message in a bottle

 

far away against a sea

to music of wind and spray

cheek to cheek you slow dance along its crude hem

 

i imagine you take off your shoes to remember something of before

there are gulls who scream as your heels bruise afternoon

and your lungs heave to fill arches where it aches

 

you remember to focus, take reins amid

a storm of hooves in your chest,

you slowly breathe out through the solar plexus

 

…

we will heal, you know?

yes, now there are swirls of pain and confusion,

from the sky we fall frozen, against the steep of night we expire;

there will be sun and songs of little birds, new beginnings,

a softening of scars,

even joy

 

 

grief

 

i hold forth the potted joy
hope delivered by industrious insects

my shadow slips under petals and smiles in a thin line

the heart is a timid snake
(mostly harmless)

i’d swing candles in arcs of flaming wax if i could
as a metaphor to cut the sun in two
sweet orange hemispheres
to get all vitamins at once, see?

i read poems to our flowers
(who are hard of hearing)
bury the words at their roots
wait for perfect smiles from strangers

shoo birds away

 

 

a curiosity

if you leave

i will be left with two incomplete hands

ten hunchbacks to wander the stony silences

of gargoyles far above a city of light

maybe my eyes will be rose windows,

an old heavy door, my mouth

the river and its bridges can be my circulatory verse

i will keep doves, punctuation to startle

tourists, unwitting clergy
who carry me away

in postcards and gift shop trinkets

when you hurt

 

i see you on your broken horses

your hair tied down

like a frown

 

you walk faster than i

remember you skipped, always

 

you look up wishing birds down off their ladders

to carpet the world in feathers

and fragile combs

 

and silence

 

too late for halloween

 

i should lie down in the sand

wriggle move vibrate

until the earth slips around me

eats my sky

sings me its lullaby of hard stars

distant moons unpacked

in warehouses large enough for all dreams

and silhouettes of geese

singular bats on strings

for swinging

 

 

living poetry

(i)

your hands sing to my bones

cities overgrown with time and the ache of living

to bonfire nights, us like wraiths

burning in silver moonlight along shores

of kisses and tides of embrace

until the light finds us

and we hide under leaves

our pale skins drink from the root of beauty

 

(ii)

my mouth wants the river of you

run through my burning shadow

exhaust my birds with your red kites

your laughter

 

(iii)

look beloved,

together our hands make a castle

quiet for the call of doves

and the secret gait of village cats

 

grass stings our feet

in a green arch of morning

come, walk with me

let us wear time thin

 

 

come, electric

 

above fireplaces of smiles and handshakes

your fingers are doors to me

carried on syllables of jasmine

words climb our steps at dusk

 

as shy rooms draw their eyes

in street light punctuated verse

you find me among the roofs

from where the night spills in song

 

under distant blush of candles

closer than physics, we dance

to unravel garments of thought

and find each other beautiful

 

 

song of river and mountain (collab with Seema Chopra)

 

(a conversation between johann and seema)

 

 
the river smiles
when the mountain gathers the day in his shadow

 
(i)

where is the river that smiles johann?

look again
this river is angry

this river is glaring
at the mountain

at the dumb day

why the hell does it keep coming back?

the mountain keeps
throwing ice

oh how this river hates being
liquid and nice
.
the mountain remembers the river
watches over her

when she goes away it means drought
the mountain dies but doesn’t die

the wind mocks and dances upon her memory
licks the mountain with dry words

swallows the clouds and their verse
the mountain rejoices
at the rush of her feet, her angry arrival

devils and demons have no place then

they are quenched
she rallies and curses, bites and tears because she is the river

he changes

bits of his feet are washed away
old fingers broken off swept, to sea

to see the boiling life within her

how she wears the moon and stars and dances in the lightning

he flourishes

 
(ii)

a nightmare

about a storm

so real it pulls me out
and away from my body

my blanket is
a sheet of ice

the room
the inside of a hill

stone and dust

when did i learn to breathe that?
.
you are a sudden fish
inside me

my thin ravines echo
with your splashes

the rivers are not frozen

they dive under the mountain

to clear pools
of ancient quiet

 
(iii)

coffee

as bitter as i can make it

i wander through
poetry

the dying old man is angry again

he says he’s not going to heaven
and see if he gives a damn

the sweet princess is in agony
“what did i do to deserve such pain?”

any day now she’ll be writing
about pink fucking rain

the woman that sat with her tea
and scented candles is puking
green

say something johann
.
many dark, beautiful places exist

some only visible in a scream
of daylight and car crash

some through a doorway, down
a flight of stairs

not everyone wants to see

 
(iv)

a beautiful poem

something that makes you sigh

i love those
as much as the next sucker

but johann

the effort it takes to
self hypnotize

to scrub my eyes

forgive me
but no

now if you can write something
to make me believe?
.
i wish to use all my magic and make this true:

let us stand as before a dance

reach inside my chest
hold my heart (it is a red bird) in your hands

look in my eyes

walk across this bridge to me

 

(v)

the river smiles

when the mountain
gathers the day

in his shadow

grey swans
spread their wings

ripples undulate, coalesce

 

 

circumferences (collab with Seema Chopra)

 

she talks to teacups

wraps her hands around their bellies
and asks them what aches them

why are they losing warmth
in a window candles lean like thin cats

they watch slow afternoon mice, shadows
slip under roots and fences
earlier in the supermarket a man who looked
like her alfredo cut
a fillet of salmon
and wrapped it in cream waxed paper

he wrote his phone no. and
slipped it under the string

should i call him? she asks
the cats

they nod like they
did back in 1968
outside the wind dances with trees
hoping the moon will smile
at his clownishness

leaves spill over the street
in a brittle marathon of red, yellow and brown

the window frames the beauty of a table
a chair
nine cats
a woman in a green dress
sitting with her tea

she keeps folding her napkin
like a paper moon

 

 

breathless

beloved,

your body is a map of love;

i may step into the groves of your hands
and lay my head and heart there
to mend under shaded willows.

in the sweet clouds of your wrists i walk
thin bridges far above torrents
who swallow my sight’s keen plummet;

your white and soft shoulders
call these fingers up where lilies pray
on the slopes of your neck;
i reach like a starling
for the sweet cave of your mouth,

from songs and kisses
we weave our clothes
and wring our fire from the night;
we dream together.

when we wake
your eyes fly our colours
above a breathless world.