The Datura that Grows in My Backyard

Her seat is by the north
eastern windowpane – my
favourite, where the morning
bitter aftertaste and chill don't
hurt nearly as bad – and a glass of
milk balancing her weary head,
eyes already closing in.
It works for some, old
fables told me; I will have
lonely peace for a while.

I have penned twentysix pages
since then – below average, no sides
and no development whatsoever, my
hand really could use a muse, or
a Cassandra at least – yet still
there she is, fast asleep, dreaming
of me being in her dreams.
But rose coloured is all that matters
to me, so I don't want to know that.

The Harrow

I.

Curled upon a framed hill, by an oily shore
not to know, not to explore, the trapped
into their heirloom desperation, upon me
the depth creatures of loss scuttle furtive
digesting rust and oxide of centuries old.
I not understand the gravity of my actions, I,
I am thoroughly flayed by the fiery current,
channeller of that which is irretrievable;
harrow down the steel frame slopes
presaged by the small, heartless Morningstar
all across, to its scalding polar opposite.
I want nothing more than be not,
farewell to this brief nightmare
shaking and grinding at its own loss.

II.

This twilight saved in a red shoebox
just for me, how precious!
Precious, just for me. Only to me.
I do wish nightmares to never end,
as they are a sign that dreaming is still
working its harrow within me, that I can
birth both my elation and my depression;
there is a whole universe that does
not include beauty, yet can only be
understood as its eventual expression.

The Familiar - A Trattoria in Modena

Ludovico Muratori, you bastard
- five years of torture many have suffered
in your name, misused and abused -
both your inordinate historiographical
bacchanalia and your unwavering faith in accruing
the redundant find pleasurable abandon in the
museum of intellectual cramps and
Italian – too Italian – that
these four restaurant walls are.

I do not know if you might really speak
of buon gusto or perfect Italian poetry; after
all it took us centuries to reach spiritual
advancements such as too much cream in our
tortellini, too much grease in our ragu', too many
picky children for too desperate yet caring parents
seating by the corner under that ugly, ugly pink goat.

Still, you would surely cherish, though perhaps
not applaud, the good hands – rubberband laden -
in which you left your future children, evenly
divided between those who struggle to fill the plate,
and those who fight to empty it.

(Another quick one from Robin Behn's - was supposed to mimick a Ginsberg poem. Orly?)

Playing Tubes

Nodes cramp despondent,
then crumble in flecks as
the pressure falters

twin sickly
white brass tubes
hold no longer and mourn

quiver ever so slightly
- in the face of hypocrisy –
chisel my bones down
to the marrow

pale flesh
that, may it be blessed,
remains sensitive yet
well out of sight

Temple of Chaos

Nightly suspension turns
electrified, in that realm
of intangible undercurrents
- cloud enveloped arcoiris
and the summit barely
there, tangential to
deep space lightstream -
that is the Temple of Chaos.

Sudden becomes matter;
no presence but that of
the aspiring time-traveller is,
in that fractured formless
within the Temple of Chaos.

Fuse

I do not know why
writers loves the word
melt so much,
it rolls under the tongue
like so much overblown whale
carcass, cooking in the sun
of a sixteen year old
falling down on herself
for no reason
at all.

Anthology

Rather, a withered
exocorpses collection;
a more practical tool,
no urge for needles
and pins to hold
quiet what's still.