artichoke heart ('porcelaine' pastiche)

when you messaged
during ‘sense & sense’
i knew something
was wrong. the last
love-of-your-life?

at least let
me sing along:
i’ve just been chucked,
so long and hard
by ms forevermore!

a commitment
to be stressed
-you’d met at least
three days before.

she was married
to a stockbroker
about to get divorced,
she needed time
to do it nice
(alimony
can't be forced.)

i shone inside
her pregnant glow
but her man
wanted her there…

shame she loves
herself best
in designer
maternity wear.

you were the kabana boy
to a trophy wife
fresh off the shelf
i hope someday
the girl you meet
will wear the gee herself...

with your twilight
love affairs,
and your
artichoke heart,
you're a crimson
gucci dress
waiting for
a corrida to start!

they say love is blind,
i wonder what you see
through those
puppydog eyes?

last spring
you called me up
said: i think
i’ve found the one!
my true love's
measured at a cute
angle with the sun.’

enter the-girl
-who-just-held-hands
then moved into your place
her girlfriend lives next door:
a spring-fling reverse
'will and grace'.

remember how
you said to me:
she wants to
take it slow.
when you know
nirvana
takes a few,
it’s the only
way to go…

with your twilight
love affairs,
and your
artichoke heart,
you're a crimson
gucci dress
waiting for
a corrida to start!

they say love is blind,
i wonder what you see
through those astro-
logical eyes?

let's just forget
the poet who couldn't
spell your name,
the dancer couldn't
spell at all
(but we know
that's not the same)

remember the
psychiatrist
who'd only touch
you fully dressed?
she diagnosed
you once for free:
an oedipal complex
long-suppressed.

in fact, i’d heard it all before
daddy screwed
your first night alone
with the sweetest
of your highschool heart
and your parents
still at home.

upstairs in your
romancing-room
you had candles,
you had style,
you had a loose
hinge on your door:
the football
blared through
all the while!

blocking it
with all your weight,
your swore off
girls for good,
until you met
the one, the great
who thought
she understood…

o with
your twilight
love affairs,
and your
artichoke heart,
you're a crimson
gucci dress
waiting for
a corrida to start!

they say love is blind
i wonder what you’d see
if you looked
with wide open ears?

time again
you played the romeo
offering up
your lips in prayer,
her eyes assented
moist and creased,
shining, full
of things to share.
star-crossed
to the last.
you danced the dance
and then played dead,
woke to a casting
call of cries:
she'd found someone
else to play instead.

you gasped to feel
that knife go in
overcome by your
own passion play
and still, the death
scene lingers on:
curse those fuckers
anyway…

you said: it’s twilight
for my love affairs
the compost
for my artichoke heart
the crimson gucci’s
ripped to shreds
across the horns
of some raging-bully- tart

but you suspect
it’s still your fault
so you try
to hide the salt
from your eyes
as you turn back
to the night.

see the skies bleed
with those
twilight love affairs!
feel them bruise,
those poor
artichoke hearts!
watch designers
get lost
among the tears
as another
bull & chain runs
from the cart...

whether cupid’s
blind or not
he won’t let
be forgot
that love
will break your heart

take it from me,
co-illiterate
of the skies:
what’s written’s
only written
there in light

see it how it bends
for suspicious
-pussy eyes?
& reads even
to those without
the sight?

they remind us:
better love
lest you become
like those
bodies above,
cold, distant
& alone.

maybe one day,
it’ll be me
at your end
of the phone
your bitter friend,
at last torn
from ‘pridge & prej.’

thinking: i'm sorry
i left you
on your own!
d’you think you
could reply to
this message?

if only my love were blind
i’d never have to find
the courage
to open my eyes…

she's bonkers for that bare bulb...

For J's birthday, February 2007

Hidden behind books, I turned eighteen:
A moth tightly cocooned in novels, stacked
Papers & that fluttering, fractured feeling;
Patiently waiting for my world to crack.
Yet I peeked through its open gash surprised,

Beholding long paths, tender arbours, bright
Days folding, fresh as flowers, into night;
A warmer world remade by widened eyes.
Yes, we are flailing on delicate wings,

Journeying under the moon’s follow-spot,
Articulating imperfect dreams &
Making shadows of the jokes flight forgot.
Each shadow clears. Each year I see more sky,
Staring star-crossed at each new place to fly.

ariel notes

For A. November 2005

They've reached that moment in the movie,
Their last 'will they or won't they?' scene
She stops him, seconds before he’s to leave,
She feels nervous and she feels unclean,
Then they kiss! And it’s soft and warm
And she’s hesitant to say:
‘It feels right’, and he's slow
To turn back to the night,
With his wonderment leading the way.

As she watches him receding,
A smile plays it's tune on her face,
Her eyes are wide and wet,
But she hasn't noticed yet,
Her heart's in a whole different place;
Maybe a cellar of home-made preserves,
Things well-loved and carefully stored,
And it’s raining outside
So there’s nothing left to hide;
No more secrets to be ignored.

She takes all the tops off her bottles
We press rewind on our tvs,
His calm eyes, his quick smile
Float before her like the ghosts
Of our favourite memories;
She loses herself among them,
Spinning until she’s a blur
But when she emerges, she sees herself
More clearly than she’s ever seen before.

The outside world carries on,
In its midst, she is perfectly still
She wipes away her tears
On the frayed sleeves of her fears,
Stripping them off until
She is naked, beneath a street lamp,
Bathed in a fluorescent light,
The buildings around her regain their shapes;
The moon smiles on a nude in the night.

She doesn’t try to cover herself
When she sees that he’s returned,
And he holds the kind of courage
And feigns the kind of calmness
That it takes many lifetimes to learn;
The kind of lifetimes that pass in a heartbeat,
Or the time that it takes for a kiss,
To ripple on out to the tips of your toes
While you’re cradling moments like this.

She holds him, like a suited child,
He leans deeper into her embrace
And their hearts are playing them
Like the symphony of tears,
That are finding their groove on each face,
In a strong wind,
They could lift each other up
And write ariel-notes in the sky,
While we play the movie back,
Windows open just a crack
In the hope that such love will come by.

waves

The waves were not waves
But curves that rested lightly
Above us, content.

We lie, hand in hand,
Shoulder to shoulder, fingers
Limp and eyes carefree.

I could stay forever
As flotsam waits to be found
Smoothed by the tide.

Time doesn’t hurry,
In fact it seems to stop, just
Briefly to watch us.

It suspends the waves
Above us, but in you I
Smell minerals, salt

And the ocean flows
Gently in your every breath;
I’m holding water.

The tide will go out,
And leave us sad, stinging, wet
But for now we are:

Together, lively,
Warm with optimism and bathed
With radiant promise

Curved against the shore.