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Children in the Soul GardenChildren in the Soul Garden

I'm tired of the constant roses
That germinate in my cheeks,
I wish to prune them
Back to roots.
How full they must've looked
As I took your spiritual virginity
During a process I didn't fully grasp.

It was then I realized
That we are more
Than human beings;
This life can't part us.
You saw me through an eye
Set above the two
You look through
And down the centuries
There I've stayed.

I struggled to believe
All that you've told me
Until I felt it myself and knew,
I saw through closed eyes
The way you held your hand
In front of my face
And put the other behind me –
A magnetic feeling bet
Smoke and ButterfliesSmoke and Butterflies

There is a butterfly struggling for life
On the windshield of a car.
Its wings are rich
But living isn't bargained for.

The man inside the Ford Mondeo
Inhales the smoke that snares,  
Fumes that take away
What he shared with her.

His wife sleeps,
Pressed against another man.
She's unaware her husband discovered
The love she shares without him.

But she's slept with lions far too long
And breathes the way
Her husband does.

There is a man somewhere
Parked under stars,
A hose pipe from his exhaust pipe
Is held by the window and the doorframe
And he inhales it.
NecrosisTracing the tracks
of tractor wheels,
the ruts lead me
to a cemetery.
I pass the grave stones
of those I’ve known.
I wish for their sakes
I had mourned.

Fairy-rings grow there,
the moss like black squares
on a chess board
against sun stained grass.
I think of this land
and wonder whether
if I dug deep enough
I’d find the bones
of the men who fought
and died there.

The trunks and branches
of trees I knew
are cut and piled.
I offer my own limbs,
but am not accepted.

The bramble bushes
in which
as a child I’d hide
when playing with my friends,
have been pruned and trimmed.
I’m told this aids growth,
I preferred it bef
ReverieReverie

I'm told by creators
That she is an android,
No more real
Then the dream that contains her.

Still I kiss
And attempt to reprogram
The binary of her mind.

Tenderly with her lips
And not her tongue
She touches me,
I know I've succeeded.

And so as I sleep
I see
Her hair
Falling from
A pony tail

And her pale skin is smooth
Needing my uglier palm
Against her rounded cheek.

I think of her eyes
And hope to return
But cannot
When I close mine.
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
ArtificeThe rain outside is audible,
A static crackling.
The grey sky parts like tidal paths
On rocks
For the blue to come through
Behind it.

The tress, it seems,
Have forgotten their breeds
Though they settle for rainmakers
To deceive their spectators,
Watching like gargoyles
From their windowsills.
A Kind of CommunicationA Kind of Communication

I'm still watching
The sun setting
From my window sill.
Lain in S shapes
With you,
My neck is rigid like stone roman arches,
I don't distract your sleeping.

I can smell spring coming
And see it in
The growing bulbs of daffodils
Rising from top soil
Of the mass graveyard
That is this country.

From disjointed sleeping
And nightmares where I scream
I am woken
And stay in reality,

My voice is different then
And not like the octaves
At night
In the window sill,
Talking until dawn.
Bruises from YouthBruises from Youth

I will exchange these tattoos for bruises
And collect the set of raspberry coloured wounds
That travel down from flesh to bone.
I know what I must do
To make them stay
In the hotel of my skin.

At six ft three I feel small
Like two children
Standing on the other's shoulders,
Wearing a trench coat
To disguise their youth.
A boot polish beard convinces some,
I've not yet fully figured out the trick.
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
CoreShe rubs a red apple
against her thigh;
flesh on flesh,
the rest she hides.

Her white shirts,
sizes six through nine,
hang like ghosts
on the curtain rail
and filter the street lights outside.
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
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
BulimiaBulimia

Arms wrap around
White ceramic
Curved like the inverse of a spoon.
Bleach and piss,
A picture of two lovers,
Something less than this.

Fingers search my mouth
And throat
And find the stench
Of cheap meals
And expensive cigarettes.

Heave –
Lungs deflate
And I cry
Onto the lenses
Of my glasses.

Up comes the meal
I have just prepared
Into the hole
Where all shit goes.
I try to crawl
Inside it.
Lost in NeverlandLost in Neverland

Children dress in their parents clothing
And in their naivety
They imagine maturity, precipitating it.
I have played dress-up
In some strangers clothing
And am so far gone
I have forgotten
Who I was before it.

I am imitating Peter Pan
In my own warped Never Neverland.
The lost boys wear my face,
I see myself as I make sure
I murder each of them.
As they reach maturity
They attempt to put
Their daggers in my belly,
I must cut them loose.
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Lambs to SlaughterLambs to Slaughter

Lost lambs, their fleeces sheared,
Are taken in carts
Drawn by Land Rovers and vans
To slaughter.
I save one
But could not help the others.

I take her home
And feed grass from my garden.
War PaintA bonfire burns winter;
the man standing
and stoking the flames
drinks tea from a thermos.

The smoke is sweet
and toxic in equal amounts.
A woman watches
from her kitchen window,
naming the shapes she sees.

In the morning
the lost boys
paint their faces
with the fire pit
and battle
the men who burnt
their lost homes down.
Under Organic MatterA mould of my face was taken,
the hollow inverse of my muscle structure
is pushed outward by bone.

I have in my hands
my face in clay,
forever nineteen,
a death mask for a body
not yet ready to die.

I must preserve each of my body parts,
so I can stay this way
and age beneath
the hard plaster cast,
where none shall see
time’s ticking work.
Carpal BoneI recall nights
Where you would bite my wrists,
Clamp the soft thin skin
Between your teeth.
I enjoyed this
And often asked
To leave a mark there
As I came inside you.

I wear bargain bracelets
On the body part
I think often as my best,
The tendons like string
Beneath scarred skin
Remind me
Of bruises, burns and cuts
From days that have since passed.

Like Victorian women
Lifting cage skirts, frocks and petticoats
To show a pale ankle
To pinch and steal
The loins before the hearts
Of men,
I pull back my jacket
And shirt sleeves
To show the bone
And the hair and the skin there.
PredationThe scorpion has stung me again.
The arachnid slipped
Into my sheets as I slept,
Sensing my exposed skin
And used its malicious tail
To sting and poison me.

The beast rose up from denim,
A style which has been seen
On catwalks in London,
Paris and America,
Though I saw it in a lecture theatre
In the West Midlands of England.

I'm found at knife point,
My scalp taken from me,
The native beat me in battle.
My pelt is not fit for sale
And so finds home on your head,
For you seem to have taken
The fringe I abandoned
And search for again
In time.
A Winters Night in SpringWe listened to Cat Stevens
and wondered
what our names would be
If we changed them:
you chose Jennifer
and I took Ben.

Sitting in the window sill
we watched the shadows moving,
and not the objects
that cast them.

We extinguished the incense sticks
when realising
that wood smoke
and the breeze
was all that was needed.

With a street light as chandeliers
and the traffic
and territorial calls of animals
as music,
we waltzed
to Nights In White Satin.

Featured in Groups:

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December 28, 2012
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The Marshland

:iconobsidian-nightfall:

From 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.
:iconobsidian-nightfall:
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Copyright © Dominic Cuthbert. All rights reserved.
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:iconmichel-le-fou:
Critique by ~Michel-le-fou Dec 28, 2012, 10:30:21 PM
I agree with opinions here. Very haunting and somber. It almost jerked tears. You joined me due to skill and you never disappointed me, even here. Brevity can be a major advantage, when detail is either hard or contrary to our intention. Three stanzas in narratives are sufficient, lately. Each of your stanzas was well-conceived and written. It might spoil the effect to write longer.
Description was adequate by circumstance. I have previously advised about setting, and the writer was thoughtful in response. That is ever our choice.
Mood as mentioned came through like a beacon. You are on the road to professionalism.
What do you think?
Fair Unfair
The Artist thought this was FAIR
3 out of 3 deviants thought this was fair.
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:iconwinterkate:
~winterkate Jan 11, 2013  Student Writer
This really reminded me of one of Rimbaud's pieces about a dead soldier.

(If you know Rimbaud, you'll understand the high compliment that is.)
Reply
:iconobsidian-nightfall:
~Obsidian-Nightfall Jan 30, 2013  Student Writer
That's quite a comparison, I'm humbled you think so, thank you.
Reply
:iconwinterkate:
~winterkate Feb 1, 2013  Student Writer
You're really welcome :)
Reply
:iconmeinesehnsucht:
~MeineSehnsucht Dec 31, 2012   Writer
Fine stuff again.
Reply
:iconobsidian-nightfall:
~Obsidian-Nightfall Jan 30, 2013  Student Writer
I appreciate you saying so.
Reply
:iconmeinesehnsucht:
~MeineSehnsucht Feb 1, 2013   Writer
I appreciate it that you appreciate it.
Reply
:iconlombregrise:
*lombregrise Dec 29, 2012  Professional Writer
TAG! you've been tweeted by the fortress ! [link]

:iconnotreforteressebrule:
Reply
:iconobsidian-nightfall:
~Obsidian-Nightfall Dec 30, 2012  Student Writer
Thanks very much.
Reply
:iconsmokedragon:
~smokedragon Dec 29, 2012
Desperation, grief and futility. Nicely put together
Reply
:iconobsidian-nightfall:
~Obsidian-Nightfall Jan 30, 2013  Student Writer
Thank you very much :)
Reply
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