Thursday 30 August 2012

The Queen's Pawn


A whirlwind romance
Bourne of tumultuous
Connections and concoctions
New lovers,
Old friends.

The first pawn was
Hesitant, one square,
Black to white – hopeful
Confirmation!
The same pawn
Soon found his queen

Pokerfaced beginnings,
Flushed at discovery,
The two join hands together,
Their own full house,
Mr and Mrs Usher.

She the queen
leads the charge;
towards life, love,
and cliché.
Across boards of black and white
divisions designed to be broken
the grass appeared not greener, 
but sickly to him.
She, ta'en from his embrace;
the game his true love,
a cruel mistress indeed.

Lovers parted;
Star-cross’d;
In a world filled with vipers
And faulty elevators.
One roll of the dice away
From bliss, completion,
And togetherness
But for now
The levels, rows, columns,
Group the heroes
With the villains
Whittling away
The false pretences
Rhetoric, a simple
“Do you have a…”

Until one remains, victorious
The twentieth question,
The twentieth year,
Brings them back together
And once again, the ones
around them feel the

whirlwind romance,
straddling worlds,
boards and bets of risk;
colours clashing and merging
allegiances broken
ill repaired,
fragmented house
no longer a home to those
who rest within the mausoleum doors

Old lovers,
New friends.

Bathroom Philosophy

The next time we meet, friend;
I’ll apologize for all the things I’ve done
The agony, the angst, my selfish being
I’ll do my best to admit my flaws;
And you’ll smile and point out more


But the heart of the issue
“Where lies the blame?”
My enemies?
My friends...

Even myself...

But was I every truly

Even close to perfect?

We meet again, friend,
And just like I promised,
As I apologize for everything

You interrupt
with confrontations of your own
the same words, lips, sounds...


A smooth surface separates us,
My only friend from me
You, the one I trust,
The one who knows me better than I know myself,
Lives in another world
of opposites and fleeting glances
And corrected imprfections imperfections


These are the tangled thoughts
of the bathroom philosophy
beliefs formed under a steady stream
of steamy criticism and 
passion-scented dispute
Only to be forgotten to the world
As I drip
slowly, slowly,
back to reality

And away from the bathroom philosophy.



Monday 27 August 2012

The Fourteenth

every second; I deny
minutes, hours; I deny
is it this time of year again?
more false statements than
New Years' Eve in
nineteen ninety nine
and i ask how

could these fools
of green, copper, and gold,
ever be exchanged for a feeling,
an abstract noun, a thing?

so send a smile my way
don't be hard on me
send some love, nothing more
and leave the plastic soldiers
in their leather jackets

fluorescent hearts in shop windows 
clichéd as it is; but
there's more to me than you
and more to you
than those who came before

and so the fourteenth comes again

full of poems, prose, and alliteration
soon becoming a thoughtful relationship
a disjointed, sympathetic Hallmark

so send a smile my way
and show me mercy
for while st valentine's day
slipped my mind again
a poem is better than nothing, right?

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Proposal


The stone burns with passion
But all the while her hesitation spoils
The smooth edge; The polished surface
Cased in hopes, surrounded by dreams
Broken by secrets

His love was an uncomfortable truth
The elephant in the room, daunting, grey
Hers was uncomfortable for a different reason
As the expectant faces looked for a nod
A smile, an embrace, a memory born

But nothing came of it
Three months' saving and a lifetime of hurt
All wasted

Time heals all wounds,
They say.
They say, they say, they say...
All the while they watch, and they judge.

"...I would never..."
"...In the champagne..."
"Tacky, dated, unoriginal"
Yes, all synonyms All substitutions for his name But kneeling there, one knee down The man now knew his fate.

Words, Television, and Pills

i wish i could fit in
with the group of non-conformists
the misfits
the delightful gothics
the miserables
who breed company

i'm sad and i'm sick
curled in front of the television
watching stories of more
sad sick people like me

i'm different from you
in the way that i
i am what you could never be
honest not to myself,
but honest to you

i wouldn't dream of lying
not when you hold
my bottle of pills
my sweet serenity
free of unwelcome guilt

born to this
sick wealth, this
city that makes its people
ambivalent to each other
and their struggles

moments of apathy
prevailing depression
no, friend, not now
maybe in a week
maybe tomorrow
maybe in an hour
but not now

            i do not need the
            non-conformists
            if your revolution
            is another pointless monarchy
            of bad poems, roses, regrets,
            then you may keep it to yourself

                    i have enough of that here already
                    in my words, my television, and my pills