honesty is such a letdown...

From a different part of my life. I'm still, after all these years, a bit sensitive about this one. How emo.

i have a mermaid painting and an angel drawing up on my wall. both signify
that archetype of female elusiveness. i have a guitar with five strings
and a coconut shell drum with a cigarette burn in it. both show
i don't care enough for material things.

today, i learnt of the existence of limbo. i thought perhaps
it was another word for fragile and tenuous.

last night, i slept because i didn't want to wake up.
it all becomes strings and holes and inconsequential sequences.
it becomes a gift returned, effusive whisperings
chained back inside.

tonight, i'll know the meaning of a decrescendo. of lilac
transformed to senna and umber. tonight, i'll lose myself
in words, and dream of harps silencing me
with softness.

yesterday, i drove up a hill to read the daily paper. i drank
spirulina fruit juice and looked out over the waitemata harbour.
i thought many things: of mermaids and angels
i could never hope to tame.

three years of oblivion is a tempting grave to return to. three years
of wondering why this earth spins seems a mirror i'll look into.
four more years before i'm thirty, with no house or kids,
or the false assumptions i made at fifteen, thinking
this world was mine, that the motions 
of artistic enterprise 
could ever make a difference.

tonight, i read and write 
because it's the only thing left to me right now. 

Reviews

[Fabian G. Franklin]

"i have a mermaid painting and an angel drawing up on my wall" I had the same thing once...they left the most interesting mural.... ;o)...I'll take a picture of it and send it to you. Awwww this is sad... :o( I love to read your poems! Let me tell you a story. There was a low tide at the ocean one morning and a billion starfish washed up on the shore. As the tide receded the poor starfish were dying in the sun. One fellow walking down the beach came upon another slowly picking up the stranded starfish and hurtling them back into the sea. Well, the first fellow thinks 'he must be mad! There's a billion of them!' So he walks up to the fellow and says, "Hey, mister, that's crazy you know...it's not going to make any difference!" The starthrower just continued hurtling the starfish into the ocean; and without looking up, he replied, "It did to THAT one!"

[Mark]

Ain't it the truth, bro?

[Alicante lullaby]

it seems like an artist's ramblings at the end of the day,calculating the loses and gains...a rather heart wrenching calculus and your pen makes it so appealing.

[Emily B]

actually, I remember this one . . . it was exciting to find an old friend here :)