Children of temptation & sticky fingers

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Relinquish

your proud ways

it behoves no one

to hang tall on faded principle

when last we considered ourselves

it was before life swallowed us whole

too busy for contemplation

we walked off cliffs and wondered

why our broken legs didn’t work

you are not a puppet

but you have grown docile in your strings

when splintered people stuff their suffering

in nameless boxes and march to the kink

we don’t ask why

are we here, what should we do? why do we feel

as we are feeling, what ache inside us?

how do we find, authenticity?

when everything surrounding us

propels toward docile determination

we forget we were once

children of temptation and sticky fingers

unable to resist

opening jam jars, letting flies

coat themselves in satiate bliss

touching with reddened fingers

clean walls in pleasure

where did our curiosity

our hunger

go?

did we really become

stalagmites on sugar

and forget to

make forts in trees

and dams in streams

to catch the next shoal

of silver fish?

An imprint of harm

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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.

The Wolf

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Again the telephone rings

Shrill and haunting

I would rip you from the wall

Hurl you where I could not retrieve

And break every electronic component

If it meant

I could not be found

Always I have desired to be found

Saved from emptiness

Saved from myself

And the loneliness that shouldn’t be inside

But remains despite this

And to spite me

And now when I am hunted

I turn inside like a wolf eating innards

The glove

Dropped in the pond on a cold day

The hand

Left to freeze without it

I want nothing of you

I want nothing of all of you

Except to be allowed to vanish

Except to be allowed to return

Another time

Not this time

Not now

But when I can finally see

That my loneliness is cured

That I am captured

That I am free.

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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.