about spring. title ideas welcomed.

The trees are rustling back
to the woken world
this week.
They shift their weight
of white
and wait,
dreaming of green.
Spring is trickling in at last,
sliding aside the snowbanks
in its own sweet time.

All in good time.

Soon enough
we are sloshing through slush
mucking through mud,
ankles to eyeballs in clouds of dust.
All the while the world is tilting,
tilting,
tipping towards the sun.

On sunshine breezes
summer birds
a-chirp, a-flirt
and a-flutter,
are winging their way
back north.
We year-round ravens squawk
our indignation
(fascination)
flap our feathers and gawk
at the gaudy colours.

Winter is dripping away
one rooftop at a time.
Wave au revoir
(it never goes for long)

Traveling Dream

.....

Although I'm sure you would notice without being told, I didn't actually write this. It's just a poem I like. And I thought I'd post it because my friends are packing (and not having fun by the sounds of it) and people who are packing should procrastinate by reading poetry about packing. It's by Marge Piercy, who's brilliant. Very.

.......

Traveling Dream

I am packing to go to the airport
but somehow I am never packed.
I keep remembering more things
I keep forgetting.

Secretly the clock is bolting
forward ten minutes at a click
instead of one. Each time
I look away, it jumps.

Now I remember I have to find
the cats. I have four cats
even when I am asleep.
One is on the bed and I slip

her into the suitcase.
One is under the sofa. I
drag him out. But the tabby
in the suitcase has vanished.

Now my tickets have run away.
Maybe the cat has my tickets.
I can only find one cat.
My purse has gone into hiding.

Now it is time to get packed.
I take the suitcase down.
There is a cat in it but no clothes.
My tickets are in the bath

tub full of water. I dry them.
One cat is in my purse
but my wallet has dissolved.
The tickets are still dripping.

I look at the clock as it leaps
forward and see I have missed
my plane. My bed is gone now.
There is one cat the size of a sofa.

another dutiful poetry post

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

I ought to only post poetry when it's good poetry.
I shouldn't ought to post things I know perfectly well aren't very good, just because it makes somebody sad when I don't post.
But if you're friends with somebody, and they say they're sad because you haven't posted in a while - and that's pretty flattering in itself, that anybody'd be interested enough in your silly little blog to be sad when you don't post - what can you DO? When my friends are sad I'm sad, and if I'm making them sad, well...that's pretty ridiculous.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I conclude...
Blame Jesi.
That said, this is old stuff that I had kicking around. It's kicking around because it's not exactly meant to be read by other people, which means that it's icky touchy-feely love poetry.
I suppose, if you want to read it like this, it sort of chronicles a relationship.

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



Unfortunate Perfection

Yesterday I pretended to slip,
dipped my hands in motor oil
so I wouldn’t be tempted to touch you.
You are
so perfect.
I knew, but
I’d forgotten the effect
of the dimple in your shoulder
the way you laugh
(never with me)
when you want someone to notice.
The way you smile
(only at me)
when you know I notice
everything.
I am overwhelmed.
Even without the oil,
you are too perfect to touch.

Unfiltered

We talked about
nothing
for an hour
and then you said
you had to go
and I said
I loved you.
It slipped out so easily, as if
I’d said it a thousand times
and maybe I had;
But never out loud.
There was a moment
a stumbling.
you tried to smooth things over
and I tried to laugh
but couldn’t quite.
‘I love you’ hung between us,
waiting to be taken in
or taken back
or swept aside,
unwanted.
It was not my intention
to say it;
the truth has a way
of slipping out.

Complicated

I wake up logical
eloquent
determined,
and you
undo me
with a single breath.
What is this? That thing
called love?
I do not call this
(degrading)
business, with the pounding heart
and sweating hands
love.
I call it just
a complication
and wish it would go
away.

Sleeping Over

You make it too easy to pretend.
Your breath a whisper on my cheek
your hand in mine,
the line of your leg.
You.
Your rules are impossible.
Look but don’t touch
or do touch
but only so far
no further.
When did the line of friendship
get so crooked?
When did you?
When did I?
I press kisses to your wrists
(is this allowed?)
trace the side of your face
with fingers that shake
waiting to be told enough.
Watching for the warning in your eyes.
When you leave,
I lie in the place you left,
bury my face in the warmth
where your skin has been
and despair.
When you leave
it is hard to remember to breathe.
One day, maybe,
we will stop playing games and pretending,
and I suppose that will be the end
and I suppose I will go on breathing
and I might even be relieved,
although it doesn’t feel that way.
And one day, maybe,
I will stop wanting you,
and will be able to think
of this night
and laugh.
(but maybe, too,
the sky will fall tomorrow
and save me the trouble.)

Shooting Star

Kiss me, Sweet – tomorrow we’ll pretend
it was the rum, the music
the moonlight.
Hold me closer – we’ll pretend
the stars made us dizzy
and we stumbled
together.
It won’t be enough:
I owe you forever
not just a moment
we’ll have to regret with the morning;
It isn’t enough
but oh my sweet – the trouble with time
is it passes
Tonight is trickling
through our fingers and tomorrow
waits in the wings.
Kiss me and make me
forget…

Fun and Games

I am like mud.
You trample me down because
you like the feel of me between your toes.
I’m fun to play with but don’t forget
never forget
to wash your hands of me
when the game is done.
Don’t take me home;
scrape me off at the doormat
shake me off out the window
scrub as hard as you have to
to send me spiraling down the drain
where I belong.


Rulebound

I have an idea.
Let’s play
by my rules
for a change.
Let’s see
how you do
when it’s you
uncertain
unhappy
confused…
Or better yet
let’s just
not play –
pack up
the board
stack up
the cards
and walk
our separate
ways.
I daresay
seeing the back
of you
would do me
wonders.

Lessons

It’s easier than you might think.
Just like the Wile E. Coyote
You can run on air
but only if you don’t look down.
Here’s a tip for you
first time flyers:
don’t.
Gravity doesn’t like
being forgotten.
She packs a punch
so next time you’ll remember.
(next time I’ll remember)



Indelible

You are gone
(and yet remain)
I throw away the presents
the pictures
the memories
sweep the floor
change the sheets
paint the walls.
I scrub my skin
red and raw
(it stings like your fingers did)
till it smells like nothing
but pain,
go through my inbox
and delete you
key by key.
(It isn’t enough.)
I have washed you out
of my world
(but my soul was less
accessible –
your voice still walks
through my thoughts
and the ghosts of your hands
still slide
down the small of my back)
you are gone
and oh
why won’t you go?

Ayla: Installment 4 (I think...)

I swear, the next thing I post will be a poem. The only people who actually like these things are dillon and jesi.
.................

Call me crazy but it feels good to be working again. To be elbow-deep in somebody’s body, the smooth stretch of latex over my fingers, the operating room, the smudges of blood on my forehead.
If I close my eyes, I could be right back on Ariel, blushing all the way to the roots of my silly country-girl hair. I can feel Sid’s eyes on me, and I can remember the way my skirt brushed the calves of my legs, the way I got goosebumps, and how clumsy my fingers were, sewing up the cut he got the day before he did a runner.
I don’t close my eyes though.
What kind of surgeon would I be?
Berma rolls one of the other patients past on a gurney, covered up by a sheet. One for him, one for me, and another waiting in the hall for whoever finishes first.
I’m in no hurry, mind. Wo de ma, ain’t it enough to slice somebody open and swap all their organs for different ones without worrying about getting it done in a rush?
It’s a girl under my knife. Pretty, although she’ll have one winner of a scar when this’s done. You can’t slice someone open this way and not leave a mark. Leastways not without some better equipment than they gave me.
The one in the hall’s a woman too, drugged to the teeth just like this one. You hardly know their hearts are thumping, least you have your hand right on them.
One man, two women, Captain said, so Berma must be slicing up the man just now. Suits me fine. I’m plumb fed up with male patients.
“Looks much neater when you do it, Ayla.”
I look over my shoulder to see that Captain Gordon’s standing behind me. He come in so quiet, never mind those heavy boots of his, that I didn’t hear a thing.
“Berma’s got blood up to his eyebrows,” he keeps on. “I don’t know what he’ll have left to sew together by the end.”
I smile cause I think he means me to, and then turn back to the girl.
Oh, I spose I’m grateful to Captain for remembering me from that voyage to Osiris, and for bailing me out of this spot of trouble, but I’m leery of him all the same. He’d be rough around the edges if he weren’t so greasy.
“Keep up the good work, bao bei,” he says, and when it’s obvious I’ve got nothing to say, he leaves, the door clicking shut behind him.
I rinse off a kidney, sponge it dry and set it aside. I hope he was joking about Berma. I’m no top-class surgeon myself, but I know my stuff. I’ve got farm-rough hands and I’ll never talk pretty like some of those fancy-pants born-and-bred-to-be-rich types, but I know a thing or two about working hard, and I passed all my exams.
This feels like an autopsy, my patient’s so still.
I wonder how much she’s getting paid, and if it’s more than me. It don’t take much skill, what she’s doing, but it’s sure a damn site riskier than my job. Nobody really knows what these things’ll do to her insides, although most likely it’s safe.
I hope.
The ship rumbles a little and I steady myself against the table.
Start sewing from naval to neck, hurrying just a little now that the hard part’s done.
A half hour later, as I stretch the new woman out on my table, Berma rolls past again, finished, I guess. This time the sheet’s slipped a little, and a hand is hanging out.
And that hand, it fair breaks my heart, because whoever owns it ain’t more than a boy. Hairless and smooth and a bit sun-browned. Just a kid.
I swallow the lump of shame in my throat and turn back to the new patient, press the scalpel to the hollow below her breastbone.
I make the first cut.
Somehow it don’t feel so great anymore.

Sid: Installment 2

I have it on good authority that Dillon is not going to hate me for writing/posting this, which is really very happy-making.
For anybody who's interested in reading non-serenity writing, I'll try to post something else later tonight.
..................

“Qiang bao hou-zi freeloader.”
Some muttered cursing, the smell of somebody else’s feet, and then I’m curled up clutching my gut because it all of a sudden hurts like hell.
There sure are softer ways ‘n this for a man to wake up.
I could be down on Ariel, listening to that blushing intern snore like a freighter engine. I could watch her wake up, see that flustered little smile that was worth getting the gou shi kicked out of me for.
I could be dosed up on pain meds for the knife-slash on my arm, ‘stead of taking a kick to the ribs after a night sleeping in a cargo hold.
“Wake up so I can throw you off my ship!”
I open my eyes and roll, looking up to see that wang ba dan of a captain winding up for another kick.
Bastard.
The guy who let me on last night – the mechanic, I figured – ain’t nowhere to be seen, and I know better than to think anybody’s raring to rescue the battered mercenary from yet another beating.
Which don’t mean I’m fixing to sit here and take it. I always was better at giving a beating than taking one.
But I’m stiffer than I thought, and I never finished that physio, so my knees give out when I try to get up, and I take a boot to the chin.
Wang ba dan has steel-toed boots.
Through a mouthful of blood for the second time this week, I spit out a string of curses and struggle to my feet.
“This how you usually treat paying passengers?” I ask.
No way is this asshole getting anything other than a broken nose from me, but as he’s currently holding a steel bar the size of my forearm, it don’t hurt none to start off polite.
“Paying passenger?” He looks me up and down with a sneer. “Riffraff like you couldn’t pay passage from here to those cargo doors.”
I look at the cargo doors. Depending on how far from planet-side we are, those doors are either escape or a death sentence. Not a risk I’m planning on taking just now. But the engines are going double-time, a sure sign that we’re coming in for a landing somewheres.
“How much?” I ask. There’s a credit disk on a chain round my neck, and I pull it out, show it to him with a smirk to match his own.
He taps the steel against his free hand. “That Tong Meng credit crap won’t work around here, cowboy.”
He’s a gorram liar, and we both know it. A ship like this should be flying back towards Osiris by the end of the week, and it’s only the outer planets that won’t take credit.
Which makes me wonder if he ain’t leading up to something unpleasant.
“Cash?” I ask. I lean down for my seabag and he cracks me with that bar, right at the base of my back, hard enough that it lays me out flat.
I bite back a scream. This ain’t my month. Son of a bitch’ll kill me with that thing.
“And have you take out that sawed-off shotgun in there?” He laughs, and I know he’s been through my bag, pawed through my stuff and taken, at very least, what money I had there. “I don’t think so.”
It’s been a while since I was laid low like this. Surprised out of sleep by some asshole with a weapon. I must be slipping. But now there’s a cold ball of hate curling up in my stomach and I don’t care what shape I’m in – I’m walking away from this better off than he is.
So I wait till he winds up for another swing, listen for the sound of that metal bar sweeping down towards me, and then I roll.
It hits the ground where my head was, and he hits the ground a heartbeat later, groaning from a kick to the back of the knees.
I follow it up with few strategic blows, mostly to the soft places on his body, and then while he’s wheezing, kick that bar out of the way and hobble to my feet.
Shen sheng de gao wan does it ever hurt.
I can feel the ship settling, lurching a bit, as we go through some planet’s atmosphere. If the mechanic told the truth, we ought to be on Persephone in about five minutes.
I take a look at the captain, who’s still having trouble getting a breath. Ginger hair, a bit sunburnt. He’s younger than me, softer around the middle but harder around the head I’ll bet. The kind likes to tell women he owns his own ship, never mentioning it’s just his older brother’s and all he does is supervise the cargo and beat up stowaways.
I spit a mouthful of blood to the deck by his head.
“You were planning on letting me off before we hit atmo, weren’t you?” I ask. It’s a death sentence to shove a man out into the black, but I’ve got not a doubt that’s what he planned. You don’t rob a man who looks like me and then let him walk away.
My eye – the one that ain’t bruised as all hell from the last fight, because you’d have to be one dumb chun zhu to try and punch a thing made mostly of metal – reads his blood pressure as 200/110. Might be the fact that he’s eaten more than a few pot-pies too many over the years, but a little hunch tells me it’s not.
“No,” he gasps. “Just rough you up a bit, I swear.”
230/125. Lying ass thinks I’m twenty-three types of stupid.
I kick aside the blanket I slept under, and pull out what is currently the love of my mercenary life. Turn it over in my hands.
260/140.
“Black matte finishes,” I tell him. “Ebony handle, .55 rounds. Those are hard to make these days.”
He scrambles up to his knees but stops moving when I flick off the safety.
“This here is Miranda,” I say, “and she don’t take kindly to some zhu bajie thinks he has more right to her than I do.”
He licks his lips, red-eyed and holding back tears.
“Your bag’s by the door,” he says. “I hadn’t had time to take anything out…it’s all there. Please…you can go…just please take the gun off me.”
Instead of answering, I roll my digital eye, which makes him flinch, and lean forward so that Miranda’s kissing his forehead.
“How much do I owe you?” I ask. “How much do you charge for passage normally, you worthless wang ba dan?”
A tear rolls down his cheek. “Thirty-five credits,” he whispers.
“Thought you didn’t deal in credits?” I ask lightly.
Another tear. He makes a little choking sound in the back of his throat, like he’s about to wail.
“Please,” he tells me. “Please you don’t need to pay. Please don’t…”
It’s irresistible.
“Thirty-five credits, eh?” I grin, no doubt treating him to the sight of my poor bleeding gums. “Incidentally, that’s what it takes to make seven rounds for this gun, my friend. And seven rounds is exactly what this chamber holds. Since you won’t take my credit, what say I pay you in something a bit more…metallic?”
The ship shakes a little and the engines whine. We’re touching down.
He licks his lips again, crying hard now. All he can do is shake his head.
This man has not endeared himself to me. He woke me up with a kick and some foul language, pawed through my seabag, and damn near broke some more of my bones. Not to mention wanting to toss me out into the vacuum of space. Most of me heartily wishes I had stayed in Ayla’s bed, and that makes me a mite more cantankerous than I’d otherwise be.
I feel a bump under my feet, and the engines cut out. Landed.
I wink at him, even though it hurts through the bruises, and he drops his gaze to the floor.
“Nice doing business with you,” I say.
Then I pop the chamber. Seven rounds of expensive ammunition clatter like dice onto the floor.
When he looks up at me in astonishment, I pull back Miranda and slam her ebony handle into his face, hard. There is a crunch of bone, a gush of blood, and he is wailing again.
“Have a nice trip back to Osiris,” I tell him, and limp away.
With a start like this, today can only get better.

a poem! after a long time without a poem! oh my poor poetry-deprived blog!

I fell and sprained
my dignity
while walking past
your door…
just tripped and fell
head over heels
and tumbled to
the floor.
You offered help,
I shook my head
and hurried on
my way.
You smiled and
you shook your head
and went about
your day.
By evening I
was limping and
I blushed to see
you smile
I would have limped
right by you but
you said
oh stay a while.
And then
and then
and then
and then
I stayed
till it
was after ten…
and you and I
and I and you,
we smiled till
the night was through…
My dignity
I am afraid
has parted ways
with me
it packed its bags
this morning and
had driven off
by three.
We watched it go
and smiled and
we brewed
a pot of tea…
My dignity and I,
I think,
were never meant
to be

Ayla again

becuase I don't REALLY want Jesi to hate me...

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

They killed my parents.
Killed them and took their skins and splashed that gorram death-ship with blood from keel to hull. War paint. In case anybody looking at that ship wouldn’t know what come for them.
And before they killed my family they did things to them – did things a girl could go crazy trying not to imagine.
Nobody on the core planets believes in Reavers. Just ignorant rim-lore, according to the Alliance. They won’t allow as there’s anything in the ‘verse they don’t have under their thumb. But you can’t make Reavers go away by shutting your eyes and chanting about tall-tails.
It was the neighbours found the bodies. What was left of them. Pieces of Ma spread all round the kitchen, Dad’s big frame draped over the fence.
I threw up when Antoinette told me, all over the clean white sink in the surgery room, and then I wiped my lips and went to pack my bag.
Alliance likes to talk like they ain’t – aren’t – so corrupt as all the rest of us. A fair government. Everyone equal. Everyone contributing to the whole of one great society.
The Alliance talks a whole lot of xiong mao niao, if you ask me.
All the money owing, all the money that was meant to go to paying for my med training, all that – gone. Government property in exchange for the lease of land that they say expired two years ago.
They drop my father on a gou shi moon circling a gou shi planet that hasn’t turned out anything worth eating since it’s been settled. They let him make it into a prime piece of farm land, and then when he dies treat him like he was a tenant.
That farm was his life.
There come days where I don’t know who to hate more; the Reavers for killing my family, or the Alliance for screwing them over after the fact.
I petitioned them too. In debt up to my eyeballs, not a living relative in the known worlds, I pleaded with them to waive the fees.
Not a hope.
Not a stroke of pity or fellow-feeling or fairness.
So it’s up to them what I’ve come to.
Them and the gorram Reavers.

Installment 2: Ayla

In case there's anybody out there in Internet land who's like...what the hell is THIS stuff...
Ahem. Sorry. Will eventually get bored writing about characters from Firefly universe and will hopefully write some more poetry.
But until then...
Read!
.......................
The walls are shaking.
I roll off my bunk, which is steel-framed and strange, make my unsteady way into the hall.
Back on Lilac, bed was different, just a hard straw pallet in a wooden frame. It smelled like sun and sand and home, and I’d get awful tetchy about straw poking through. I got tetchy about lots, back then.
The hall’s deserted. I don’t know enough – not about ships in general or even just this ship – to know if this is just the usual shaky flying or maybe a real emergency.
I’d be the last to find out.
On Osiris it was different. No lumps in the mattress there. Hundreds of rooms, every one sterile and same and blank. The smell of disinfectant burned my nose when I woke up under all those electric lights.
I hear footsteps, and then the captain turns the corner ahead of me, walking this way. Walking, not staggering. How anybody can keep their balance on a tin crate that’s slipping through space at three fifths the speed of light, I never will make sense of.
“Stay clear, Civilian,” he tells me.
The cold metal floor stings the balls of my feet as I step out of his way. His steel-toed boots clomp as they carry him out of sight.
Call me a coward but I can’t stop him. If the worst is here, if we’re running from something, I’d rather not know.
Is this how Marcus felt? Did he roll out of bed to investigate strange sounds, turn the corner to see…?
Di di. Marcus. My blue-eyed little brother.
I hold on to the wall to steady myself and work my way back to my room, where it smells like stale air and engine grease. I bury my face in the sheets I brought from Osiris, inhale that smell of disinfectant and try not to think of what might be happening on the bridge.
Sometimes this happens. The walls shake or the ship makes noises I don’t recognize. I don’t know why.
Sometimes the other crew members laugh when they see me, and I don’t know why that is either.
Sometimes I look down and my hands are shaking, and I don’t know. I don’t know why.
Sometimes I wake up in my steel-framed bed with a scream on my lips.
You would too.

Sidney McGannigan (another firefly fragment)

Not sure where this came from...it wasn't exactly what I was meaning to write. Sorry if it doesn't fit.
...........................

It was that blush.
See, it pays to have a little fling with the nurses, nothing new there. You never know when you might need them to slip you the keys, after all. And there’s nothing like motivated health care to get a man back on his feet.
But that intern on Ariel, she was different.
Pretty and young, straight out of some backwater planet outside of Beaumonde. Accent thick enough to sink your teeth into.
And she blushed.
Something sweet in that.
Girl like that could sew up a gash the size of a spaceport and not blink an eye, but she blushes when a man touches her hand. This man anyway.
Company I keep these days, not a lot of women blush, no matter where you touch them.
I didn’t know she’d gotten to me so much. Not at first. All I thought was it was good she liked me, because she wouldn’t run my face through the scanner the way they sometimes do, to find out if the Alliance gunning for me.
Keep a low profile, that’s how I work. A man’s got to step real light when he walks so close to the core.
But when that wang ba den said what he said, I didn’t think about keeping a low profile. I didn’t remember about who might or might not be looking for a one-eyed sharpshooter, and I sure as ruttin’ hell didn’t remember she was just a pretty way to waste some time.
I didn’t think much. I just stood up, limped over, and shut him up. Silently and violently, as my old man used to put it.
That I got cut up doing it didn’t mean a damn thing. Two weeks earlier I’d had two shattered knee-caps and a snapped femur, and it hurt like hell to walk.
I don’t fight for those odds. Not close quarters and not for free.
So she was bad news, that intern.
The Alliance bulletin that came out late that night – showing up conveniently on her wall-screen, which she left logged-on, trusting bao bei that she was – just clinched it.
One thing you learn as a merc is when to cut your losses. I was on the next shuttle out, putting as much air space as I could between me and that blush.
Say what you may about shooting for the highest bidder – precious little but that makes any kind of sense, by my thinking. When you run into something you’d fight for without a second thought, without sight of a brass penny, you’d best run the other way again, because you just bought yourself a whole world of trouble.
I learned that the hard way.

jesi's serenity character

As written about three months ago. I really can't tell you anything about it, because I don't really remember writing it.
......

Back on Osiris I used to dream about the farm. The only place for three planets where you could buy decent potatoes, Dad used to say. Not that the vacuum packed stuff you could buy anywhere else was really all that different, but he used to say ours were special. The genuine article. Dug straight out of the dirt by the best farming family this side of Hera.
He liked to exaggerate, my dad.
Our farm was really a pretty poor one, but we had what nobody else did, and that was shade. Twenty-five acres of it seven months out of the year, and that last five acres stayed dark year-round. The benefit of living under the only cliffs on a flat planet. A sun like ours can fry crops – and people – in one afternoon. Nothing grows, nothing lives, except what’s put here by the Alliance.
I hated every minute I spent on that farm.
Sure we were doing something worthwhile and sure we were making money, but what teenage girl wants to spend her weekends scraping a living out of a gorram rock? Whatever happened to getting laid?
So I couldn’t wait to leave, and I was out like a shot when Dad offered to pay my school fees. I didn’t get homesick once all through those months out in the black. When we landed in Osiris and I stumbled out with eyes wide as dinner plates, I thought I’d come home.
But like I said, med school in a core Alliance planet was enough to get me dreaming on those potatoes.
I’d wake up in a sweat at five in the morning, all too ready to haul water and drag Marcus out of bed, only to remember that Marcus was way the hell away and all I had to do was turn on the tap.
I’ll let you in on a secret, though. Civilization isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. All those med-school students who think working hard means spending an extra half hour on revision…they wouldn’t last a heartbeat where I come from.
Everything’s easy in the core. Day to day you don’t have to worry where your next meal’s coming from. Whether pieces of the cliff are going to tumble loose and crack your scull open or if the well’ll dry up, or whether you bribed the raiders enough to stay away this year. Or that thing nobody ever mentions – that maybe today’ll be the day the Reavers come.
Sometimes I think, even after all that’s happened, that I might have been better off – been happier – staying there. Staying home.
Sometimes I think under everything I’m still just a farm girl.
And there’s nothing sadder than a farm girl without a farm.