poem: zing

My mouth tastes like cigarettes
So does yours, and it’s great;
Your moustache tickles my face,
And when you ask if I’m your girl
I blush, cos it tickles my feelings.
I like the way your fingers move
Against my belly when you’re in
A playful mood, and I like
That wicked look in your eyes –
The one that turns my legs to jelly,
The one that says:
Come here,
I wanna do bad things with you…

I know every expression you own
Studied them like textbooks
Hoping they would lead
Like roadmaps to your soul.
I know some of your nuance
Your light and your shade
But it still doesn’t bring me
Any closer.

You say, we’re friends and lovers
But I don’t know if you’re my friend
You’re more like the Joker
And I’m Harley Quinn
We met each other at opposite ends
Of the spectrum…
I was looking for love
I was ready to fall again
And you –
You were looking for a distraction
A port to sink your anchor in.

I knew from the start
Your heart was not a prize easily won,
And if I messed up, fell in love,
The chances were slim to none
Of you reciprocating.
You’ve got your guards up,
And your walls, the only
Parts open still raw,
And still belong to the one
Responsible for your breaking.

But…

My Netflix queue is full of shows
We watch under blankets
Tangled together,
You give me whole-body laughs
When we’re in the kitchen making dinner.
You call me baby and beautiful
And ask how my day’s been;
The line between friend
And lover get blurred
And we refuse to admit it.

And when you sleep in my bed –
Not once, or twice, but
Three nights this week –
I can’t help but wonder
Where this is leading.
I’m fine with the slow train
If we eventually get there
I just can’t afford to invest in a lie…
Not again, not this time.

But my selfish heart makes me wait,
Unable to decide
If I should ask you to go…
Watching this bubble of heartbreak grow
Ready to burst at any moment.
And there’s a masochist in me
That lives for tortured romance
I’m not even sure I’d be able to love
Without tragedy…

I want to let you stay
Let you touch and tease
Let you play those games
You don’t even know you’re playing;
It’s not entirely your fault
That loving you
Is like licking a battery.

poem: trying not to fall in love (and failing)

Trying not to fall in love with you
Is like having a pineapple allergy
And drinking pina coladas anyway;
Because the absence of
Your smell on my skin
And your taste on my tongue
Hurts so much more.
Pretending you love me back
Is a dangerous game
I know I shouldn’t play – but I do,
A little more each day,
Even though playing it means
You’ve already won.

I’m trying to stay convinced
That goodbye kisses are not part of the deal,
That your hand isn’t mine to hold.
But how can I resist
Your strong arms wrapped around me tight
Like salvation on a stormy sea…
And in the depths of your
Unfathomable eyes
I can read the fine print of my soul.
One kiss and I am drawn
Like a bee to your honey.
One touch and I surrender
All of my defenses.
I could stay lost forever
In the space between words
With you.

You are my lover and my friend;
The universe has brought you to me
As a gift – and I’m afraid
That if I forget myself,
If the words drop from my lips,
You’ll cease to exist;
This newfound bliss I’m
Warming my toes against
Will disappear and I’ll be left
Craving something I was never
Equipped to claim as my own.

So I commit myself to carpe diem,
Living one sweet moment
To the next, never making plans,
Just taking life as it comes to us.
And this is happiness for me
Just chilling out with you watching tv
Sitting on the front porch talking shit
And watching the world go by.
This is my happy place, but I’m
Trying not to hold on too tight,
And I apologize if I
Step over the line sometimes;
I’m just mesmerized by your
Sexy face, and all that you are.

And if all we have is this,
This is enough for me;
I’m learning to trust again
And how to open up.
I’ll show you everything –
Anything you want to see;
I’ll kiss your mouth and call you friend,
I’ll let you into the deepest places in my head
If you are not afraid, then take my hand
And let’s go on an adventure.

poem: language as an old lover

I miss writing like I’d miss an old lover
Dumped, by the side of the road
I miss language like a country abandoned
But still longed for,
Though the bridges have burned.
Our paths cross, tentative, and awkward:
“How’ve you been… Oh? That’s nice…”
Just a fraction of what is there to be said
The easiest way to exist –
Between the shouts,
And the silence.

I don’t know what you want me to say –
That I gave up,
Because I wasn’t enough for you?
That the beauty of all you could be
Shone a cold light on all of my failings?
You think it’s easier to walk away?
When all that you are is all I ever wanted?
You think I don’t hate myself every day
For not being strong enough
To see it through, to submit to the fire
And come out a diamond?

Remember the party
Where everyone showed up unannounced,
So beautiful in feathers and furs
And there’s me in old jeans,
My hair unbrushed,
Just happy to see you happy.

And how your friends laughed
When I poured them wine
With names I couldn’t pronounce.
The brie tasted like ash in my mouth
As I stood quaking in the middle of the crowd
To recite The Jabberwock.

And you sitting there, toothed a smile
Tinged with sadness because you knew
That was all I could ever offer
And you wanted me to be more
So that we could be more together…
You knew,
And I knew that you knew.

So I packed my words in a velvet-lined trunk,
Put the key in my top drawer with all my other secret things.
I packed language away in a silver box;
I set you free to be all that you could be
In someone else’s arms
On someone else’s lips.
I smile and pretend that it’s all okay,
That I don’t miss you every day
That we were just too different and it’s better
That we keep to our proper stations.

But oh how I miss the exhilaration of a properly turned phrase
The vernacular coitus of prose and rhythm
I come to your shows and watch you owning the stage
And I can feel every line as it lifts off the page and for a second
I remember with burning jealousy
What it feels like to be Icarus,
Soaring above the crowd.

Sometimes I think we could try again,
Sometimes I buy blank notebooks and fresh pens
Thinking it will lure you back into my world.
But the notebooks sit blank,
The dream-thoughts fade in the morning
The stories get lost in the commute and the bustle.

When I am old, I know
You’ll come to my bedside
You’ll take my hand – a roadmap
Of wrinkles upon wrinkles
Yet you will still be young, shining,
Perfect and new.
And I –
I will be unable to hate you,
I will clasp you to my bosom and beg
For just one more story
Of “Once Upon A Time”.

poem: a daily prayer

– My spin on an old classic ;)

Oh Divine Creator
Whose spirit fills the universe
Beautiful and sacred is your name
As it is written above
So shall it be below
Provide for us and sustain us
And forgive us
When we stray from the path of goodness
So that we may learn to show mercy
To those who have wronged us
Give us wisdom
To avoid those who would do harm
And the strength to fight our darker natures
For your domain of purity and light
Which was, is and always will be
World without end –

Amen

poem: gold/dust

A gold ring with a single diamond
Sits on a shelf collecting dust
And I’m trying not to let this affect my trust issues, but to me
Love
Is not something to be taken lightly –
Love
Is something to be treasured, nourished, protected –
Love
Is sometimes enough.

And maybe it wouldn’t have gone so hard on me
If I hadn’t sunk myself so deeply into this,
If I’d learned to recognize the warning signs
And walked away in time
Before my life was you, and you –
You were somebody else.

But you see –
I’ve always been most comfortable
In the company of my own making
It’s not that I’m antisocial – people fascinate me
But I find being around them draining,
Maintaining this smile isn’t as easy
As you might think
Sitting around waiting for gaps in the
Conversation, so I could speak,
And the white noise of my past relationships
Has always drowned out my identity
And swallowed my aloneness.

And then I found – You.
Someone I never got tired of being around
Someone who just got me
With you, I could be quiet.
With you, I could be the truest version of myself.

Until one day, I noticed – you stopped getting me
You didn’t really see me
So I learned to shout.
And then I thought – it’s because
I was SHOUTING
So I learned to -whisper-
I learned to exist
In the hairline fractures
Of our turbulent silence.

I promised to love, cherish and respect
Until death do us part
And my vow
Was the glue that held us together
My vow
Kept me taking you back and forgiving you time and again
For these shitty awful situations you put me in
My vow
Was the glue that held ME together.

Then it ended,
Not with a whimper but a bang
And it was me who pulled the trigger
It was me who stood there
with the smoking gun in my hand
I tried to take it back
and tell you I didn’t mean it
but we both knew that I did –
And the words wouldn’t leave my mouth…

They wouldn’t leave my mouth.

poem: musings under the bodhi tree

I want to write poems that make you go wow…
Pop open your mouths and feel like the world as you know it
has been turned inside out,

And oh how I wish I were ballsy enough –
To spit rhymes on street corners and strut my lyrical stuff
Without censoring myself or holding a grudge
against the sins of the past.

I want to change the picture, flip the scene,
make you think about things
in ways you never dreamt possible –

I want to create a dialogue, an invitation to come and be
Co-conspirators
In a closed loop circuit of ingenuity.

And just as I have thrown myself at the feet
Of prophets like Rumi and Hafiz,
Had my soul spoonfed by Dickinson,
And plunged headlong like a lemming
into the sweet abyss of Hemingway –

I long to possess and impart such wisdom
That people would line up for miles
just to lay their naked, quivering,
thirsty souls in my outstretched hands
Saying – Feed me!
Fill me! Teach me!
Show me -more-…

And then I’ll say – No.

I cannot, because the vision is yours.
You are the key to your own destiny.
The knowledge has always been in you.
You ARE enough for your soul.

And then we’ll walk as equals in paradise,
sharing enlightenment, sharing life;
And I’ll lead you to the cafe where
Buddha and Ghandi sit contemplating their coffees
Where Jesus waits (and occasionally flips) tables
And Freud and Jung are locked in an eternal game of strip-scrabble.

A place where I am you and you are me
And my words are yours and your words resonant in me
And when we finally understand that WE
are the music makers and the dreamers of the dreams –

Then…

Then we can change the world.

poem: a song for the broken

– TW: Depression, Su*cidal Ideation

I am tired of the roller-coaster
Tired of not being able to walk away
I’m tired of self-perpetuating cycles
Tired of this feeling of certainty
That I am stuck here in this place
Until it kills me.
It is not my job to save anyone
When I can’t even save myself
From myself.

I want so much to be seen as worthy of love…
But excuses run dry –
And then there is only the silence.
That speaks more loudly and clearly
Than any excuses ever could.

I diminish until there’s nothing left… I become
The shadow of potential…
As a nihilist I know that nothing matters,
But as an optimist I long for moments –
Moments that sparkle and shine amongst the nothingness.

Also… I am drunk.
But life is better pondered in an inebriated state.
So hats off to Dylan Thomas,
And give my regards to Sylvia Plath
(alath, alath, poor Sylvia Plath,
she put her head in the oven and turned on the gath)
Tomorrow is a brand new day.

poem: epitaph

And so here I am at that time of day
Where I am alone in my head with my thoughts…

Finally free.

Never was there a more fitting epitaph
Let that be written on the certificate of death
When they come to take my empty shell away
Do not say “She died of a broken heart”
That is far too romantic for a melancholic solitary thing like me.
Instead let them only say,

“Finally free.”

poem: hush-a-bye

There’s things I want to tell you, but my throat refuses to put out.
My Southern mama taught me too well, honey chile, how to hush my mouth.

So I bite on the gag, suffocate by the way of inertia
Auto-asphyxiate with every word I say,
To feed your need for minutia
Every lie that I tell to hide the tell-tale gaps between
“Hi” and “how are ya?”

My spirit caged like a beast whose claws and teeth can’t be trusted;
Stuffed into a paper mâché shell and made to behave as instructed.
Mustn’t make waves, or put my rage on display –
It’s not the done thing
To air one’s laundry in public.

And I’m a hypocrite, I know, but I’m sick of trying to live –
As one more cog in the machine, one more chain, one more link!
And oh what ignorant bliss, what sweet release it seems!
To close my eyes to infinite dreams and be pulled under –
I envy Rip Van Winkle his twenty years of slumber.

Cos I’m tired – oh, so tired of this deafening silence!
Of the polite noises we make to avoid any violence.
I want to get in the ring, you and me –
Toe to toe and glove-free,
Bare-knuckle love and expression;
No holding back –
Right-hook jazz!
Uppercut poetry explosion…
Exploring the spectrum of human emotion.

I want you to see me for me,
Like, really notice I’m here,
Bursting out of my bands!
Nearly tipping over my chair!

Instead, we share jokes and links and recipes for pot roast.
I ask how your job’s going and like all your Facebook posts.
We make plans for a catch up we both know won’t happen;
I do miss your face, but you’re under-equipped
For the demons I’m battling.

So I pretend to be busy, and you pretend not to notice;
You like all my profile pics and ask how my job’s going…
And then you ask it – THE question – you ask how I am,
For a second, I almost cave, almost grab at the chance
To spring like a captive from restraint, initiate self destruct!
And run as far as truth can, when its moment has come…

But then…
I trip my own tongue,
My shutters fall into place,
The words dry up in my throat, an aborted disgrace.
And I simply smile and offer up the well-oiled phrase:

“Yeah –
I’m great, thanks.”

poem: silent scream

I wish I could give birth
to this silent scream.

I wish I could erase the words
“I haven’t been feeling well”
From your vocabulary.

I wish you could feel
How my heart drops in my chest
When you say them.

How you can render a glorious day
Into a magnificent lie
With five simple words
And turn memory
Into ashes in my mouth.

I wish I could give birth
to this silent scream.
Wish I could explain why my smile
Is crooked
And why sometimes I feel like
Running away.

With you,
there’s no more good days any more
Just good moments
Snatched from the teeth of the
Demon inside that wants to
Ruin everything.

I wish I could give birth
to this silent scream.

poem: an ocean in my back yard

Today there is an ocean in my back yard.
I sit on the wooden dock of my back porch
And listen to the sound of the waves crashing through the leaves with a deafening whisper.
George the cat sits calmly at my side,
Ear flicked back whenever
A stray leaf escapes and swirls kamikaze towards us on its suicide run towards entropy.
The wind whips my hair around my face
But stirs not a ginger hair on George’s furry back.
If I close my eyes I can almost feel the sand crunchy between my toes,
Instead of these stray weeds growing up wild through the gaps in my steps.
Even the birds caw plaintively over their ruffled feathers,
mimicking their sea-sworn cousins.
The only thing gratefully missing is the salt air stinging my face.
If you hold a conch shell to your ear you will hear the same sounds;
The sound of Mother nature on a journey,
The sound of unbound joy.

Cadence Poetica

poetic, prophetic, copacetic

poems

poem: zing

poem: trying not to fall in love (and failing)

poem: language as an old lover

poem: a daily prayer

poem: gold/dust

poem: musings under the bodhi tree

poem: a song for the broken

poem: epitaph

poem: hush-a-bye

poem: silent scream

poem: an ocean in my back yard