Today's Post

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

I will tell you a secret.

Lined with carefully patterned trees
there is a road
that leads
to the city limits.
It smells of
silence
leaves
and yesterday
and is touched
by a trace of
never-was.

At the end of the road
the edge of the forest begins.
There is a gate
(black with age
slick with mould)
it creaks
but falls quiet
once you are through.
This is a place
I cannot go.
No step has stirred
no sound disturbed
this place
since I fell sleeping.

No brambles here.
Just a path
to follow
a clearing to find
lined with roses
and hiding
a secret.
X marks the spot
where my heart
is buried.

Deep in the quiet ground
it thuds.
Soft in the silent wood
it sleeps.

I do not say to you:
follow the road
and find your way
through the forest.
I do not say:
set out with your spade
and trace the steps
I took.
I do not say:
kiss the princess awake.
Rescue me.
Dig up
my heart.

I only say:
it is there.

Sleepless

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

Again it is
in the AM
and I am wanting
to walk.
Any direction
will do
so long as it is
away.
I don’t know why
this week
is worse than the last.
(words like
afraid
and
alone
come to mind
but I send them packing)
I don’t know why
you are wandering
through my dreams
again
after so long
being silent.
All I know
is my eyelids
are heavy
and closing
of their own accord,
All I know
is I’m tired
but sleep
is too far away
to be found.

...........

There is a whisper
in my room
tonight.
It blew in on
a west wind
caught on my window frame
and climbed inside.
It perches now
on my pillow
smiling smugly
as if
it knows something
I do not.
Perhaps it does.
Certainly the curtains
have hushed
their rustling
for once
and wait
with me.

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

I haven't a clue. please don't ask. I may try to post something else tonight, because I'm not sure I'm happy with this. It is two thirty in the morning, though.

Daffodils

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

It's almost daft
that daffodils
just sitting on
a windowsill
smiling at
their sunny selves
can brighten all
the other shelves.
Yellow's just
a colour too -
no happier
than green or blue -
but still there's somehow
nothing quite
like daffodils
for shedding light.

blarg

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

A poem every day
is in theory
a marvelous plan
but today is dim
and dreary
and despite
my indisputable
innate
something-or-other
sometimes this is hard.
Sometimes alliteration
slips through my fingers
like sand
my similes
are bland
my rhyme
and sense of time
are crimes
against nature.
Sometimes my attempts
at beauty
are enough to set
Shakespeare
spinning in
his grave.
Delete
delete
delete
again
key by key
what should have been
a masterpiece
erased.
Today is not
my day.

On The Impossibility of Quantifying Certain Feelings

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

I miss you most
on Wednesdays
when the sun is getting low
when the sprinkled stars
are twinkling
and it soft begins to snow.
I miss you most
at twilight
when the seconds stutter still
and the sun seeks rest
by sinking west
and hides behind the hill.
I miss you most
at midnight
when the shadows seem too steep,
and the silence sighs
and softly tries
to lure me into sleep.
I miss you most
in dreaming
and in waking
and in breathing
and on Wednesdays
and the weekdays
and the weekends
and the rest.
I miss you most
this moment
and the next one
and the next.

Getting what I never wanted...

I never wanted
to be noticed -
not at all.
Oh no.
In fact
I had it figured
to the finest
of degrees:
I was invisible
until
you interfered.
Let's make this clear:
I never wanted
to be seen
and still
you somehow saw.
You may not ever
understand
how much that fact
astounds me.
You may not ever
understand
(despite
how much you see)
quite how much
this means...

Graham

I can remember
when you ran
to meet me
little-child head
ramming into my stomach
rounded face turned up
with a gap-toothed smile.
Now I am swooped up
and spun in a circle
slightly crushed
set down a little breathless.
I turn my face up
bewildered
to say
that cliche
good grief how you've grown
You make me feel old
but worse
you make me feel wise.

To The Man on the Bus With the Mismatched Shoes

Nosy I obviously am
but I have to wonder why.
Your coat is from Coast Mountain Sports
and it is new
and you are groomed
from head to
ankle
but those shoes...
They are not even
the same colour...
one is meant for business
while the other has been used
for jogging
(it was white but is now
gray
where the other is
brown)
and I don't want to be rude
but I have to ask...

Shades of Gray

This is very obviously not a poem. But I didn't post any poetry last night because I was working on this, and it's not nearly finished, but I was told that I should post what I had, and I ALWAYS do what I'm told, so here it is.
It will eventually develop to the point where it has a plot, but right now it's just a page and a half of creepiness.
If you can't figure out why it's called Shades of Gray, please don't ask me - I'll get all flustered and unable to explain myself.

SHADES OF GRAY

She dreamed about a baby’s foot that night. In her dream it was small and soft, just the right size to nestle in the palm of her hand. It was so new, so smooth, that she could not help raising it up to her face, inhaling that beautiful smell.
Oh, she thought. The skin was firm and ripe and perfect.
She woke up before she could sink her teeth into it.
Woke up to a mouthful of pillow and a stomach full of nothing but guilt.
It had been the plums. She could see the three small pips still sitting on the edge of her plate, and she shut her eyes so as not to see them.
Not my fault, she thought. Can’t be expected to control my dreams.
She should never have eaten the plums. Hadn’t she known when she bought them? Hadn’t she bought them because of what they’d reminded her of?
Nothing wrong with eating fruit.
Except when you close your eyes to eat it, and imagine how it would be if there were bones, not pips…
Gladia opened her eyes in order to stop seeing babies’ feet. She threw off her blanket, slammed her bare feet onto the floor – wincing, because she had forgotten how cold it was – and rose to greet the day. And to throw out those damn plum pips.
The dreams were not exactly a regular occurrence. Not exactly. There was always enough space between them that Gladia had time to recover, and so she had never learned to shrug them off. On the other hand, they happened just often enough that as soon as one had faded from her mind, another replaced it.
This meant that Gladia spent a great deal of her time in a very bad mood.
Dreaming about feet – particularly succulent, juicy, plum-like feet – was not good for her condition. Not at all.
She walked to the basin on the stove and splashed cold water on her face. The fire needed lighting. That was one thing to do. Perhaps fifteen minutes to spend on that. She took a lock of her hair between finger and thumb and pursed her lips. It could probably do with a wash. That might take the rest of the hour.
After an hour, Gladia would be hungry, and everything would suddenly be so much worse.
With a snarl, she opened the stove. There were coals from the night still, so she blew on them, feeding small pieces of wood to the red glow until flames licked them.
When it was a true fire, she reached around, seized the pips – cold and dry against her fingers – and threw them inside and closed the door.
It wasn’t worth it. She was never buying plums again.
Glancing out the window at the remnant of moon that hung in the lightening sky, Gladia sighed. It was that time of the month. What had she expected? Of course temptation would come knocking.
Taking the large iron kettle from its place by the stove, she stepped outside. The night chill hung in the air, making her shiver.
Temptation, she thought bitterly, stepping towards her well, was the annoying neighbor who was always knocking.
She’d confessed as much to the priest once, back when she’d lived in the village. In the little square confessional she’d tearfully recited the minor indiscretions of the week, and he had asked – almost perfunctorily – if that was all.
No, she’d told him, there was something else. Something worse.
Gladia could almost hear that rustle of cloth, even now, as the priest had sat up in interest. She’d been pretty, even then, and the old man was as much a gossip as the housewives, and the thought of a new juicy secret was enough to have him rubbing his hands together in glee.
Whatever he’d expected, though, it wasn’t a confession of tendencies towards cannibalism.
The rope creaked as she hauled the old wooden bucket up over the rim of stones. It was a good well. She’d dug it herself, when she’d first made this her home. The water was clear and cold and sharp from the minerals in the earth.
The priest ought to have been more sympathetic. With all the temptations a sworn-to-be-celibate man must endure, she’d have thought he’d understand. Of course it wasn’t right to eat people. Gladia knew that. It was probably wrong to even want it. But didn’t she resist? Even at the worst of times, in between moons, when the night sky was dark as sin and the dreams came worse than ever, didn’t she resist?
You couldn’t be bad just for wanting bad things.
The priest ought to have been more sympathetic. He ought to have remembered his own temptations, and understood that she wasn’t accountable for her darkest wantings…
Most of the water went into the kettle, although some splashed onto the ground. Gladia raised the smooth rim of the bucket to her lips, swallowed the last few mouthfuls, and began to pick her way back to the cottage.
He ought to have understood.
The stone path was cold under her feet. She wished she’d stopped to find her boots, forced herself to go slowly so as not to trip.
He ought to have understood, but instead he’d rallied the villagers and they’d torched her mother’s house. Then they’d dragged her, their hands smelling of soot and sweat, into the village square to stone her to death.
To try.
So Gladia knew better now than to expect sympathy from anyone.
She shut the door behind her and plunked the kettle onto the stove. It was warmer already.
Temptation made a pretty poor neighbor, but he was company, and Gladia was awfully lonely sometimes.
It took less time than she’d expected to wash her hair. When she finished she twisted it into a braid and squeezed the water out. Wet it was a different colour, gold instead of ash blonde. Even braided it reached to her waist. Free, it tumbled down to her hips in loose curls waves that swung as she walked.
She would wear the green dress today, with the sword-belt sash that looped her waist and held her herb-gathering knife.
Perhaps it was mostly wanting to banish the remnants of her dream, but Gladia wanted to be beautiful today.
Beautiful and busy. Tonight was a new moon, and the sky would be dark, and her dreams, of course, would be worse than usual. Werewolves and vampires, she’d heard, preferred the full moon, but for witches it was different. Dark skies were best.
Or worst, if you were reformed.

three in the morning blogging...

To be perfectly honest: I do not have a poem. It is three in the morning, and I have been walking in the rain (not nearly as depressing as it sounds...actually it was a really nice night with friends) for the past two hours. However, even if today is today and not yesterday, this is going to be yesterday's update. I will now spend the next five minutes writing what is sure to be a pretty poor attempt at a poem, and then I am going to go to bed.
Also I must remember to take my contacts out.

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

In the age of technology
where cellphones have more functions
than my eleventh grade math text
it is ridiculous that our relationship
did not come with a reset button.
The memory on my mac can be deleted
with the touch of a key
but the touch of your hand
is unforgettable
and that is frankly
unacceptable.
I want to unravel
this person I've become
to uncover
who I was
but how?
I didn't back my soul
on a memory stick
save my personality
on a portable CD.
What I had was fragile
What I have is damaged
and what worries me most
is maybe
I am programed to make the same mistakes
again...

dutifully posting...

Tonight I saw a star twist out of place
streak naked through the near-dark sky
and disappear.
Tongue-tied I watched it land -
would you like my wish?
I will track it down,
wrap it in tin-foil
to keep it warm,
tie it with a promise
and leave it lying
by your window.
wishes
(like love and cookies)
should be made.
It is the making
that is most important.

In Transit

Two backpacks on a bus
scrounging for change in a city
that doesn’t recognize me
slipping on sidewalks and
cursing the rain
the woman on the last bus
sneezed on me.
I am staring at the bus driver
trying to listen
not wanting to listen.
He says I need a dollar
and twenty-five cents
to add another zone – doesn’t he see
how heavy
how tired
how empty of change?
I don’t have…
Last night I walked
dark streets
and thought about patterns
and not belonging
and how afraid it makes me
to be insignificant.
At my age Blake
was a poet
Shelley an anarchist
on the brink of brilliance.
Byron was fourteen
for that first book of poems
and I
am not mad enough
to be a poet
nor sane enough
for anything else.
Where in this city
in this world
do I fit?


.........
So I'm going to try and blog a little more regularly. I think if I'm posting every day it'll likely force me to WRITE every day, which would be good for me. We'll see.