Derangement

May 5, 2020May 6, 2020 / wordsforghosts / 1 Comment

I’ve felt the soft surface of temporal fabric,
watched the world begin to fold
small then
smaller &
smaller…

seen
organic origami elide
into water,
rearing over what remained of
what was no longer me.

After
electrical screams;

nameless incandescence
& sound waves of colour,

cold feathers began folding down,
                                down,
                                    down.
Inside
nothing remained but space & light,
a deep divide
between body & mind,
                    a
quick flicker of panic
as all thought plunged into ice…

then it didn’t matter whether
I lived or died,
what I
try to write
or if I
write
nothing
at all.

Persevere

May 5, 2020March 29, 2021 / wordsforghosts / 1 Comment

“…poetry makes nothing happen: it survives” -W.H. Auden

For J

The wish to kiss your eyelids &
lift
that heavy weight of images
living beneath,
forever haunting you.

You’re no Princess & I’m
no Knight:

I cannot rescue you &
you can’t rescue me.

Yet,

I still so madly want to believe
“I am with you / and know how it is”*.

I know nothing of your suffering,
only
that yours leaves scars & so do mine.

I’ve nothing left to write about, except
the dream
that will not leave me:

a Guillotine quick & clean,
the blade
glistening
in the most golden
morning light we’ve ever seen in our lives,
leaving only beauty behind,
even
the beauty of suffering.

Until all that remains are the memories
that help you to

perservere.

On peut pas vivre d’amour et d’eau fraiche

April 23, 2020July 10, 2021 / wordsforghosts / 2 Comments

For S

The weight of the rain cripples the name
of a person in a place
you swore never to forget or let
the silence
& the songs & the long moments
of hands twisting time with bodies
entwined in nights we wish would never die,
disappear:

but all things move toward their end,

& yet time hasn’t taken us completely,
so there’s no need
to forget

even as we
let go of what once was.

Some nights we cannot see the moon,
but during others its
dignified light
repeats the silver nights
precluding those golden mornings we spent
bathing, deluded
& content.

In the sunlight

April 21, 2020September 3, 2021 / wordsforghosts / Leave a comment

& then when
I awoke
the morning light made me choke as
I remembered
how the gentle susurration blended
with the birdsong & the light began to
curve like the branches above us
to touch,
briefly,
skin within which poison blends with pollen
& flowers blossom before I pluck them
to place in your hair where
they will wither & die.

The past still lingers in the present,
& refuses to leave with the grace
of living things.

This is what regret means:
never to forget someone
or something;
knowing of all the lives that could have been;

to touch,
briefly,
your skin

for the last time.

Suppose

April 21, 2020April 24, 2020 / wordsforghosts / Leave a comment

Surprise surprise,
what’s the price?

Suppose you lied, suppose
the scars bring you pride
because they display your fight against life

since there’s no shadow without light,
no death without life,
you fought life & death &
you survived.

Suppose, suppose you
posed like

the question came as a surprise – why
not try to act like you don’t know
what made you
strip naked & run screaming
into the abandoned building
licking flakes of old paint from walls bleeding cold
skin:
    petals on the floor lost to rot
            decaying fray-
                              ing & ignored, what
does the paint taste like, why
did you decide to stop when
the dirt-black sky
ran to hide from the bleeding sun that never dies?

Suppose,
suppose you only wanted to try & fall

suppose that you never meant it at all.