Goodnight Indigo

The Mother

2012-02-10T13:40:00.000-08:00

They havedragged me here by a cord.

The mirrortoday speaks a Classical tongue.

I guess youcould say I am Sisyphus now

crackingskull against stone,

entirely ata loss. I am done with gradients.

My bodycurls into a boulder,

round andsmooth as a gods’-belly

pregnantwith storms. Voices

become mythunder.

One forkedvein bright at the temple,

robbed of myheel-skin.

Who hearsme?

I hear them.

They are notquestions,

these damppatches twinkling

beneath myhair, the perspiring

buckle offemurs. Nor answers,

I have notime for those;

no mouthcapable

ofcontaining such dangerous things

behind myjail-tight teeth.

Who wouldhave the nerve to say

this mouthis wanted for a kiss?

My lipspressed to my fingers.

A laugh,loose from their little Greek throats.

Maybe I amMedea.

Is that whatthey say?

M-E-D-E-A.

Babyfaced , littlehands stuck

to my hips, allred sticky fingers

and revenge.My cold sleeping babies.

My sad, sadblade

all for yourhandsome black heart

cracking intwo little halves.

But god, whotells me

thesewhispering myths,

these mouthsgaping wide in the dark?

The Other Lovers

2012-01-25T01:46:00.000-08:00

That I wasnot the last one lost

in a nudeentanglement of arms, hands, skin

since ourvery first goodbye howlings,

so I make mywretched goodnight to you,

handsdripping with the dark

she foundyou in alone.

We called itsimply an interval.

The angelshave packed their white cases

and left, sickto their silver hearts.

If I couldsnatch their gauzy skirts

I could followthem into sunlight,

or becomethe thin hostage

who slipslike a minnow through cage-bars.

A ghostperhaps. Only then I could steal

away forever,or pop back to haunt you

should hername by chance spring

like bitter grass when I dress, chalky-spined,

thin-lippedin an instant. Pivoting clean

on my heel, a half-dressed angel of hell

imagining her sleek little waist

tremble likerain in your hands.

Her slimlegs stealing up the staircase.

But you wantto know

all abouthim, don’t you?
My man in his cold brownshoes,
conch-mouth and hair thickas seafoam.
The question drips offyour lips,
killing you. Ask me.

Dynamite.Sang songs late at night

until the wallsunpeeled to mortar,

ourbrick-smiles becoming an entire house

where youpounded your heart at her door.

His body andhers in the semi-gloom, beautiful,

their historical limbs in cages.

Violentkisses and peach-bruised hearts.

We wish we’dnever asked.

From Today

2012-01-24T15:35:00.000-08:00

I ask youpolitely, from today

that wehave never met. Never have we

botheredourselves with hands

rakedthrough bed-hair in whitish squares

of morning, nor troubled ourselves

with dampmouths bursting on cheeks,

never pulledthe petal of my ear

between yourlittle teeth, nor left perfumed words

on awindowsill

in Christmas-redenvelopes.

Forget theconversations in afternoon beds

until thewall paint purpled and bruised.

From today,this did not happen.

Better nowto pass the years like cool strangers

than to cup my elbow in parties,

snug as anut, warm breath dampening russet curls

where my lily-stem neck leans palely

from that reddress that you loved.

Please donot remember how these red silks

pooled on yourcarpet. I must ask you not to drop my name

in roomfulsof friends who speak of us in halves,

for the noun not to break from your slim, bad lips

should youcatch my eye in traffic,

hunchedlike an owl in the front seat,

trying toforget. Expert.

And when youshrug off your jacket at ten-past six,

peel offyour shoes, stumble into

a masculinelounge, you must not remember

the carpeterupting all over your back

or mychina-still smile from a cushion.

From today, we did not happen.

Blue Jays

2012-01-20T13:46:00.000-08:00

They remindme of you, these mad jays,

their shakingcobalt hearts;
just like your sly littleeyes, or the sweet
poison berries caught intheir small throats.
They are you,

chokingyourself in the dark,

sooner deadthan speaking.

My questionshurled at your bad head.

I want towring it clean, twist it
to a glitteringtip,

your dirty arrowhead tongue.

It occurs tome, stretched out on the garden lawn,

opening out fromthe roses,

perhaps breakingthe bulb of my brain:

an idea, theoddest of headaches.

Our loudskulls. Your stuck mouth.

I could useyour knife.

I could pryit cold from your hand

as you hunchthere, furious in your aviary,

clawing unsung lyrics onto walls.

I creep onall fours, hoping to see you
perhaps flingyourself into mute lunacy,
skull hatching clean as an egg.

But bristling, youare not the sort

to drop yourknife until you’ve pared the world

to a rind ofblue-green, persisting

in your jacketof ice, the one

with the buttons like ebony beaks.

Your wildeye never looked so beautiful.

But thatstubborn tongue.

Thattrembling blade.

Gravity

2012-01-13T01:02:00.000-08:00

I love thekind of arguments

that take upentire evenings, leave us

gnawing themoon to a crescent,

our twodifferent mouths

from twodifferent windows. Clocks nibble

white starsyour side of town, and I imagine

your malehands drawing the blinds,

outraged athow I have caused an eclipse

in a matter ofcrow-faced hours.

Reap them,bury them under a harvest moon,

my words to youspringing out from the hallway carpet,

two softknees on the doormat, one hand

wrapped in a phone-cord.

I want youto listen carefully,

unbend yourneck like a heron.

Lift your mouthfrom the riverbed;

there youwill not find astrology

or fish likesilver guns.

We will notlead into a great grey sea,

or ever becomea pale ocean. For years now,

a coldchemistry of stars have smoked themselves

free ofmonoxide skies, stolen the ball of the moon,

left tidesrock themselves, inconsolable.

They are youand I in our night-wars,

salt-woundswashed in riverbeds,

smooth asotters in a dark

we couldn’tstand.

At the loss ofa moon,

the ache of twoswan-necks unwinding.

For Callum

2012-01-10T00:06:00.001-08:00

Your two sockedfeet, carpet-gnawed,

stump-toesten pink mysteries

you found inyour shoes last week,

liftingyourself from two rolled knees

to becomeking of the house,

hair asbright as a kumquat.

Two yearsago, to the tune of brass carols,

softmilk-breath bowled in my hand,

a tinyintruder with blueberry eyes

strained hisbag-lungs and shocked me,

facecrumpled like a nut.

Once, when Icould face you, I crept

up to yourwhite basket, let a kiss

cool on yourhand.

I kiss themagain, your plum-fists,

banging thegates to the stairs

that becomeyour own landscape,

a householdKilimanjaro

to tackleafter breakfast. I spy

that hair ofyours, giving your curtained

refuge away,face glimpsing from

lemon-paledrapes

to raiseyourself up to the window.

One footstikes first, then

the otherone, quick, podgy as pigs;

apricot-mouthsucking bubbles on glass,

your moon-hands squashing the sun.

Nightshade

2012-01-08T00:56:00.000-08:00

Tentative,like an oyster thinly yawning,

over-consciousof its rose-pearled throat,

I have takento creating entire nights,

conversations,dream-stems veined

between chlorophyllheads, bound so tight

I couldalmost become a bee-girl,

put myentire weight between us

to see if youwould stir.

Only you don’tsee me anymore

or have lostinterest in my pink mouth,

jammed bythe hour to music.

Every nightI go to sleep

where walls stammer their midnight refrains,

only in thedark they are nightshades

when I wishthem all goodnight.

God, eventhey have a mauve heartbeat.

You’ve trulyoutdone yourself this time

proud mute,smiling around a petalled bit

in appallingsilence, leaving me on my side

in the dark,chewing lyrics, sucking meanings

clean out of sung words.

I supposethis is what they mean

to bedeserted, scrabbling the earth

in themiddle of the night should the worms decide

to becomeyour pink tongue, eyeless mediums

stealing your voice from a cracked bud.

Being athief, this would thrill you,

snapping offpart of my arm

to bury insome other garden.

My fist tapedclosed in a flowerbed.

But beforeyou leave, before goodnight,

when themusic stops and all we hear

are madbat-throats, sly owls,

we could speakin the language of flowers,

push intoyour empty fingers

a poisonbouquet to remember me by

when all theworld chokes lilac.

Ana and I

2012-01-02T01:28:00.000-08:00

Ana and I,

we’re deadlyin love.

Not the sortof love

that bringsyou brioche on a Sunday morning

or fatcarnations in the fist, a card

with fiveplump kisses. She would wipe that sick butter

clean off mylips, sooner purr at me

to die,empty-mouthed, than have me sit there

wasting mymornings on pastry.

Every morning, she has me workmy bird-legs
to a sprint on thewaste-away dregs of dawn.

Under streetlamps, I vanish.
A thrill.

She isalways with me, her concave features
staining the back of clean spoons
or smashing her fists at mirrors, becoming
the Führer-girl, the Queen ofHearts;
only hers won’t stop thumping,

not even betweenmy two red fists

when shepalmed it off for my own.

Remarkable, thechambers' crimson pockets,

closedpoppy-lips, their pumping mandibles

matching herown as she, as we

chew onsweet nothings at breakfast, feel

our wayquietly into two lean spines,

each becoming the ‘I’ that fell clean from our language.

Our two blue hands, stuffing dead toast
into plant-pots. In bathtubs

we float like dead oak leaves.
She, happier when weightless.

Ana and I

will beperfect. Our shoulders will slip

out ofwatery silks, backs like commas,

creamy bean-headscurved

from the cutof peach dresses, collars

ringed withcrystal and bone,

our own hard sculptures, a double artwork

of stunninganatomy.
Ana, dear Ana,

I gave outyour number to strangers

instethoscopes, women with clipboards

who asked mehow we felt. Ana,

I lied, Ilied for you

and avoidedtheir cobwebs of tubes

and highbeds, golden egg-clouds

on burnt bread, vile milks, sick beans

that boilback up my throat.

We go back home to my head.

On two deadfeet, with two dull eyes,

inbleach-soaked cubicles,

I am nothing,
nobody,

but you.

Solstice

2011-11-25T06:08:00.001-08:00

When oneshattered year faints on my bed,

I find yourcold hands in the dark

where guilt hugsme in its thick arms,

until I am acloth-doll, shock of my head

a whitishbulb sparking the pillow.

You don’tnotice the poppies,

their facesred at the bedside, or the night

shut itsblue eye all around us.

All overagain: Us. Now the clock

stuttersghost-hands back to the tune

of two namesleft cold

in theirboots, ankle-deep

in brownleaves and small suicides

waiting tohappen. We tear at each other

likenotebooks, slough off our jackets,

become bare-limbedbirches, a dead apple

for eachmonth passed between us

without aword.

I caught youonce under salt-stars, kissing

a cigarette onthe beach, hating you

and the blueair wisping cool ‘O’s in your mouth.

All thebright fires of November

burnedheart-shaped holes in your head

and I knowyou think of them now

in the anxiouscircumference of your mind.

This year youwouldn’t hold me,

or didn’tknow me anymore

and even thesea crumpled its long blue brow

when I lostmy gunpowder voice.

How quicklyminds can change

theirseasons. How bright their electric cells

can blowthemselves out

when thepressure’s on, and old love

collides inpub doorways, finds

its blind wayback to bed. Two long spines

becomenumerals, in a world

shrunk downto four quick lungs

and barefootsummer delusions.

Morning Coffee

2011-11-05T15:40:00.000-07:00

Reflected upon it, our story plays out

like a tale thrown across a curled page.

Its smooth curves of china transform our shapes

into wild-armed ravings of ghosts;

me, slippered and absurd with my hair left loose

and bright as a bowl of lemons,

and you, neck grizzled and eyes flat moons,

clamping your palms to your ears.

The caffeine fumes rise from our heads.

It sits there each morning, your white china cup,

as you throw back my words through curling smoke,

your pink thumbs tense little prawns.

Your cigarette glows in its saucer.

Another coffee if you would please,

darling.

You leave before taking a sip.

I watch after the swinging back door,

blood turning cold as your coffee.

I have taken your cup to the sink

where I wash its old throat like religion,

hook my finger through handled bone;

clean bubbles erupting like pearls.

Your fingerprints smear to nothing.

Gleaming and tiny, placed back on the wood,

I carry it close--

my polished whole heart on a saucer.

Twice now you have squeezed it tight

and thumped it down hard on the wood,

yet no chips cut through its bone-skin,

more stubborn, more real than a tooth.

Pumpkin

2011-11-01T11:02:00.000-07:00

I carry it like a fat child in my arms:
my bright pumpkin. The stars swing
their strange eyes upon us,
my own turned against grey rain.
Under the knotted light of streetlamps,
I feel I have stolen
somebody’s head.

A great bright moon upon the table,
I lift my knife with marvellous calm
and carve, steady-handed, the damp hiss
of letters all slid out like mud, the one
rude syllable of your name. I have no time
for cartoon faces, my smooth blade sucking
clean letters. Fiction.
No lunatic smile, no soft teeth, only one
webbed line of alphabet ghosts.
Sweet earthy breath. Deadly orange.
Seeds on my hands like follicles.
Here is the skull of a make-believe man;
head tumbled clean from his shoulders.

This is the part where my tiny flame
sweats hollowed flesh, this huge
warm crown my trophy.
I set it at the window:
a bloodless heart, faceless name.
I am the lipsticked Dorothy,
cheek white-flattened on glass,
my hand on a good friend’s skull.

In the mizzling streets, bag-swinging
children craft brick roads
between mouthfuls of toffee.
They do not notice my flowering shadow,
this pumpkin-moon blooming on walls.
Not one of them shocked by the devilish light
of your name burning white in the mirror.

En Suite

2011-10-27T15:52:00.000-07:00

You have taken to bathing at odd times of the night.
Pearls floating on your collarbones,
salmon-coloured stars,
you call this your Sunday best,
white moths spinning at the windows.
Dripping before the mirror,
becoming art.

Every night you become the slim nude
unstitching herself of the bathwater
on two glossed legs.
Each candle light blooming gold
along your wingless spine.

Tonight, the bathroom unoccupied,
the moon’s soapy eye at my window.
Like habit, you haunt me,
bath-wrinkled and serious,
shuddering in a damp towel.
Your talcum imprint snowed onto my skin.

Birthday

2011-08-04T23:58:00.000-07:00

This year,
I sit on your side of the bed,
not having the heart to remove your pillow
stuffed with your talk.
Champagne bottle gagged with a cork.
July hurls light at the window,
shadows dropping like silks to the floor
and the bedroom door
where months have pooled.
A year where they chained up the sun.
Slim figure of one.

This year,
I will not send clowns to your doorstep.
I will not be at the table
flapping your card like a wing,
trying to sing,
taking champagne to the garden, watching stars
unstitch like a waterfall,
kissing you full on the lips.
Your hands on my hips.

This year, I shall pour myself a drink at midnight
and drink to you all the same.
You’ve forgotten my name.

This year,
I abandon my phone at midnight,
fling your pillow to the floor.
Scratch your name off the door.
I am not the name rising in candle-smoke,
the balloon rising up from your hand.
I understand.
This year, I will drink to you until
the champagne and cider renders me ill.
And maybe next year,
I will drink to you still.

Sylvia

2011-07-17T02:14:00.000-07:00

Last night in my sleep
I tried to die.
It was nothing spectacular.
There were no white toes
mashing bathroom taps, no naked legs
like slim lilies
ascending from the deep.
There is no drowned girl here to mark,
please take back your tulips
and your letters to my mother.

Not the fantasy writhing on its back
in the boring eternity of my mind.
I never wanted that.
I have already done the spray of pills
and stared at the moon
with my drug-shattered face. That’s when they took
their bright manic fires,
wired me like a small monkey, and I swear Daddy
was at the door then
when they burned all along my nerves.
I stopped renting my skull out to strangers
and locked myself in there for good.

Last night I dreamed I tried to die.
This morning the bathtub is gleaming.
This was not the story I create
in the morning, suds clotting my wrists
like some dangerous pearls
on a deadwoman,
an image I relish
of you, hooked over the bathtub,
unthreading my hair from the plughole
and shaking on your two knees.
Put your sentiments away,
no one asked for them.
I will remember my sleep-soaked pillows,
and drift to the kitchen
with marvellous calm. I remember to seal up the doors
and smile through the music of gases.
I think perhaps I will leave you a note.

Straightjacketed

2011-03-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

The danger of old photographs
can fold a person to their knees, their back
a snapped figure of one.
The shrinking of lives into tissues,
rose thorns curled in a Valentine’s palm.
I imagine what would happen if you sent me a portrait
of yourself, as you are now.

It would look something like this.
An image of you as a lunatic,
your head wild and whole as a planet;
writing letters to yourself on a gleaming desk
where you gnaw on splintered wood.
Kiss me, you’d say
through a streaming red mouth.
Your wide eyes spinning like coins.

Gaze swung upon the window-bars,
the sunlight on the wall like slit wounds.
Straightjacketed, you are picturing keys
slid into locks, the blinding unchained moon.

The Charmer

2011-02-20T16:16:00.001-08:00

I return from a walk in your orchard again,
mouth smeared with seeds of the fruits I can’t touch.
This kiss clings to the peel of my mouth
as your dark notes cling to a stave,
you, viper knotted on the rug, head hung like a tulip
and utterly charmed. You know the tune.
My fingertips free this angle of notes
as a vile flower opens its face.

The same mistakes blossom from branches;
grass pesters the arch of my foot.
Flat-backed in sleep, I turn mad
in this land you sail from as though fleeing God,
the skin you have shed now my glittering ghost.
The venomous stars have caught us out,
loosening from their black vertebrae
to drop calm as apples to earth.

You would have seen too, had you not been so hell-bent
on tracing the slice of my waist,
or loosening my tangled pulse with your nails ;
my eyes turned upwards and hair astray
as the moon swings her white eye upon us.
In that sinning light, your serpent’s smile
and its fangs announcing my fall.

The Art of Drowning

2010-11-25T10:41:00.000-08:00

I don't breathe underwater.
Bubbles loaf above me, the clear rise of globes,
sand blistering with the odd forms
of my own two feet.
I do not kick out.

Like a hellish broken monument,
I see pieces of us in a dive to the bottom,
dates written out on marble
in the deep.
You haven't forgotten.

I thought I saw you once
with your arms blooming with seaweed,
salt-drunk, with a fish-eye gaze at Cypris
on her rock, that time you stole an oyster
from her hand.
You'd given it to me, cold pearl on a
shell-tongue, telling me you meant it
this time.
The ball of my eye is that rolling pearl;
ribs closing these lungs like a clam.

My new short story website...

2010-11-19T00:48:00.000-08:00

Please take a look if you have the time :)

www.clockssetbackwards.blogspot.com

Thoughts of Love on Dirty Carpets

2009-09-23T01:38:00.000-07:00

I was sitting on the bed,
limp spine crushed into the pillows
thinking of butterflies spluttering at the window
to reach a dusty sun
and how I would never open that window.

I hadn't thought much for the one
died alone on the carpet,
a disgrace. How the wings had faded
like old watercolour when it drowned in light
and dust asked for silence,
a burial unnoticed.

I remember how I grazed myself
with thoughts of love on dirty carpets
and how statues give in to the weather,
glorious in sunlight until their faces are lost.
They are like you,
like us.

And moments later, how you stood there,
awkward, face smeared with a truth you couldn't stand.
Sick with honesty and eager to leave,
how I turned over until the door clicked
and how I swore I wouldn't miss you.
How my lies tasted odd, like metal.

Superman

2009-04-30T03:02:00.000-07:00

The smoke rings slink from your razor-teeth,
lean frame propped at the elbows.
Leather jacket, iron-eyes,
untouchable.
Cigarette slouched on the lips.
Your fingers lust the curves of a bottle,
the hard stuff no doubt;
Mr Couldn't-Care-Less doesn't let me down tonight,
slack-shouldered and cool as glass.

The moon wanes itself to the coin
you spin against the streetlamp, head cocked,
eyes set, cheekbones smeared with the dirtiest of light.
What’s a pretty girl like you doing here?
The cigarette jerks upon your laughter,
ash peppering the creases in your jeans.
Its quick pulse of amber
before collapsing into dust.

Curious eyes pass your body like roaches,
that crosshatch of sinew that shades your skin.
You catch me looking and arch your back,
muscles erupting like knuckles,
drunk with the sound of your own dark voice.
I draw in your crooked nose,
sexy jaw, tune into the coarse edge of your voice
and uproot your language-armour.
You with the brutal adjectives,
swaggering verbs, shallow mind.
Is this everything you wanted?

Deadbeat, hard-cased
little boy.