I breathe innnnn ... ouuuut ...
to relax/ clarify/ focus
till I am jelly/ a pinpoint/ a camera lens,
to still the cacophony/ my mother's voice/
prove that I am not afraid of silence.
Days pass like moving pictures.
of water
separated into single drops
flowing in patterns.

I am a test pattern/
constantly tested/ contested terrain.



My Body Politic

A political body
conservative and liberal
with marginal seating, I have to say
proportional representation
hasn't worked well for me.

I am a village on the margins
surfing the rim,
a musty head dictating on a whim,
course changes plotted
by majority vote.

I count my money,
re-working my finances,
and still I have more than I had
when I was married
and no one to tell me
my dress size is too big/ out of style/ the wrong colour
or shows off the chubby arms
I hadn't noticed.
But then -
no one to tell me.

Now I am an independent candidate
starring in my own cabaret.
I mix my metaphors with enviable ease,
dancing around the dinner tables
my tights twinkle,
feature dazzling footwork as I
twirl/ trip/ teeter/ pirouette.
My head, not keeping up,
trails behind my feet,
preoccupied with trails
of disconnected droplets
collected in a self-sufficient miasma.

My political body entertains a need for plasma
and reconstitution.
If only babies would stop crying in the night.

Triplicate

As for the third,
try not to anticipate
which face of fortune's cube
will tumble next.

Spectres of memory flicker
from windows and mirrors as you pass,
slide over chrome bumpers and door handles.
Glimpses of what was, or what may be.

Kiss the hem of her gown
and future will glide into fresh
and reassuring patterns.

Something to awaken the moon,
fragmented shells of half-formed wishes
moulded from an orb where all your past
coalesces into the birth of now.

Haven

i
The road to haven is paved
with brand new second-hand sheets.

When we get there the magpies
will sing from the pines
in the cemetery behind the house,

and spirits will rest
beneath sunburned grass.


ii
The second life has cracked open.
Seeds puff out their feathery parachutes
and lift to the wind’s breath.

Not so much Genesis,
more a resurrection.

Propagation of dreams that have lain fallow
waiting for their season.

Mermaid Colours

There you stand,
hearts dingle dangling
from your sleeves,

and I, embodying elements of a woman:
lips thinned with time, breasts
like waterlilies, afloat
on the silver ponds of night -
blue, green, and grey my colours -
I sluice mermaid scales
beneath the flick of tail and fin,

evasive of those ruby badges
with their hook mouths.
I have depended from them before.

This is an older poem, but I love it

I guess it's probably not that cool to say you love your own poem? Oh well ...

the rise and fall


my zippers fall like angels, like stars

my hand folds into yours
silk in a pleat

falls into yours like light
into the mouth of a tunnel

my shoulder rises against your lips
a dove winging home

a white veil lifted
for a kiss

I lift my mouth for your kiss
lift my hopes one last time

like a dying man's wish


©burningmoon

Solitaire

You think of me as a cluster;
no unique flavour or scent, rather
a bouquet of random limbs,
an indiscriminate gathering of lips.

I will not be a grain upon a beach
of grains, however bright the glitter.
I will not be another star of white
upon frozen fields.

I would rather remain the moon,
singular, no matter how distant.