Poetry Drafts

I played your keys, your white
Temperament and your black 
Plasticity; the harmonies offset
By your dissonant lack of longing.

You played my keys, my pale face 
Of innocence and my dark gloomy
Backdrop; the harmonies offset
By my lack of personal presence. 

We played each other’s keys,
Never in tune, never attuned,
Never hearing more than
Our own melodies.

There were doors, a selection 
Of gilded handles; seeping 
Sordid light and flickering candles. 
I chose and chose but in the end 
The bitter end came biting back:
The chosen one –
Locked.

Disintegrated; dis-
Interested in the eastern breeze 
Bringing breaking tulips;
Snow an absent friend;
Blown by cherry blossom dance
A Common Carrier bag swings
From bare branches; buds fear
The new world pain: splitting,
Unfitting until a friendly wink
From the golden eye 
Beseech them to relent, 
To come forth. 

Disintegrated; dis-
Interested in hiding distant pasts
A Common Carrier bag is found
Asleep, crumbling without the whip
From gingerbread men:

Oh! 

How to escape this dreary dream?

Oh! 

How to dream a dairy dream? 
Creamed cows and green clouds. 

Oh?

Dreaming 
To escape
Local shop
Branding,
Painted agony
With sustenance 
For survival
As if lives
Depended on it. 

Disintegrated; the plastic wrapping,
A Common Carrier bag 
Turned container for fragmented,
Distorted, morose memories of 
A distant past; a short serenade
Bleak and cold seen through 
Broken mirrors: the unsorted,
The unflattering realities 
Of a life passé.

Mother always cut my nails
Short,
Tidy Mother said, you must
Look tidy. 

I always cut my nails
Short,
Until one day
I said enough now
Enough.

I let my nails grow
Just beyond 
Short, still tidy though
Unlike Mother’s
Fantasy child.

I let my nails grow
Beyond 
Mother’s 
Vision. 

I let my nails grow
Beyond 
Mother’s 
Wishes. 

Mother always cut my nails,
Cut my spine,
Cut my umbilical cord 
Short.

You wrote about jelly-
Fish, and I fell back into the pond
Of memories, of 5am rowing out
Across the silent lake
Through the haze 
Of last night’s full moon;
And the empty bottles
And the screams
And my hiding 
And the tears
And the sorries;
You wrote about jellyfish
But I drowned 
Beneath their nets,
Suffocated by
Their ignorance;
You wrote about jellyfish
and I fell back into the pond
Of blancmange
and raspberries.

I keep asking myselves
Why this is, why I am yet to find
The sublime, to experience awe
Instead of just endless fear. 

I keep asking myselves 
Why my wings cannot take me 
High and higher skywards
Instead of just burn and chain me. 

I keep asking myselves 
Why I doubt myself, why trust
Is so abundant in others 
And so lacking in a solemn self. 

I keep asking myselves 
My scattered brains 
Of suggestions to resolution
Of means to avoid destitution
But I hear only whispers 
Out of bounds: out of reach.