Stone of Evening

The stone of evening tells me

Live for those few glances shared

A blue as hard and sweet as longing

Golden crowned, and fare

Of voice and space still empty

Humbled by the evening

The stone is of my seeking

And my fear couches wonder

Where he grows roots in dreaming.

~

Image of Howl from Alpha Coders.

Never so simple

When he said that the horses

Were all

That we could rely on

I had not worry but the glow

Of a new romance

And it was a comfort lost

To glimpse the cars

Just below

A Watcher Only

Forget me, amid the revelry

The incandescent swathes below

Served from my cups gone cold

Crisp in the heat and haze and glow

Neither envy nor reproaches

Pierce the vibrant compass through

And thrice unheard is to forget

All, save how I miss you

~

Elizabeth Cook, 2016. Image from Kobato.

Rest

A pang, to see the grasses of late summer

And the dry branches standing ruddy

Under evening light

She reaps harvests from her window

From the pages and the diodes

That bring her the world

A scant three hundred feet square

Where there is nothing to constrain

And everything to own

She discards the weekdays

While dwelling on

Late summer sun

Amber

Passion made me its marker

Of swells and sighs divided

Regret the tenderest heresy

And each dream, a watershed

And yet no arcing, tumbling,

Glittering thing of mine

Could rival hers; I remember

That frisson of the empty sky

That cry from below

Of heart and soul and mind

My summers sleep in amber

And to look at them

Is to remember

~

Elizabeth Cook, 2016. Image from Hyouka.

 

Carpet Squares

Listless at my habitual 3pm low, and wishing that I could work in a more comfortable position, a change of position, I studied the long space under the underutilized half of my L-shaped desk.

–

I looked at it, and that was to envision explaining myself, which irritated me. It was a perfectly good bit of carpet, shaded and never walked upon. It would fit me nicely if I were to lie down there and read a journal article or something. So why would it be all ridicule and strangeness if I were to actually lie down on the floor?

 –

Open offices are detestable.

 

Undergrounders

Lost, they seemed like neighbours

Sometimes odd in manner, yet

We saw them as sharing in our mix

Of foibles and humours.

What did they hope for, here?

Suspending all their visions

And locking safety away

To fall asleep in a world not their own

Lit by the rude incandescent

Grey with sameness and waste.

What did they think of us, then?

As they strove to eat as we ate

To test the waters for their ideals

And, sensing rebuff,

To secure the lines of escape.

Even today, I cannot comprehend

The disappointment of four centuries,

And as many awakenings;

Nor the abiding hope

That saw them living among us

Only to be chased down sewers

By the latest elite in soldiering.

Once off, I admired their masks

Relics to be auctioned now that

They’d fled deeper than Onkalo

Below their barricades.

Elizabeth Cook, 2016

Image from tommo at 28dayslater