Drunkenness and the street lights
spots on the walls
dim lights wavering up the stairs.
Several napkins crumpled
smeared with Chinese port sauce
but that was earlier
along the gutter
sickly yellow-green
ailanthus leaves fallen.
Lovely those people
who make no demands
not friend nor family
after all I never bicycled
through France in my late twenties
so never knew that sweet anticipation
of a life to come.
Would you go out
on a limb for a friend?
Crawl out there among the leaves and branches,
swaying in the breeze
with sunlight dappled leaves
across your physiognomy,
And would you stay there
Long up in the air
As night set in and the stars,
Would you stay there long?
And would you saw the limb
You're sitting on? And fall?
And what would you do
when you got up off the ground?
To begin with,
the road
stretching out
in front of me
does not exist.
Because I say this
you must not
take me seriously.
But it is all the
same, a girl
twisting beneath me
in a red room,
her breasts red
upon red folding
like leaves like
they are only
6.8 And if to die is to move
from the ugliness of this world
then let it be; should I
welcome spring; turn summer down, and fall
from my hands; the serpent's slow unwinding, agate eyes, and blue bushes now
in flower; spice smells undo the lament
of tree leaves on the cement.
But if this cannot be
then let it die with the singing
of one lone bird, at twilight
crook the hand, crawl over, cover us with leaves.
given the brain being an industrious
essay just beginning physically
un-inked and hopeful
and given the skeletal structure
rolling over and away from the heartbeat
galloping off ahead of the heartbeat
gambling and running back to wait for the heartbeat
Jim's I think drinking his heartbeat
always mentioning purple everybody's heartbeat
and given the cool brain riffing
through the smoke to the clear sky-writing
and given this conservative
forming and reforming of the letters
"boys will you burn the leaves?"
This industrious thing
can't be trusted
Wednesday Morning
The cold air piercing my lungs
The copper-coloured leaves,
As kamikaze pilots,
Plummer into the green sea.
The moon,
Why are you out?
You come without warning
To watch over us
Here one minute, gone in another.
The iced autumn winds
Prickling,
Tingling at my bare limbs
Asserting its presence.
The sunlight tickling,
Teasing,
Broken girls,
Housed in a broken body
their pieces scattered, some buried, some floating in the middle of the ocean,
None of them are whole.
But you'll never see a single frown,
Long sleeved shirts cover up the scars,
bracelets hide the bandaids,
fear, a tightly knotted restraint on their lips, as good as any mouth guard,
Smiles on the outside,
bright, tinkling laughs,
hide the pain on the inside...
When school is over, and the last question answered with the last lie,
she walks to her favourite place;
Always secluded,
she sits on the grass, watches the leaves fall, and lets the tears drop too.
There is no specific reason for her tears, but that black hole in her body that she felt grow today
Sometimes mild and sometimes noisy is my mind, like the wind.
And my thoughts, like those rustling leaves, blown away far and near.
on the autumn riddled wound path
to my home, the reddened leaves
crack and falter under my footsteps,
fragile facade of beauty trembling under
my crushing abyss, sinking, fall's composed
magic crumbles under my solemn weight.
ghosts of smells i once loved fill the air.
letting the ashy air grasp my empty hands,
i feel a sincere warmth from within,
radiating, sinking in and becoming one,
unfaltering unlike the ground beneath me,
steady, fortified, safe; an unshakable foundation.
the world is still painted in the same monochrome
as it always has been; the four seasons change
just as how my feelings falter as they pass by.
but all i can have now is the homely scent
the leaves,
tipped in amber,
outlined in soft glow,
dark veins set deep in luminosity,
as if forming a net,
capturing the setting sun.
a single droplet of water collects.
its weight, threatening but merciful,
caught between the boundary
of freedom and entrapment
as it stays suspended in time,
never easing,
never to leave.
if only i had the courage to bring it to my finger
and give it sweet, sweet release.
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.