Municipal elections

“It is looking bluer today.”

“Yes – I think they hope this will

send property values further south

and highlight the old mill

as an eyesore.”

“I see –

I always liked the mill myself

but sandstone does seem garish

when, on this street, everything else

smells like blueberry.”

“As someone allergic to scents

I wish they didn’t flavour the paint.”

“Nothing to be done there.”

“No; since no one voted there is nothing

To be undone. And anyway,

I like to watch the crews

hard at work.

This devaluation project

could always be worse

than a bit of vandalism, and paint.”

Parallel Outlet: 12

A lavender whistle
petaled into me
like a feather
from an unseen canopy

I am not sure whether the being who speaks in What the World is Trying to Be is human at heart.

This, however, is probably idle speculation in the end. When I read pieces from Rumi and the Shadow, often the central character is as much of an enigma as the space between the lines.

There is a grace to characters and ideas expressed at Rumi and the Shadow which I find soothing. And I am not sure what the world is trying to be, but it is a new idea to daydream about, and to imagine a great tree (or man or treant) thinking about the same thing is somehow comforting.

Then, shaking this strange image
from its limbs
got up and stretched, saying,

“I am what the whole world is trying to be”

and washed its face
in the morning mist

Mostly Rhyming

I’m really excited to say that I have completed my first illustrated anthology, “Mostly Rhyming”. This is a collection of my poems interspersed with black and white digital sketches like the bunny in the boudoir above 🙂

The e-book is on Amazon in Kindle format –  and the Kindle app is free!

Dating

I met her in a soup tureen

Inventing chemoreceptors

Her glare almost gave me compound fractures

But I told her we should go for a dip

For some reason she humoured me

And then we lived happily on the sill together

Peace was the last thing on our minds

And food somewhere near second

Until she remembered herself and asked

“Shouldn’t you be more necessary to my happiness?”

But I alone was never necessary to anyone

She took her honey crumbs, and flew away

Breakfast then bed

I eat fried egg on toast

And reluctantly get dressed

I eat fried egg on toast

And sneak back into bed

I can’t be perfect every day

So I’ll be comfortable instead

The Young Pleasure Seeker (Josephine)

I never loved you, Josephine

Like the larks that flew entwined

Like the water filling the fountain

Or the lord after the hind

I never plucked your handkerchief

Fallen among the rosebeds

Nor begged a walk, a poem, a dance

But asked Thérèse instead

O how I doted on her charms

And waited hours to hear her sing

How I spread the boat with quilts

As inducement to come sailing

But Thérèse, in all her gaiety,

For others plays me false

And I begin to doubt her beauty

When at my vows she balks

I never loved you, Josephine

And this you may be slow to forget

But though I never loved you

I may come to love you yet

At the Brink of Time

Where infinity fades fuzzy

As an impressionist’s paintbrush

And time wrestles with gravity

To pull us off into the dusk

Our longings will be nothing

Nor paralysis of choice

But birds to catch unerring

Familiar fleets to be rejoined

We will sample secret pleasures

And journey where we never spoke

Carve bowsprits from fallen feathers

In between the brushstrokes

And I will hoard your laughter

Your warm, admiring eye

Before the canvas darkens

And at last I say goodbye

Parallel Outlet: 11

Sleep slower, and maybe you’ll notice curious things. Be wary of using words like “indefinitely” – this comes with a poem:

Baby, I’ll crawl to you

across the vast mirage of time and space

should misfortune befall time itself

or the laws of physics break

It has been nearly a year since I first read the post “sleep slowly”, and the four lines of that poem still come back to me.

Where I am From

When you buried my shovel

I was left idle, unmasked and thinking

There is no glitter in my well

No gold ‘mong damp and mossy dark

–

Most ropes would recoil

But these linen plaits graze water

Unfrayed and still and tranquil

As the maple roof and stonework above

–

Anglo, Roman-Catholic stays

Build ribcages smoother than granite

And flakes of mica without replace

Ingots for those who would clamber within

–

Some eyes stay bright and guileless through

Trials largely of one’s own making

Rope winding, coiling back to

Where I am from

*

Based on the prompt “Where I’m from”:

Writing to Freedom

Summoning Magic: A Gypsy’s Tale

Hotel Last Century

The oddest numbers

leave a pitfall’s exit space

a glass-rimmed hall of gondolas

where you float the other way

Gunshots skitter tiles

but I memorize your face

and from this stir of madness, darling

with you, I will escape