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In TransitAs I look up
To skies forecast grey
I see gulls
Turn left to clouds
And stay there
Indefinitely.

I watch from
The comfort of my clothing,
The blacks, greys and blues
Are getting heavy
On my shoulders
And pressed against
My spine.

Black make-up
Is flaking
Like skin cells
From my body,
I change the colours
To prevent it.

I'm meeting
My brother,
The son my mother never hand,
I wish to step outside myself
And hold him.

Change as CartographyChange as Cartography

My face is changing.
I feel it when pressing fingertips
Into my cheekbones
And where my bottom jaw
Meets the twice pierced ear.
It protrudes with clenched teeth –
In anger; in awe; in hiding tears in public.
The muscle comes and defines
The angle of my head when I tilt it.

The hair on my top lip darkens.
It gives the razor an excuse
To know my face.
The skin seems younger
Stretched across my skeleton,
It has now discovered my age:
I am twenty.
Each morning I shave
And note the growth.

I'm used to the stench
And the feel
Of disinfectant and bleach.
And bleach on my hands,
The scent clings hour

Dancing With SculptureDancing With Sculpture

Her last lover was a sculptor
And except for the feeling behind his pieces
He was as rigid as the scrap and steel
He crafted people from.
They broke up and divided their items
Before a planned engagement
And a honeymoon in Africa
Came to pass.

It has been a year since the split
And cleaning the blood stain off her jeans
As he gave a loose critique of each piece
Hung on the kitchen-diner wall.
There was no embarrassment as she stripped
And ran a sink of water.
As she applied stain remover he had seen
Her unconditional university offer in an open drawer.

With the look in his eye and the technique
Of hi

The MarshlandFrom the riverbank
he went and wept
with a woman in his arms.
She bled
staining the cocktail dress red
from two bullet wounds in her chest.

His foot swelled
from a fractured ankle;
the bear trap he stepped in
hid in the marshlands.
There were many more ahead.

And there they found them,
taking seven steps a minute.
They formed a half moon
with their weapons readied.
They each fired once
and left them,
putting their bloodied fronts together
in the water meadow.

Somewhere in ScandinaviaShe stands barefoot on broken glass
and precious stones,
wearing white cotton
with crumpled cuffs and collar.

Unbuttoned at the neck
and the leg,
her shirt billows with the wind,
making shapes of her silhouette
that exaggerates the size of the space
between her thighs.

Under a conifer tree
in a forest-full of them,
she feels the frost on bare breasts,
and in the black tangled length of her hair.

Her vast dark eyes are sunken
and stare in one direction.
She swore she saw a man there
standing in the freezing wind
that turns her pink lips pale.

CombustionI can smell the smoke from fires
that tease the sky outside,
in suburban gardens
that make up this city;
set around a cathedral
like the centre of a clock face.

From the inhalation
I have ash on my tongue
and on my teeth.
It may whiten the enamel
the way bicarbonate soda does.
My smile reads like a newspaper,
may I replace it daily
as I press the grey into my gums
and try to outwit my reflection.

I have gathered cuttings
from new growths;
the saplings are far too young burn.
They must know the flames.
I hear them scream
from beneath the bark –
it does not burn but blacken.

The blossom is browning
having fallen from the branch
beside

Our CatalystNo sunset comes close
To the bruises we saw formed
In the night sky
Above an angry city.
As we watched from the window
We discussed those colours
Like the way we talked
About each other's eyes.

We sent secret messages
In the form of our poetry,
A sort of statement and response
About roses and accidental affection
That was harmful with our timing.
The more open the direction,
The closer we became.

Until on a Friday in March
We made love for the first time.
You cut my chest and my shoulder blades
With your nails
Leaving my tattoos wounded.
You bit my neck harder than those before you
And made me forget
The situation we we

The Sun Was Setting SomewhereHow sweet her face was as I remembered it,
shadowed in the hood she fashioned
from the corner of the ethnic patterned blanket
she was wrapped in.
There was something of the native
about the way her hair
fell around her face.

Beneath the blanket she was naked,
I attempted to describe her sex –
the colour, shape, smell and taste.
Her arms were crossed across her chest.

I thought I could walk on the ceiling
from the position I was laid in.
I couldn’t; you wouldn't tell me otherwise
a I tried putting a foot in front of the other
and falling.

SedativeI dismiss your despondent lips
that I’ve seen smile
too few times.
I must shiver
when I’m with you;
there’s no warmth left in your face.

Inhaling the exhaust fumes
of retired buses
forced back into labour,
I feel myself slipping
into the unconsciousness
I cannot find at night.

I dream of you,
it does not surprise me
the way it did the first time—
I sit and think
while I try to eat my breakfast.

There’s a homeless man
standing over me when I wake.
He asks me for money,
I’ve still got my wallet
and give him what’s inside it.

A pigeon with broken toes passes,
you’d have wept.
I follow and f

The Willow CopseThe willows weep
And seem to fill
The pond that lies
Beneath them.
Your spirit once shared a similar tree,
But the one that you inhabited
Is more than likely charcoal
Somewhere beneath our feet.

I think of the resemblances
Between you:
The green of the leaves
I sometimes see in your eyes
After the blue and the grey
Of the night time sky
Has passed.

The willow grows
From an island
Like a piece of land stranded
In this public park,
Only the geese, coots and signets
Can reach it
And will defend their territory.

The wigwam children made from branches
Around the trunk of a tree
Is homely
Though they fear to sleep there.

The Inkwell ObservationThe Inkwell Observation

The broken branch is now a wood stump
Bitten at both ends by dogs,
It reminds him of rigor mortis
And how birds fall
When they die in flight.

He studies the harsh lines
With his paintbrush
And black Indian ink
That runs on the damp page;
Beneath his sleeve
Is the skull and cross bone tattoo
He did himself at age thirteen.

Crossed legs go numb
And as he unfolds himself
His easel tips against his knee,
The painting with it.
She sees this from her kitchen window
And goes to help him.

Salvaging his cartridge paper
From the ink filling
The cracks in the pavement
She smiles at his style

Grey Blazedear her fragile heart:

forget how the course of his words dance through the
soft-spoken language of your pretty veins. forget

how the spaces between his carved letters on your skin synchronizes with
the desperate rush of oxygen in your sunken lungs. how

the weight of sorrow determined by his liberties crush
what's left of your ever-present, ever-bearing backbone. the

times your teeth would pull apart liquid apologies, threatening to
drown oceans of craving tides tied with his forlorn desires. times

of tender heartbeats, of
broken breaths.

Candy Coloured MulletYou've had your hair coloured
like the boiled strawberry sweets
my mother bought me on Sundays,
that even as a boy I thought
looked like a barbershop pole.

What became of your brown curls?
The fringe is strict across your brow.
The length that dipped
inside your coffee cup,

those damp strands that stuck to your cheek
were sectioned on the salon floor.
The sometimes ponytail is left long
from each ear
to between your severe shoulder blades.

You're not wearing a blouse,
that, in blue and white, made you seem
like a medical professional.
You wear a poncho over bare flesh
with the side of your body displayed.

Cut By a Thumb NailTangerines in the streets
Found far from fruit stalls
By men who follow and find them
And introduce their sleeves.

The unemployed throw stones
At the job centre on weekdays
While squatters watch
And try to avoid the law.

How Soon She Found the SeaThe hooks in the tool shed
are made naked
by calloused hands
and fingertips dipped in ethanol.

From peroxide to ebony
by way of apology,
there's sense in change
where absence affirms affection.

Two swelling ships, her lips,
weigh anchor with port
to starboard bow –
between the sea and salt
and guilt on the rocks.

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More from ~Obsidian-Nightfall

Prince of InsectsMarco has a tattoo on his stomach,
a dragon captive
behind blonde hair
and stretched over excess.

Devon sits at the table,
not quite opposite him
drinking from an empty cup.
Her stern posture
is painful to maintain.
He kisses the side of her mouth,
from behind.

Victoria kneels on the sofa
ignoring the hot chocolate
he bought her.
She presses her forehead
against the window,
observing the moment
snowflakes become mundane.

They share a taxi
to flee the snowfall.
The driver takes them further
then their fare afforded.

They kept Marco
in an origami prison
with other paper men
for a crime he himself
wasn't sure he committed.

Tomorrow they

When The Floods ComeThe smell of rain on pavement;
like her thighs,
evaporating and inhaling—
cleansing him, but he needs
her nourishment.

The dreamscape changes.

The tongue is accustomed to this skin:
it is coffee, hazelnuts and cigarette ash
and the hair grows back.
She shaves daily.
Her smoothness he knew
and the taste is savoured.

The texture on the tongue is different,
tight bundled hair; innate play.
And the taste is more
white wine
then the smoke stained warmth
he knew.

She uses a staircase to kiss him,
rising up a tier
for each different part.
She hums the tune of some love song
she knew but misunderstood.
Her mouth was white wine
as he kn

Before SwineA lay of hands
on a dark brown truffle,
ripping the thing apart
with stiffened fingers.

Studded leather,
lined pink with gossamer;
stitched and twisted.

Fixed
with false nails
to pick at
and carve

before the swine
trample them underground.

Stratum or The Persuasion of SolitudeThe smell of nettles
and damp dead grass;
the bottom of the forest.
They claim nymphs
and destroy their pitiful
once nubile bodies.

They hang the hides
in trees.
The skin swings,
and eyeless faces
look out at the city.

And with the corpses
they put funnels
in their throats,
forcing earth into
their lungs.

TerraformingHe'd kneel and feel
her pulse bump
under the surface of her thigh
against the reddened flesh
of his ears.

He cracked the twisted coral
and left a hairline fracture.

This is the voice
of the girl
whose grit you grew
into a pearl.

And he knowingly stole the root
and had it buried,
to take the rain
from a newly discovered atmosphere.

Cocteau, the Name she Gave himHe said he'll tongue-fuck her,
but she'll twist and tear his muscle
until he calls out
for names he dare not utter.

She kept him cuffed
to the kitchen sink
where she fed him figs
from her mouth,
inlaid with the impression of her teeth.

There the beast sat
and sniffed the air;
the smell of sweat on pubic hair.

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Submitted: March 14, 2012
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Pierce my Kisses

by ~Obsidian-Nightfall, Mar 14, 2012, 3:50:50 AM
Literature / Poetry / Romantic / General / Free Verse

On a bed of nails
I try not to kiss you
While I feel my spine seeping
And the puncture wounds
Beneath me.

I comb my hair
To the right side of my face
So when I wake
It shields my eyes
Against the sunlight.

The colour of my wings
Are white,
A tone I would not associate
With myself,
Though I'm assured
It agrees with me
And so I accept it.

The nails come through
My chest
And like a fool
I kiss you.