Caroline

She’s a shadow that hides behind the sun.
A trickster, joker, a muse
(But not a nun).
To speak to her is to peruse
A library in disarray,
In an elegant chaos that spreads
Like wildflowers and promiscuity in May.
She’s the sound of brass horns, and the whirring in heads.
Everything about her is a whimsy,
She moves like happiness.
Her friendship is as flimsy
As platinum (which is worth far less).
Her eyes are the grey-blue of the welcome storm
And she is beautiful in the same way.
She’s shifting and changing, with no true form.
She’s reckless, and fey.

Emma

She’s like a dancer with the way she speaks,
Weaving nets that shine like diamonds.
And are as complex as the look in her eyes.
Eloquent twists and snaps of smile
Escape from her lips, and light up the room
Like fragments of a youthful mirror.
Her mind blossoms like a hothouse flower
In the tundra; a colourful miracle no-one
Quite comprehends. She’s a splash of music
In the snow.
When she walks she’s like the cool breeze on
The bright day, like nothing you’d ever want
More. Rarely has someone been so truly
Wondrous.
Her laughter rolls like firelight over glass,
And her whispers are flutes.
She is a friend like iron or stone or sunlight.
Strong and present, there and true.
All of her is a magic I will miss.

Spatter-lit, like diamonds that spilled out from
A miser’s purse, all the reflected light
Plays upon the grey seat, harsh and gently.
Strange how it’s the unconventional that
Hangs beautiful, like smoke that twists and curves
In the breezes from west and east within
Our memories (oh, things were wondrous once).
There was a time, when-back-then-long-ago
(it’s a time now thick with honey and
Hate in my head) that you were fragrant smoke,
Balsam-cigarette, bitter-hacking smoke
In my mind; a taste so delicately
Disgusting, like a refrain that rings wrong.
This love was untrue - it made me cough tears.

I stood, suspended on gossamer words.
Trapped in the sound and light they span out
With gently placed phrasings they could not but call.
And in these words and motions, spinning truth;
A gentler rhythm. A kinder rhyme breathes
Out, and in the audience, all air
Stills, and charges, and is frozen in glory,
As upon a platform below our feet
But above our minds, in incandescence
Figures move, with grace and poise directed
Framing a motion truly daring in heart
And soulful intent. “We are all acting”
They seem to say, declaring it to us all.
What beauty in this act, there is, trailing.

Cloying heat wraps around,
Burying me like clay in a too-warm
Grave.

Liquid streams and chafes and never even
Cools
Anymore. And the air is

Aflame. This is a summer of
Discontented breezes and riotous light.
Not even the leaves can

Wave in the air, but hang limp;
Verdant on the corner of vision.
I dream of snowflakes

Broken Trust

He fires words, and I shoot them
Back, with added invectives, and
A sarcastic tone. He replies,
With a raised voice, to raise the stakes.
Then he suddenly lunges, and his
Hands are on my throat.
I hurl him back, and shout and yell.
“Who are you to touch me like that!
What the hell! How dare you treat me like that!
I’m your son."

Heat Flows Like Waves

There’s a world out there,
Beyond the window.
I’ve been assured of this fact by numerous reliable sources.
People say out there, there are
Mountains that touch the atmosphere,
Scrape open rents in the clouds.
They say that on top of these mountains, in Africa,
Where the heat flows like waves in the sea,
There’s snow.
There are miracles beyond these four walls
And my computer screen.
One day I’ll see them, and I’ll be cold in Africa.

The firelight is a crackling presence in my heart.
It lies sat at my feet, curled like a slumbering wolf.
I can see the snoring, hissing sparks of its breath
Drifting upwards in the smoke of its dreams.
I am scared of it and drawn towards it;
Do you think it will bite me if I touch it?
The radiance it leaks so casually is staining everything
Golden, and it leaves its value everywhere.
There is no discrimination, no choice in what it warms;
It leaves itself everywhere, diminishing with every
Stick, twig and log it devours.