Recipe for Disaster

A handful of sugar.
A penny of salt.
A pinch for your thoughts,
your light and your faults.
A tight squeeze. A light squeeze.
Freshly squeezed orange
and you.
We squeezed into my single bed:
room enough for two.
But only room for one
in my heart and in my head.

Clown.

Just one more clown in his circus you are.
Such a public mockery.
You are a tool in his all-consuming self-love.
Unwilling to face the one way, blackhole nature of it all.
You stand in painted smile.
The audience watch clutching breath
for him to pull out the chair.
The ringmaster owns your eyes and time.
Are you so blinded by footlights
that you can truly call this
astounding self-degradation
love?

Just one more clown in his circus you are.
Watch the pretty girls lead the horses away.
The spectacle is leaving town.

Lazy Dreveries

I blow chains of momentary beauty
But they cannot capture the moments with you.
Watching the world hurry past
I saunter through thoughts idle and unworried.
I know that you will still be as imperfect
as the day you lent me your coat in the rain.
The old dog smell of wet leather
still warm from your body.
In death our flaws are in perfect perspective.
Who cares that you were always late?
now that you are.
 

Per Luciana Zapparoli - L'Anniversario D'Oro.

This

I drew this for my mother-in-law on the occasion of my in-laws' 50th wedding anniversary.

It is an image of her on her wedding day.

The "50 anni" on the top right is a dream, not even imagined to her on her wedding day.

All the things listed on the top left are the things that came to pass in their life together - the things she could have forseen: Children, love, problems, work, happiness, hard times, tears, grandchildren, friends, dreams.

The road she is walking is moving her from the past to the future.

The roots under her feet are the roots of their strong relationship, the things that have made their relationship work: Love; Family; Strength; Experience; Luck; Hope; Patience; Determination; Sacrifice; Humour; Morality; the Church; Propriety; Life Education; Faith (and faithfulness - the word is the same in Italian)

I know my sketching skills leave a lot to be desired, but hey. The idea was there, just not the technical ability. Perhaps with practice this is something I can work on.

Christmas 2002

Once there were three:
The magic number-
3 witches; 3 wishes; 3 wise men.
Maiden runs away; goes to see a crone.
The witch of the East
My, my - how she's grown.
They smile and compare notes
but will scars tell the whole story?

Then there were four.
Ugly; clunky; boxed.
4 sides. 4 corners. 4 angles.
Parallels everywhere.

There are no witches in mathematics.
Only mother's apples pi.

The Mermaid and The Sloth

Come and meet some friends of mine,
we'll go to where they stay
with toasting glasses held aloft
and witty repartee.
I'm sure we'll have a lovely time -
they're very welcoming.
They are the Mermaid and the Sloth
to them ourselves we'll bring.
Please don't mind their way with words.
Their oft-referenced archaic verse
is harmless at the very worst.
With intelligence they're cursed.
The Mermaid and the Sloth.

Idyllic, but my brain won't SHUT UP!

Five - Six - Thirteen

After a glorious production the sun
bows graciously behind the trees on my right
to rapturous vesperturnal applause.
To my left the bats fight their nightly battle
against the ravenous grasp of mortality.
Pheasants overrule the avian debate
ahead of me in the comfort of sakura silhouettes.
I see the detritus of a summer holiday
strewn on uncut grass. Cars. Watering cans.
The bag of wet swimming things I meant to unpack.
Tea steams in the cool air.
Behind me the warmth of love coaxes, calls, caresses my name.

I close the door to outer beauty
and open my heart.

Affirmation

Even in the midst of night
the distant wail of T-Rex's cousins
reach me.
And even when I am not right
and fall and fail I let the lessons
teach me.
And in the hours I feel alone
I remind myself of the myriad network
around me.
And all the things as yet unknown;
Concerns of health and joy that lurk
astound me.                            [impound me]                           (glass is half...)

I refuse to forget who I am.
I refuse to forget who I am.
I refuse to forget.

Love: All

To err is human, to forgive divine

What course of action will be thine?

Heroic vengeance, stoic acceptance.

How sincere if any repentance?

A tree does not know it is wretched

But wretched is all that I am.

For I know I know nothing and inside that nothing

is the knowledge that all that he was was a sham.

And the fear of losing my unknowing had

Who was there when I called on my way to being mad.

The only one I called when it all went to shit

Who knew of my tears and my chemical habit.

The others passed 7 long years in the dark

As I wandered wasted our common-themed park.

Now this new attraction, so shiny and slick!

But is it honey or venom that drips from each click?

"I've seen love from both sides now" and other songs like such

And honestly for me the emotion gets too much.

I always retreat to the space in my head which opens to stardust and perceptional shift.

Not induced by drugs or anything more than a headache as felt by young Alice.

but I'm losing the point now; my reason is this:

I'm teetering on a lfe precipice

And it's not up to me on which way I will slide.

All engines are dead now, I nothing but glide.

How heady this high blood pressure!

How heavy the weight of the world!

In this humidity, no wonder my hair is starting to curl.

And I can do nothing but pass back and forth

Like a tennis ball, final, Wimbeldon court

And it's Love: All

So Spoke My Lover's Ghost

Kiss me love and let me die,
No backward glance, no tearful eye
No longing or lingering last embrace
No staring blankly into space
Forget my love, my laugh, my touch,
New memories are made as such.
Recall not my lustful sighs
Find joy between new nymphet’s thighs.
Think not of how I sleeping breathe,
For lonely nights bring no reprieve
And as I sadly watch you grieve
My heart breaks. And burns. And bleeds.

No Apologies

My heart belongs to another,
My body another still.
Some things I cannot explain to you dear
And other things I never will.
My life is my life and
Your wants are your wants:
The pair will rarely agree.
So please stop trying to take me to bed,
Pure sex is just not for me.
I require a further connection of minds,
Of rhythms, of values, of life.
I’m not just another ridiculous girl,
I’m the woman all men want as wife.
How dare you think me so accessible?
I’m shrouded in love and surrounded by walls
And all your attempts with be no good at all.
I’ll gift you with nothing but memory’s recall
Of a want unfulfilled
And a woman strong willed
And beautiful, gifted and tall.

Constant Companion

Let me with thoughts just silent be
And smoke this rollie; 43.
I have no urgent place to go,
I’m not alone. I have my Woe.
She dances oh-so-prettily
With outstretched arms on bended knee
But pauses often just to sigh
And if you ask she won’t say why.
She’ll just smile enigmatically
And offer you a cup of tea
In tones so sweet. She’s never sour.
Not once has she been known to glower.
To some she seem so pure and free,
But this is bonded liberty
And you can wager futures on’t;
There is a price for freedom’s font.
In her eyes you’ll seldom see
Unadulterated glee.
There’s always partial secrets too.
They must be kept from folk like you.
For Woe and I, we are a we,
That’s she and I, not you and me
And she’s observed all that I’ve squandered,
Lives I’ve bruised and lessons pondered.
I’m accustomed to her company
And other don’t see her, just me.
With blackened, widened, blinded eyes,
They’ll never see behind the lines
So let me with thoughts silent be.
I’m not alone, for Woe’s with me.

Open Skies

I’ve tried to explain this rootless of times
but all come befuddled like passions of crimes
and all I convey seems like paranoia
when all it is really is negative joy. A
simple expression of gutfelt pure feeling
seems hollow and somehow devoid of true meaning.
You see with this gift of your love and your trust
you left my iron-clad heart out to rust.
Invincible I marauded through days
giving no thought to next week, tomorrow a haze.
Entirely reckless and feckless – just living.
What happened just happened. What didn’t, just didn’t.
I hate you for all that you force me to feel.
I have to make plans now, be cautious and deal
with mundanous housework and bills and the fear
that one day I’ll wake up and you won’t be here.
I’m so terrified of the day that will come
when the imperfect duo of us will be one
broken automaton, loverless lover,
with no one to run to, to hide and take cover.
No sanctuary, haven or reason to be
the people we both urge the other to be.
Soul-image, my animus, all I adore:
you make me feel vulnerable, need I say more?
I hate that I love you. Our crazy dynamic
leaves me open to loneliness, heartbreak and panic
and yet I can’t help it. For all of my fear
I want what scares me. Does this statement seem mere
-ly a flimsical knock-off, a gesture at most,
a wine-driven-10-to-12-red-faced-man’s boast?
It’s not, I assure you. It’s all I can give.
You are my reason to wake up. To live.
And all that I have and all that I do
it’s all just a heart-unbroke tribute to you.
Your patience, your actions, your strength and just you
make me fear for the future. Question: just who
would open themselves to a lifetime of this
uncomfortable happiness, blinkerless bliss?
The me you created with that first kiss:
This misgiving Mrs from misanthrope Miss.