Water Blossoms

I'd like to go there, but I know I should stay away.
Pillows of shimmery grey press through the black
metal grid that keeps them suppressed.

In any single moment they could splash through -
mercurial - exposing the transgressions of a life long past
and now fully regretted, washing over talented beggars
who must plead for sustenance from strangers,
lost in strangeness, like golden carp in a glass jar,
watching orange flowers burn above their heads.

I fear to look over my shoulder because I know
the clouds form shapes behind my back.
Fluctuating symbology that drafts memory into pictures
and projects them, pale wisps, on the green walls of future.

How dreams break from their drawers, all longing
and ambition, make-believe and secrets,
in symbolist disguise. Like Doves made of paper
if they fly too close to the sun they'll catch fire -
symbols of the transient nature of peace.

Events long past reshape and form banners of protest
for battles we will fight again tomorrow. This
is the circular nature of history, of life.

How lips betray - outing the very thing we would keep in.
And once out, how words pht pht pht through the air,
like the circle of a thrown knife - with flawless aim -
at the tenderness of each other.

Swim the monsoon rains. Even the maelstrom is a circle/
sinkhole, where we strive. Water holds the light
just as we who are water hold light.
Glutted with crimson blossoms,
the meanings of secrets mesh
with weedstars in the darker depths.

Summer Poems

The jolly men hold their bellies
and rock and rock, as they laugh

at the women holding their skirts
above saggy knees and elephant ankles.

How they laugh at the idea of tanning
such baggy, blobby legs.

Who'd ever want to look at them?
The women stir, fan hot red faces,

and talk a mirage of romance beneath boardwalks,
sunbrown muscles luring eyes and hands

to places parents forbade. Their talk weaves them
into the silky girls they once were, weaves them

into tapestries of memory.
The jolly men lapse to stillness

as they feel again the sift of sand
shuffled down between the planks across bare backs.

Quote:

I tell myself that I am the sort of person who can open a one woman play in the Westend, so I do. I am the sort of person who has several companies, so I do. I am the sort of person WHO WRITES A BOOK! So I do. It's a process of having faith in the self you don't quite know you are yet....Believing that you will find the strength, the means somehow, and trusting in that, although your legs are like jelly. You can still walk on them and you will find the bones as you walk. Yes that's it. The further I walk, the stronger I become.

Dawn French

Wednesday

OH MY GOD!

How many drawers can you open and shut open and shut open and shut open and shut,

as slammingly loud as you could possibly imagine, in the course of an hour?!

It would seem that once, to open, in order to take everything out, and then one shutting would be enough for each drawer, would it not? But no ... we must open shut open shut open shut, till it seems impossible that the poor chest of drawers could possibly remain intact!

How long will this continue?

At least until tomorrow I suppose, when Ema
will drag her boxes and bags to the door and depart. But in the meantime there is very little possibility of any rest and relaxation to be had.

Wednesday I will have a spare room again,
there will be no more black hair in the sink of my blonde family's bathroom.
Wednesday will be very quiet.