A Hidden Story

The whisper of a page

Sounds like a scream

Begging you to stay

Silenced when you turn it over

The caw of a bird

Feels like it wants to be a murmur

Gentle and graceful

In flight towards a love

The scratching of a pen,

Stabbing at virgin white paper,

Is a lover bleeding

Needing to be taken back

The shuffle of shoes outside the door

Is the screech of secrets,

Hidden by pursed lips and closed eyes,

They seep out into the earth.

The clash of a fork and knife,

The clang on a porcelain plate

are the words we should have said

but were too selfish to utter

Gaia

Earth looked at Sky and laughed.

She snickered

At the fluffy soft cotton balls,

That pretended to be mountains 

Sky looked at earth, and turned his face away

He was repulsed,

he yelled, Earth you are bleeding,

Earth, you are defecating on yourself

Sky saw;

The red rivers cutting deep into earth

The mountains spewing gooey yellow matter,

Warm yet, from earth’s stomach

Earth saw;

The weakness in sky,

The nothingness that could not be grasped,

The fickleness of a sun and a rain.

Lost in mutual revulsion,

Neither noticed,

The infection flowing through earth’s veins,

The pus spewing creatures that invaded earth

Soon,

Sky was dark and heavy,

Earth was sick and dying,

And so they decided to redeem themselves

Sky opened wide and burnt

Earth closed her womb barren

Sky opened wide and rained

Earth turned herself into herself

Life was washed away

Disease was incinerated

And earth was clean

A piece of foil gift wrap

Glinting in bright red and gold

Flits fitfully on my window sill

Stuck between glass and wood

Envied by the wind

The three pull hard

Glass, wind and wood

Each wanting her dazzle, her beauty

A piece of foil gift wrap

Without a heart, without a will

Without a passion, without a mind

Is torn asunder

Her red gleaming like blood

Her gold an eerie corpse’s smile

She is solomonically destroyed

By glass, wood and wind

All mesmerized by her beauty

All vowing to love her

The Scar

I have a scar on my ankle

Where I was scratched

By a twig off underbrush

When we went walking in the park

I lost my earring that day

Did you know that?

The one with purple and pink

The one that Millie gave me for my birthday

I never felt odd

Wearing it alone

Its partner

On Millie’s ear

It connected us

I wonder,

Do heart shaped purplepink earrings get lonely?

Perhaps it did

It itches, my scar

It itches straight to my insole

I want to scratch so badly

I know I shouldn’t

But sometimes

When I am talking, writing

When this me is busy

The other me,

                        You know, the one who only whispers

                        The one who dreams

                        The one who still loves you

Compels my right foot

To move its purple socked toe

Up and down my scar

Ever so gently

It will heal

In a week or so it will no longer itch

But I hope the scar remains

And someday

When I am old and decrepit

I will look down

At my wrinkled and frail ankle

And remember

A love that was innocent

The Progression

Hide and seek
In grass taller than our heads
Take my hand in yours
Run so fast
Walk so stealthily
They can’t hear us
They can’t see us
Take my hand in yours
And I’ll hide with you
In grass taller than our heads

A red one for you
A green one for me
I’ll be green
You, red
Have you ever noticed
How smooth
How cold marble is
Against your fingertips
Toss the red
And I’ll toss the green
And kiss you again
With nervous lips
Colder than marble

Leather slides off my fingers
On hot moist days
Of summer
Toes sweating, curling up
Tongue at the corner of my mouth
The first steps towards adulthood
My own car
It’s bubble-gum pink
And plays only love
And then
The freedom
Popsicles melting in soft hands
Stolen glances
Swift touches
Leather slides off skin
On hot moist days of summer
In the back of a bubblegum car

I am in love
With words
Formed so beautifully
He smells of chalk
Tastes of words
Softly
Shakespeare whispered against my throat
Keats in the morning
My scholar
Wears tweed and horn-rimmed glasses
Ice-cream at midnight in bed
Freezes the roof of my mouth
Kisses that warm
Words that enflame
Whispered passionately
Uttered hurriedly
Professing falsely
Words that hurt

Elegant black cocktail dresses
Champagne that bubbles to my throat
Three inch heeled shoes
Ivory hairclips
Diamond earrings
Laughs sophisticated by practice
Smiles that give nothing away
Music that flows underneath it all
Elegant black cocktail dresses
Pooled at the foot ends
Of bleach white silk beds
Thousand dollar ties thrown loosely over chairs
“Yes, I’ll be your forever”

Taboos are meant to be broken
Stereotypes disproved
He loves roses and peaches
He has only seen Warhol in copy
The Beatles are so long gone
Only living in newsreels
Presley is farther back than legend
And he won’t touch animal flesh
Each tree actually counts
And that piece of bubble-gum wrap I dropped
Is destroying our planet
He takes me back to bubble-gum pink days
Taboos are meant to be broken
I am his rose
Peaches taste delightful in the morning
Don’t you think so?

HAPPY B. DAY MWENDE

 

Curling up softly in a bud

A tiny flower yawns and hopes to never wake up

All around her bees buzz

Farmers with shears ready to snip are

Watching, watching

Waiting for the moment the petals unfurl

The moment a new scent hits the breeze

And a morning is created anew

But I say to you little flower,

Dream on and yawn on

For there is a thrill in the flight of a bee

But none so exciting as the plunge into an innocent dream

For there is beauty in the vase of a lady

But it is tainted and in it you’ll find your end

Little flower,

Curl up tighter in your darkness

And I hope that you never unfurl

To see the dreadful glare that is day

The stinging light that is reality

UNDREAMT

He was strange

He had an odd scent

Something of the salt and the sea

Something of blood and a knife

 

He was not the one

Neither tall nor strong

But he had something of a dream

A ghost lying lost in the scribbles of a notebook

 

It was undreamt, unexpected

It grew slowly and steadily

Faintly in the gasp of a sudden laugh

Softly in the husk that is a word

 

It was overwhelming

When it swelled and burst

Flooding me with the scent

            Of salt and the sea

Taking me with the feel

            Of blood and a knife

Going Through A Dead Mother’s Room

This door, I opened first

the iron key slippery in my wet hands

clanging on the floor as I wiped my palms on a red floral skirt

turning slowly in the keyhole

as if stabbing and twisting into my very heart

 

This floor, I stepped on first

my white ballet flats raising dust

golden sprites floating to land on the tip of my nose

footprints following me as I forged on

 

This chest, I touched first

my fingers feeling the chipped edges of the wood

my nails tracing the carved horses, a battle beside silk brocade

I lifted her portrait, and she looked back at me, daring me

 

This letter, I read last

After pushing the dust drunk wool aside

After pretending to look at old browning photographs

After learning that I was a coward

 

This truth, I know now

I saw it in her words

Grotesquely yellow thighs spread

A warm heart beating behind a cold façade

A hope surviving

            That this daughter of a whore

            Would be more

The Tide

Two hours after the blue-red pill got stuck in my throat

I lay in bed,

Curled up against the stabbing in my womb

Curtains closed,

Gloom without and within

My mother’s pregnant tabby asleep at my feet

And as I listened to the crooning of Katie Melua

The pain flowed out of me,

Warming my bed feverishly

And I cried

Alice

My cousin

Is a little girl

Frozen in time

Her smile swallows her face

Her eyes shine

And she looks at me

In red and purple

A yellow burning world

Spinning by so fast

So recklessly behind her

She looks at me

A blue furious time

Running so swiftly by her

My cousin

Frozen so

In a moment of innocence

A time of happiness

When neither the time

Nor the world

Could have undone

Her smile