Times of Imperfection

Do you remember when we met the
Sea God trapped in silver
by the shore?

We were skipping pebbles in the sea
and he
was everywhere.

"Love," he said, "has been forbidden
in this place since time and tide
came knocking."

He was tall and terrible in chains
so seaweed strong they choked us, he
was oyster blind, his sin was made
of sand.

You took my hand.
We trembled.

He sent me to a room with white-washed walls,
a ruler in my hand, alone.

He said, "When you have traced
ten thousand perfect lines
you may go free."

But it was nicked, my ruler. Each line was chipped
and the creamy stream of paper
spooled forever
out ahead.

Then you said
(in the emptiness of my hopeless head)
"Love, have you never leaped between the lines?"
And so I slipped through imperfection blue
into your arms.

Do you remember?
When I woke, you were breathing
there beside me, and I whispered,
"What a dream,"
but just as always, you
were sleeping.

Star-crossed

.....................

I have a visitor
who does not care that
it is late;
he has come
(as always)
unrepentant
and undeterred
to beat his head
and bruise his breast
against the brick wall
that is my lightbulb.

His wings press
frantic shadows
into my page.

This to a moth
is heaven.

The Hopelessness of the Egg Condition

..................

I haven't posted any rhyming poetry lately, so here's one I finished last night. The rhythm isn't perfect yet, but at least I (finally) have a working draft.

The Hopelessness of the Egg Condition

Old Man Dumpty had a fall
last Wednesday when the lights were out;
they say he climbed his garden wall
and fell pell-mell without a shout.

They say he meant to clear away
the ivy growing thick and fast.
They say he must have slipped and swayed
and landed on the stones and smashed.

No one wonders whether he
was happy on that Wednesday night.
They only tried to patch him up;
they cried and tried with all their might.

To no avail, as well you know,
for Old Man Dumpty died.
The story in the paper showed
of course, his sunny side.

We think of him quite kindly,
as an old, old-fashioned grump,
but no one ever wonders whether
Humpty Dumpty
jumped.

Self Doubt

....................

Here it comes again:
the steel-legged
spider
with the many marbled eyes
that's been biding
its time
in hiding
beneath my bed.

I know where it's headed.
Last time as I lay
with both eyes closed,
it crawled the line of my spine
knuckle by knuckle,
to slip atop my skull
and squeeze.

All this week it has been creeping
closer
as I sleep.
Soon it will hold me captive
again,
twitching its limber limbs
to the tune of my troubles,
watching with wide
vindictive eyes
as I writhe.

I am lying tonight
with two eyes open -
too afraid of myself
to sleep.

Snowshoes

...............
I'm actually posting without being prompted by Jesi. How's that for a miracle? This is a poem I wrote for my online poetry course, two weeks ago, and have only now managed a draft I actually like. It is, of course, far too late for the deadline.
Douglas Adams once said "I love deadlines. I like the wooshing sound they make when they fly by."
Well anyway. I'm not Douglas Adams, am I?

Snowshoes

The snowshoe hare
is one
with his feet
as he races the cloud of his breath
on the crust of the snow.
I, on the other hand,
have never been
one
with mine:
they are cumbersome
wire and wood
(and twine in the place
where I slipped
and they snapped)
and in spring
they are heavy
as heartache.

This year I have left
my feet
alone
in the woodshed
at home -
here I am
in the land of rain.
The island
of seldom-snow.

Rubber boots are light
as laughing,
made for splashing dry
through streams,
not standing firm
on powder.
Some days I forget,
tread mud across the carpet
in confusion,
trace my tracks
backwards
to try
to shake
this feeling
(I am wearing someone else's
feet).

Poison

Jesi is a bully. She makes me post things to my blog even though I'm swamped with work. Guilt, Jesi! Feel lots of guilt!

Poison

The apples are rotting on the tree beside the cottage. She smells them for the first time in November – a sickly-sweet notion that creeps through her nostrils and calls to her as she passes.

She keeps her eyes on the road. There’s homework to do, and she’ll never get it done if she wastes time spying on the neighbours.

In December, she notices that the manholes in the street are shrinking. Not so you’d see unless you paid attention, but she knows they weren’t always like this. Something is afoot, and those apples are smelling better than ever.

She takes the opportunity to eye the clouds. “Looks like snow,” she says aloud.

It’s late January when she steps on the little white-haired man who’s sitting in the middle of the street. He’s wearing a housecoat and is pulling on one of his long ears, anxiously eyeing his watch.

“You’re late,” he says. “The ways are shrinking. Follow me down to Wonderland, oh won’t you, won’t you?”

Alice sidesteps him. “I’m done with that kind of thing,” she says.

After that she pays more mind to her studies, attending to the D’s and C’s that have been following her around like stray animals hungry for attention. Let someone else worry about the manholes and the birds and the bees.

But the apples. She passes them every day, and every day they seem more intriguing. A biology teacher once told her that the edible part of a fruit is the ovary. It’s one of the few things she remembers from biology (she’s failing now)

The branches are empty of leaves, and the rotting ovaries hang swollen and drooping as she passes them by.

The last straw is in February. She is passing the cottage again, and this time a squirrel leaps down from the tree and scurries over to block her path. It is cradling an apple in its forearms, and a square of white paper attached to the stem reads plainly, “eat me”.

Alice kicks the squirrel. It squeals in anguish and flees, leaving the apple to roll innocuously against one of her feet.

When she picks it up, she breaks the surface, and the cold coarse pulp settles between her fingers like unset cement.

It smells like cider.

She sighs. She lifts it to her face, inhales gently, and places her open lips on one of the wounds left by her fingers.

She closes her eyes.

“I never was much good at much else anyhow,” she says as she shrinks into the yawning mouth of the now tiny manhole.

Wonderland awaits, as it always does.

The Making and Breaking of Habits and Hearts

.............

There was too much time -
I had fallen out of the habit
of breathing,
so the clovers on the lawn
were four-leafed
and brought nothing but grief.
Sometimes I wondered
why it was
that the Tin Man
wanted a heart.

Loneliness is a lovely thing -
(at twilight the rain
turned the streets to
silver) but
it is lonely
(late at night
the crickets
chuckled
in the depths
of the hedge) and I
was lonely.

Now I have slipped
from the habit of sleeping
into the broken hours
of your arms.
Nobody told me
time could tick apart
this way
(could take me apart
this way to find
my heart).
I wonder why
I ever thought
I had to breathe.