You open another beer,
dip your brush
in Paynes Grey,
swirling mirror trees
across rag paper,
searching watery elixirs
to heal a broken heart.
A painted forest
lies behind your eyes,
your thoughts cavort
glades of slanted sunlight,
where once you
gazed into her eyes,
saw love’s enchantment
looking back at you.
One day a sad epiphany,
she loved the trinkets,
not your company,
the love you imagined in her eyes
was counterfeit,
another beer and
you mix green pigments
on a tile.
Well worn path
split melon halves
a snail’s silver gleams
_________
Sunny afternoon
slanted rays winking
traffic hums
_________
Silver patterned clouds
float on charcoal velvet
light shines through the holes
_________
Door mat dreams
flying carpet
in the draught
_________
Street lights
tickle the moon
splashing in puddles
________
Words escape
moon doesn’t blink
in silence
________
Watching thoughts flow
across the surface of the moon
my feet are cold
This poem was inspired by a conversation I was having with Jacquie aka @fumanchucat on Twitter about bookshops and coffee houses – this one is for you dear friend.
I remember
lane ways with
plain red brick walls,
green glass grids
mounted in footpaths
letting light
into basements.
I remember a cafe,
Chat Noir,
plump brocade chairs,
tables with well turned legs,
potted palms delicately
screening each table,
our eyes meeting
across a bouquet of roses,
as a debonair waiter
brought coffee and cream
and two slices
of Black Forest cake.
I remember
days I could walk
through city streets
without being caught
on CCTV.
I steal a moment,
stretch my imaginary wings,
in the corner of the yard,
the old woodshed is damp
from a day’s drizzle,
the sunset looks pale tonight
against the street lights,
bedraggled birds sit
silent in the cypress tree,
yet I am warm in the glow
of your longtime tender gaze.
A sharp drill breaks the hush,
Jack looks out his window,
the dawn looks liverish,
another slate autumn day.
He has funds to burn,
ten thousand, he recollects
a bargain made,
uneasy cliches flood his mind,
he hums an old tune absently,
dancing with the devil
the ferryman will demand his due.
He thought he had no rivals
yet the contract thinks otherwise,
a high pitched pain
seizes his right temple,
flourescent stars and zigzags
flicker in the horizon
of his vision, the voices on the radio
speak through socks.
With clammy hands,
icy sweat running down his back,
he wrestles with a childproof cap,
cursing sex and mothers,
finally it clicks, he swallows
three caps of codeine
washed down with thick black coffee
to placate the monster
thrashing his brain.
Is it time to move again?
He flips a coins, heads;
eyes shut he stabs a pin into a globe,
he books a flight to Hanoi,
and a bus for Halong Bay.
A British Blue cross cat
with Russian jade green eyes
fiddles with loose change,
looking up periodically at Ollie
who swirls malted whiskey
in a crystal glass.
Ollie’s mobile rings,
the melancholy bars
of Moonlight Sonata,
he answers gruffly,
another murder,
this time a woman
strangled with a silk tie
on a train, forensics already there.
He drains his glass, pulls on
his battered Burberry,
pads down the apartment stairs,
two flights on rubber soles
avoiding the boards that squeal.
He drives along the sulphur highway,
mizzle turns to driving rain,
wipers slap in time to Bach.
His left eyebrow twitches,
he replays the scene
sifting details,
the John Doe prone in the lane
leaking blood,
the woman with the sex toy lips
watching on,
curtains billowing
through an open window
and the shadow stretching
from behind the corner…
He shrugs to himself,
no rational connection between
a gunshot and a strangulation,
yet his eyebrow itches
and his cat was flipping coins.
Ollie sees the train, pulls up
under an old oak. The scene
resembles a supermarket car park
sans the trolleys.
He gets his notebook out
and crosses the crime scene tape.
An overgrown lantana hedge
squats in the corner
of a quarter acre block,
chickens scratch for grubs
around its ropey roots,
harlequin bugs
play jungle jim
in its branches.
Over the fence
a woman yells
at crows stealing
clothes pegs,
they fly up cawing
their resentment.
The black rooster clucks
gathering his hens,
scooping up leftover
grains of wheat.
A lizard
feasts on eggs
in the hen house,
planes break sound
in the sky overhead.
For Open Link Night – dVersepoets Week 42
Sveta sits in her apartment
staring absently at a white screen,
filing her chartreuse manicured nails,
playing with possibilities
in arcs.
……………………….
Somewhere a woman
wearing mortician’s makeup
boards a long distance train
with a Prada bag, inside
an unread Christie novel.
The train pulls out,
she watches factories,
back alleys,
green verges choked
with morning glory
give way to open fields.
A swaying motion,
the train slows,
she looks up
from Murder She Wrote.
She looks through
sliding windows
into another train,
a couple kissing,
his hand upon her breast,
a child pulls faces
to scare the Bogey Man,
a man strangles a woman,
she blinks, someone soon
will get ten thousand dollars
deposited in his bank.
In a vast megalopolis
raw shit floats
in open tidal channels,
bordered by houses
built from scraps of cardboard,
corrugated iron
and striped woven plastic;
children play in slimy
courtyards crusted
with Ecoli, untroubled
by the cloying stench
of digested food.
Around the corner,
a researcher stands
in a living room
with a voice recorder
capturing a conversation
about reality TV.
An animated face
talks of many things,
he gathers grist for his
theoretical mill:
consumer culture,
late capitalist pot noodles,
Slum Dog Millionaire,
and what happened
on Big Boss last night,
he laughs, no shit.
Victoria has brought “allegory” to the pub for MeetingTheBar. My entry is late but I still hope you enjoy it – do have a Martini on me.
Box
It sits upon a bookshelf
promising precious gems within
A fine sprinkling of dust
to catch fingerprints
Beeswax and rose oil esters
dance a perfume banquet
Yosegi patterns line
three suns in strips and stars
The puzzle box shimmers
a secret sequence to good luck
A gentle twist, a slide clicks open
under searching fingers
One misplaced move
no option but to retrace
A deeper breath
as fingers walk the maze
Back, forth, fingers
twist and turn to gain the prize
At last the box springs open
no mineral gem inside
simply stillness…
Me on Twitpic
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