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.

not much for a month...

As those of you who know me in person will know, I've been away from internet access (yes my friends, there is, in fact, a world away from the internet. Sort of.) for a month.
And it was nice, but it did mean that my blog was abandoned and sad, and is now in need of updating.
So here are a couple of the poems I wrote over the month. I don't really like them, and they're not really exactly perfectly finished (or imperfectly finished, actually) but they're kind of all there is at the moment.
Enjoy or not.

This one was written for a friend who believes that eating and sleeping are two of life's greatest pleasures. I don't like the last third of it, but I'm fairly sick of staring at it and trying to fix it.

ODE TO THE EARLY MORNING

“Sizzle” says the bacon

from its spot atop the stove

“Burble,” says the coffee pot

“Good morning,” says my nose.

There’s nothing wrong

with waking up

to greet the morning light

but it takes more than six AM

to make my morning bright.

So bake me bread

and make me beans

and fix it up just right

and maybe then I’ll smile as

I bid goodbye to night.

But otherwise you all may rise

as early as you like

just kindly do not wake me if

no breakfast is in sight.

So yes. That's that. This one probably speaks for itself. Sorry for the swearing.

DIVIDED

My body wonders what the fuck I’m doing.

I dragged it out here

to the middle of nowhere squared

so it wouldn’t wake up in your bed.

Instead it wakes up in a snowbank.

Frankly it thinks we made

the wrong decision.

Your bed, it says, was warm –

there is certainly something

in that.

And besides, in the end

all we’re doing is running away.

Sooner or later we must go back

mind body and stupid stubborn will

to face what we’re fleeing.

I suspect you would laugh

if you knew.

There is more in this folder than I thought. Interesting. Only two more, I think. This one doesn't have a title.

How did they vanish

those inches between our lips?

One second they were there

so solid you could slice them

with a knife

so immovable you might have sworn

they were miles.

but now

merely a moment later

here we are

nothing between us but tongue,

and I find myself unsure

as to how this happened.

Last one. Also kind of speaks for itself. A goodbye to a good friend who walked a long way with me.

TO A FELLOW TRAVELER

Together, with our restless feet,

we have trudged to the tops of mountains.

We have stumbled and sloshed

through snow and overflow

have fumbled

with broken laces

and frozen fingers.

Together we have traveled

past the point of exhaustion

(bloody bill after bloody hill)

only to settle down at last

the stars as our ceiling

to shiver into sleep.

And then – and always so soon after sleeping –

under the sun or moon or northern lights

the wind like a slap to our faces

you and I have woken and walked

and walked.

How many miles?

Together still we are turning now\

to trace our tracks back home.

So soon our restless feet

will walk us separate ways.

Remember, though

that the world is round.

Walk far enough away

and someday you may find yourself faced

with that place again.

Till then, my friend, walk well.

erm...doesn't have a title yet...

It's annoying how little ideas get stuck in your head until you write them. It really is. Especially when you have other things you're supposed to be writing, and they're kind of nonsensical ideas anyway, but they won't go away and be nonsensical somewhere else.
Dillon don't put any more ideas in my head, ok?
..................

He lives at the top
of the mountain,
did you know?
At the very top
of a treacherous climb
where there's just a smatter
of snow.
He lives at the top
of the mountain,
did you know?
And he'll solve
all your problems
a penny apiece
if you go.
He lives at the top
of the mountain,
did you know?
Up the crooked road
past the cliffs and craigs
that you have to climb
just so.
He lives at the top
of the mountain,
did you know?
You didn't know?
Well.
It's true my friend
and you ought to go
despite the craigs
and the cliffs
and snow.
Go visit the man
who lives up that way
if only to see
what he has to say...