what point
an egg tumbled
milk spilled.
what point
a dry lip
a sentence cracked
or a kiss dared
what point?
knuckling down the truth
remembering the trick to drowning
the weeping of saints
He spoke like heaven opening; the parting of his lips split her like ripened sugarcane.
“These aren’t words,” she thought, “They are mirrors. And his mouth is filled with them.”
You could pull shadows from his eyes, one after another, and watch his gaze go from black to gray, and he would never blink.
But sometimes he would smile. A small, almost-sad smile.
She collected him, if only to see what was hidden on the other side of it.
the other castle
I know not all the stories end
the way that fairy tales are spinned
but in the story of the heart
there you played the prince’s part
silhouette by lightning bright
the distance between two points.
is a fiddler’s tightrope, a poet’s game.
it is too far to jump (without closing your eyes)
if you fall, you won’t fall
there are too many ties.
it is too far to skip
and too far to walk,
but if you have heart, you can listen
and dance across.
string of pearls
diamonds in the river
stardust on my hands
You.
I’m making this an invitation.
This desk? It’s a place of work. A place where writing is done.
It is a place of worship.
Sometimes the desk is covered in papers, books, letters. And sometimes the papers, books and letters are covered by you.
Don’t be shy; you belong there, amongst the words.
Of course, you will you need to be a book without a cover. Necessity demands you lay between the pages naked; how else will my pen discover the metaphors you’ve so cleverly hidden for me to find?
I will turn you so, that the lines of your body follow the lines of my prose. And if I stop for a snack, a small sampling of the better sex, it is only in service of my writing. You will be a-muse-ing, a breathing sculpture (don’t worry, I won’t call you Pygmalion; I have better names for you).
silly kit
hurry, kitten
down the slope
but slip and fall
without a rope
you’ll tumble free
into a lake
and wet you’ll be
for heaven’s sake
a study
Relinquished, reminded and revered.
cold blood
Today, it rains. But all I can think of is a wolf in the snow.
my best friend’s are imaginary
I give names that fit you the best.
Spring! for the Tigger (for so little rest)
Pooh for snacks, both honey and sweet
Eeyore’s the friend too grumpy to meet.
Some days you’re the Owl! Scattered, rambling and wise.
or Kanga, so patient when the best of us cries.
when shy, you are Piglet, ironically bold
for when the world needs a hand, it’s his hand to hold.
the tiniest fairy
Once I captured the tiniest fairy.
That’s not to say she was small. Kittens are small. Flowers are small.
She? She was tiny.
I caught her in a tiny bottle with a tiny cork and a thin black rope so that I could wear it around my neck.
She never spoke, but the beating of her wings made a humming vibration that I knew so well it became a second heartbeat.
I could never tell if she was happy or angry or sad, but I like to think she was as content as I.
I never took her from around my neck except at night where I feared breaking the tiny bottle in my sleep. Before resting, I would set her on the small table by the bed and in the morning I would slip the thin black rope around my neck once more.
Until the morning when I awoke and she was gone. The tiny bottle was there with its tiny cork in place. But it was empty. I searched under the bed. In the cupboards. And because I was clever, and knew she was tiny, I would close my eyes and listened for the sound of her tiny wings beating.
But I could not find her.
And for weeks after, each morning I would reach for the bottle in habit only to find it empty anew.
Until the one morning I stopped reaching for her. In time I forgot the soft glow of her, the warmth of her against my chest, the ritual of the day.
But sometimes…sometimes I close my eyes. And feel her flutter behind my heart.