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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 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.

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.

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

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.

IngressThe lustre of exposed low wattage bulbs
misleads a moth into the bathroom,
where dampened wings would keep it
moving in circles on the off-white wall.
The repetition of the circumference
opens the brickwork to the sky.

A truck driver pulls into a service station
after waiting for the mileage to outdo the clock.
While washing his hands
he kills the moth with his thumb,
and with his fist is pulled through;
a feeling similar to the sensation described
in the one book he’s read.

It was always area codes he remembered
that without the sister digits
are worthless, as much use
as the telephone box he stands in.
He has a road map
but not fo

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.

Deception in RedHandling the blackened red pepper
that so resembled
a human heart in her hands,
she peeled the skin
and left it sweating in the sink.

With her fingertips pink
from the stolen pigment
she put printed swirls
on the wood laminate.

And there she'll dare the sunset
the same shade she's accustomed to.

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

Track NineWe formed a sort of chapel
Where dawned my spiritual epiphany.
Each kiss was given and received
Under the guise of an inhuman feeling
That stood outside morality.
It didn't.

And that awakening
Predicted the assembly of our bodies.
No longer would the hungry go unfed.

We were each a thief,
Stealing something nameless.
You took off your trousers
And told me where to put my fingers.

I didn't think about your boyfriend
While I was inside you,
Maybe I should have
But neither did you.

I sat on the curb outside his house
While you waited inside for him to arrive
To do what we'd discussed in bed,
After we heard our present

With her HandI have always thought less of the leech
For needing another's life force
To sustain itself.
I have corrected this assumption.
I need her lips on my forehead
And her hand in mine
To keep depression more of a conversation topic
When we are together.

Feeling sleepless is bearable
If she's there to share my bed with.
It's like thinking, except there's responses.
That state is a kind of conduit;
Sex then is communication,
A heightened sense where we confess
Ourselves to one another.

As she lays on hands
My mind and spirit feel the benefit also.

AuctionThere's dead men photographed
Underneath the hammer

and Christmas cards from a husband
to his wife
before the scandel
that destroyed his career first.

And some schoolyard artefact
before her blonde locks
were made famous
and she lost her virginity
in the media
and then her bedroom.

So Spaceman SleepThe spaceman died on soil
of the planet he was born on
and not in endless space,
open with stars and detritus.

His words were a constant
on promotional posters
and part of the general memory;
a consensus after our boys
were Earth bound again.

The world watched him walking
as he claimed that satellite for us.

JacobThe roundabout at midnight
under Octobers first moon,
taxis take the turning
and leave their fare on the pavement.

Jacob's fists are bleeding,
he tied a neckerchief around each.
There’s not a taxi that’ll take
a bruised or bottled man.

He takes the night bus to A and E.
There he’ll find weak-kneed strangers
turning bandaged dressings to Japanese flags.
He’s made to wait ‘til morning.

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.

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Lights and the CityThe eyes of she I saw in dreams
Look to Parisian skies.
She can see that sight in her own city
So goes and finds a restaurant.
The neon signs remind her of home,
The people, though, do not.

I think of her in France,
Wondering if it would be so different
Had we had gone together.
We cheat on one another
As a stag and doe,
There are gunshots at our heels.

Mornings First BussesMornings First Busses

Outside,
Early morning warning
In my breath visible
Although I do not smoke.

From near empty busses
Night workers leave,
Caffeinated eyes
Shielded from the sun
To breakfast, sleep and family.

The cold is not unpleasant
In my lungs
And on my skin
Though I discover when inside
All rooms are waiting rooms.

Autumn To EndangerAutumn To Endanger

The leaves are browning,
Urban archways fall,
Duel carriageways are without cover
From the branches overhead.

Foliage lies
(Between leaves
And cats eyes blinking)
As bad upholstered carpets.

In September belated sunshine comes,
Stealing the mornings chill
And the fog at dawn.
Roots bulge but cannot drink,
There is no rain left to fall.

Her Unspoken LectureAs she read me poetry
I watched her lips speaking
More to the volume
Than to me.

It was a poem
Whose author has been
So debated through the years
That the meaning has lost relevance,
It only speaks through
What it means to the two of us.

And in ignoring the annotations
We feel something explicit,
Though unspoken
In the shortness of your hair
And the colours of your dress.

From the Window SillFrom the Window Sill

Nests and berries abandoned in trees,
Birds flee the mouths of beasts.
Rain falls discolouring
Tree trunks and the brick work
And forms faces in the concrete.

Leaves are in fluid motion,
Dropping water to the floor
From an overcast sky
And under a thicket
Upon a shed roof
A black cat sleeps
With her eyes wide open.

A fox screams and leaves,
Stomach and hunger in conversation.
Above turpentine there are no scents.

SamhainSamhain

(October 31st)
It is All Hallows Eve,
A night when folklore and history
No longer matter
In modern Britain,
Celtic origins and Samhain
Are unimportant
When eating apples and sweets.

Jack O' Lanterns with flaming grins
At one time remembering
Souls in purgatory,
With bound legs buried
And stones inside their mouths
To prevent return as revenants
To the world we call our own.

In the autumn dark
Come lost things,
Legend thrives on belief
And no more do we see.

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Somewhere in Scandinavia

by ~Obsidian-Nightfall, Dec 11, 2012, 11:53:25 AM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

She 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.

Somewhere in Scandinaviaby ~Obsidian-Nightfall

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

©2012-2013 ~Obsidian-Nightfall

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*Betterthanempty Mar 5, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Love the second stanza. It's very strong imagery!

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~Obsidian-Nightfall Apr 20, 2013 Student Writer

Thank you very much.

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Mood: Love

*TheDarkenedBride Dec 15, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

winter more than any other season is a time for fairy-tales

beautiful work!

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~Obsidian-Nightfall Jan 30, 2013 Student Writer

It is indeed. Thanks very much.

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*TheDarkenedBride Feb 2, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

anytime

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~smokedragon Dec 13, 2012

I love those last three lines. Very haunting!

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~Obsidian-Nightfall Jan 30, 2013 Student Writer

I'm glad you do, thanks very much for saying so.

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~smokedragon Feb 3, 2013

You're welcome!

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*lombregrise Dec 13, 2012 Professional Writer

invité ici /feat here : [link]

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~MeineSehnsucht Dec 12, 2012 Writer

Sweet.

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