Why, A Villanelle

you came to me and said goodbye
you said our love had gone astray
yet never did i ask you why

not once did i come close to cry
despite your words the fateful day
you came to me and said goodbye

you showed my entire life, a lie
my dreamsilk sky begun to fray
yet never did i ask you why

my pleas must have adorned my eyes
how did you manage not to sway
you came to me and said goodbye

i've hoped and wished in years gone by
the words and pleas that i could say
yet never did i ask you why

that day my heart and soul did die
the day you chose to walk away
you came to me and said goodbye
yet never did i ask you why

the monochrome sky

differing shades of grey
accented by that crisp smell.

there's that tell-tale tingle
of knowing it's about to begin.

you stand there waiting
for the imminent deluge

to be enveloped by its entirety
to be crushed by its totality

to be caressed.
every inch of skin. tracing its way down
eyelids to lips
icy kisses down your back

waiting

to be free.

rain

pelting. painful. comforting.

you're standing there in it's embrace.
hair plastered to your face
goosebumps and sporadic shivers.

still,
head just tilted oh so slightly,
with your lips just that bit parted.

it's the sum of its sensations
the smell that permeates you
the tingle that trickles down to your toes.

like sheets of monochrome privacy.

it's so much more than everything.

jericho

no matter how high i build them
those walls of indifference

they fall.
in ashes. in dust. in tears.

your voice

like the ones of a thousand men long ago

in that one
still moment.

brings them crashing down.

you don't have to say much
each word is already a chorus

each whisper
already defeaning.

you don't know how much you break me,
every. time. you talk.

imagine

a trick of light and perspective
made the puddle look like

it was teeming with fishes
as they turned as one
flashing their silver sides

the rain drops seemed to make the puddle sparkle

like an unending firework
whose sparks never stopped falling
a stream of monochrome glitter

imagine that.
plummetting into a pool only so deep
drawn in by a coincidence of raindrops and light

caught
held
by such simple beauty

only to have it
gone, with the sun.

stand still

standing in that downpour
unnerved by its silence

it's like nothing you've felt before
yet there's some resonance

as dense as the heaviest thunderstorm
you can't see beyond your hands

you can barely tell it's early morn
as it slowly blankets the land

cold yet not wet how unlike the rain
that you grew up running through

magical, almost arcane
the snow that's embracing you

bedtime

so feed me your endless lies
and dreams of make believe

tell me of those endless skies
and how forever's our destiny

sing to me, a lullaby
with words so hollow sweet

how you'll love me till the day i die
how you'll always hold me tight

so i can close my eyes and sigh
as the stars chase the light

your honeyed tongue will get me by
on your fairytale goodnight

words

it's not really passion.
there is little yearning.

a test. if you will.
to reassure myself.

that i am who i strive to be.

poetry.
craft, art and trial.

i write to push myself.
to show myself.

that i can.
to flex the mastery i ought to grasp.

it doesn't matter if there is no symbolism.
no pathetic fallacy. no wondrous literary constructs.

poetry isn't about that.
it's about shaping the words
so they call to the blood.

they invoke it. conjure it. caress it.

they make you feel.

i make you feel.

play

it's an empty room
sprawling with chairs.

you're alone in the lobby
hammering away at that old piano.

you have no audience
except yourself.
and even you aren't really listening.

it's not about the sound.
music isn't about what's audible.
it's emotional.

pure. powerful. primal.

your eyes are closed.
you've got salt on your fringe.
but the only thing you feel are those cold ivory keys.

and you play.

poetry

it wasn't at all like i imagined.
it wasn't tense, it wasn't staccato

it was if you were writing on the keyboard
a languid legato of notes
hesitant, lost, tentative.

i had dreamt of more anger.
more power. of thumping keys and jerking shoulders.

but your fluiditiy was jarring.
it was almost.
identical to when i play my words out on paper.

if i closed my ears
and felt my way to that thinnest of whispers
carried by the notes you played,

i could read your words
as clear as any poem.

you're as much a poet as me.

that old mold

he's got an old mold.
all curves and sharp edges,

cast from that one girl,
that one from long ago
the one who slipped through his fingers

he knows what he's looking for
he's looking for someone who'll fit
but

his hands are bleeding from trying
cut on the razor edge as he's pushed and prodded
various misfits

he doesn't mind the blood
only

each time he tries, and fails,
the mold gets that little bit slicker

each time he squeezes in a hope
the mold gets that little bit bigger

he can feel it's shape changing
though it's not really discernable

he can smell it's evolution
despite how he tries to hammer it back into shape

he's frightened by how each misfit
seems to mis-fit by that little less

it's become a race
to see if he can find a fit
to find that right someone
before his mold is a mangled memory

to find someone to love
while he still remembers what he's looking for.

or maybe.

if he just stopped looking. searching. trying.
and kept his precious mold deep in his embrace

maybe

happiness will just happen.

just like.
that.

never

you can sayproclaimdeclare i love you
you can adorn my feet with your hair.

you can promise you'll never hurt me
that you'll always meet me there.

but you'll never take my jaded heart
you'll never caress my soul.

you'll never taste my whisper kisses
you'll never have and hold.

you'll never inhale my desperate moanings
you'll never feel me cry

you won't come close to urge me writhing
you'll never hear me sigh

you'll never know i write these words sobbing

waiting.
wanting.
dreaming.

wanting everything you'll never do.
so aware that when you say i love you
we both know it's never true.

untitled

have you ever wondered
if the lord above isn’t lording, but cowering
maybe free will fire nuclear power wasn’t part of the master plan
maybe we’re little toys that got out of hand
maybe he created heaven to hide from us
because if you had god before you, flesh and whole
wouldn’t you poke him prod him cut him to see if he bleeds
wouldn’t you hurt him for never answering those pleas
if you did what he did, and didn’t do what he didn’t
you’d be scared too.

leakage

you seep to the surface,
at the weirdest moments and times

you rise to the forefront of my memories
as i conjure my words and rhymes

you twirl at the edges
as i jack off behind closed eyes

no matter how many times i say i'm over you,
i know it's never true.