An imprint of harm

Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

glassy echo, reflecting

repulsion

There, at the turning of your lips

Words you want to say, willing still

Anger swirling behind dark eyes

They walk calmly

Anything but

Appearance is a veil

I saw you once

Unguarded

Without your battlement

The disguise lay strewn

With other stolen objects

Mere indents in a soft bed

Your madness at the surface

Like a Hydra you panted

For release and weapons

None heard this request

All of you is secreted within layers

No one can unravel

You divide and multiply in your apparent cruelty

There is a token of delight

A brand for some and your bequeathing

Some are not set on this Earth for kindness

They live by the stain left in their wake

An imprint of harm

Slow the leash trains unwilling

Gradual uncovering, sin takes her high chair

In the pit of things you writhe nude and tarnished

We make our own hell with toys of old

Those picture books of loss and shame, shackles for the weary

I could pick you now,

a yellow rose,

your nectar just on the verge.

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

My forearm

Has your fingers circled around it

My waist

Your hands meeting each other

The tattoo of your movement

Across the salt of my plains

You chisel my rise and fell my present

Into your eyes I tumble

As velvet dark becomes elongating heaven

Your fingers brush my cries with storm

I am beneath you, as infinite waterfall

In your shadow, from your shade

Eclipsing to return, cycles of moon

Blur what is real, against imagined.

Over time we learn

neither exist more than other

it is our capture of this moment

held in elapsing abeyance

within some sphere beyond consciousness

evoking mislaid emotion

flame lit against sulphur hearts

and we climbed the mountain, sweating and fatigued

thinking … why even bother?

Those wise voices, challenging us as children

take each experience, infuse it

with the richness of YOU

here’s the camera, snap a shot

twenty years later, we are still staring off

color changes over time and people

will leave and return like cuckoo dolls carved into

clocks.

Unexpected are the faithful and true

we smile because we’re told to

soon sides begin to droop, if held too long

spontaneous and a little dangerous

leaving the washing for another day

floors need cleaning, beds changing and perhaps …

if we stand still and instead, wait

they will see our outlines if

they’re not in a hurry

but everyone is too preoccupied

with staring at the red moon

to notice our climb

over the globes circumference

flying we take hold, of each others seek

a creature of bush fire and opal.

She told me once

don’t wear them, they are bad luck

I polish now, the angles of my semi-precious face

to ensure nobody knows my true thoughts

save you, you who built

the universe and with your existence

I have no need of foolishness.

We are what we are, because

there is a flower blooming

only at night and

the frangipani spell stays

rich and heady

all through the long

hours

of our union.

In search

Age crept up on me

it seemed sudden when I noticed

the lines on my hands, how

every joint had folds

mouths down turning ever so slightly

as if regretful on our behalf

we bathe in the sunlight of youth

for as long as we dare

sometimes untouched so we do not

know how much we should have used

the oiled machine of us

more

then one winter

when it has been longer than we can recall

we think of

desire

wanting to be

set electric

the mirror says

you should have used your time wisely

now you are like a line

growing less straight and thicker

about your waist

your mane of hair losing

heaviness

breath, a little mistrusting of gravity

I think of how I waited

all the time in the world

now hiding from inspection

unable to overflow

that girl who sat on her chances

should have leapt up

licked the sunshine

when it played over her smooth

untroubled skin

like a lover

in search of

secrets

Pure & broken

Lie in bed

Child

Lest what stands beyond threshold

Threatens calm

Waking to the sound of winter silence

Clutching at inanimate objects

The seen friends who do not reply

Delve deeper into the mind

Where disturbance is held away

By merciful imagination

How long can a child

Pretend

And make-believe?

The sounds of fighting through the walls

Even the deaf hear

The crack in plaster grows wider

Each day carpet higher

Till jungle swallows child

Alone

Her own words ingrowing

Dance when no one is looking

For nobody did

Turned faces absentees

Hunger for attention

At first an annoying shame-faced thing

Then the end of longing

Acceptance

You placed me in a room of my own and said

Thrive

I did not

Instead

Half of me turned into plaster and chipboard and carpet fibers

And half climbed out windows and got lost

Letting her feathers be plucked early

By stranger fondling hands and false words

Prophet’s without prophecy

Girls born without reason

Growing in one ache

The silence their lover and their torment

Sliced in half

One, a creature straining to survive herself

One the albatross of finely dressed humans

Absenting themselves from responsibility

She says

You damned me

You shut me up

You expected me to thrive and grow in darkness and coal

As you closed the door and said entertain yourself

She switched the camera on and let them come one by one

Watch her fall beneath the lights

Mayhap dancer, mayhap pornographer

No words escape her

She moves her pain

Above you like light streaming down

Pure and broken into prisms