Tuesday 15 November 2011

Ugly


What is age when your skin is a pearl
Unlike mine, love,
Stretched out
As a dry riverbed
Ghost flake puzzles.
Yet your mouth quivers like an arrow
Stretched upon a bow
Reaching out to catch me.
Your tongue lashing,
Like a bird in a cage
Violence, pain and love
In the tunnel of your eyes.

What good are my arms, my feet, my legs
Forever inching closer
Nudging your ribs
Colliding like ungentle waves
Like the only place I know.

What good is my hair
Thinning out, tied
In knots by the wind
A tangle of tension threads.

What good are my words
When they only pierce the past
Thin as paper with bullet holes
And the future dissolves
In promises of tomorrow.

And as age shines on you
Like a dawning sun
Dry leaf, I should know
I’m unworthy of a green stem.

Page


There are no tears or songs,
Shades of blue and violet from the sky
Locks of your dark hair caught in the sun,
The emptiness of smoke escaping your lips,
Filling the void in between
But words that make this poem.
Words and distance.
Words and promises.
Words and silence.
When i rise no more,
From your eye or your storm.
From a dusty cupboard.
From a torn page.