Wordplay

When I was bored, I ripped apart
Bit's of books I could have written,
Paper castles in which I hid my heart.

I borrowed security, never getting
The full fortification, seemed so upsetting,
My dull fixation obstructing with obscurity
The migration of my maturity,
The words' constrained cremation,
The meanings' drained donation,
The tears' ascertained accusation,
My adjustment abstained from adaptation,
Now what's last is impurity,
And what's first was surety,
The stained satin allegation,
The twisted starvation,
In the overgrowth's application.

Covered - III

My best impression, speechless
As the bed lays unmade.
Untouched since I've been awake,
I left the blanket as it was.

Faking into body form,
Flaking, starting to conform,
But then it's the morning,
And as the shivering succession is yawning,
Too early for it to aspire,
It prepares itself to transform;
Another pattern ready to expire,
Another impression to admire.

If I leave it, walk away, and then quickly
Turn around, I can make out
Where my legs were falling,
Deep into the cast, my near-invisible indent,
The constricted contours' appearance inspired
By the skeleton-soul which was required.

Covers - II

My clock faces me, standing precariously
By the wall. I remember taking them out,
The batteries, and now it's hands are frozen.

Choosing one was harder that I would imagine,
I looked for hours, and told myself,
That there should not be numbers edging around
The edges. I opted for shapes,
Universally subjective, singularly elective.
It's facial symmetry encloses me, but still
I am free to choose the time, I can turn it
So it's half past three, or half past nine.

And I can forget about what I have chosen,
And I can forget about how I can't live without,
My perception, me, my minds escapee.

But there's always been that glass.
No matter what I see underneath,
It's still there, reflections' sheath,
My mirror looking into the past.

Cover - I

My shadow splits,
Unawares of where to turn.
It wears its smile unseen,
There is more than one light,
So it divides, with the weaker side
Always behind the screen.

Maybe it seems stronger,
The ambling flicker makes it last
A little longer. Who knows
About it's true shape or form?
It staggers behind the opaque glass,
Meant to see through,
But it had been miscast.

There had always been,
That split-second lag, slightly
Out of place. The almost-invisible
Contrast, between the actual pace,
And the actions of the veiled trace.
Face to face, the white-warm fleece-flag, nightly,
The two reconvene.
They think they are divisible,
As the gloom is unseen.

Under The Tips

In my room, on my wall,

There stands, or perhaps hangs,

Nothing special, nothing sacred,

Nothing rare, nothing robust,

A certain frame-less photograph,

The embodiment of my trust.

An image of some bottle-caps,

Under their glass blanket.

Their edges rub against one another,

An almost metallic lust,

The contours of the picture's corners,

Lost in comparison

To the tell-tale signs of immature rust.

And so many colours!

They seem so sure of their brightness,

Almost fighting one another

In order to be seen, 

Embracing their own tightness,

Whether it seem like mere politeness or obscene.

"Lime Soda," shaded green in its lightness,

Expels that it is "artificially coloured."

Yet still it excels in falsity made serene.

The constant coda, "Kola", I must admit

The label put me off a bit. But in it's regal blue,

No childish pettiness shall put it off displaying

It's royal hue.

And then there are two which are nearly the same,

"Nugrape" and "Grapefruit drink",

They have the same content,

Apart from their name.

The masculine brand, "Ted's root beer",

Contrasts with the calm yellow.

It's true intentions unclear,

It rests powerful, and yet mellow.

The simple sunshine; "Joy Juice."
It's orange splendor so aptly called,

Slightly bent, a bit obtuse,

But in its own happiness it lays installed.

The misty white and the milky blue,

Mysterious "Sun Cream" reveals not its destination,

The apparent seems to be taboo,

But obscurity smiles in dedication.

The bitter preconceptions of "Lemon-Lime",

Would have led me to otherwise avoid,

A taste I found sweet and sublime,

And sudden sullen rancor is destroyed.

The "Pale Ginger-Ale" classes itself "Dry",

But if we care to look beyond it's design,

It will blush with saturation, with the satisfaction

That it has been given the chance to shine.

The last which caught my eye,

Has a multitude of definitions.

Simple "Like", on a simple white.

And it tells me something I cannot deny,

In spite, 

Of the admission, the omission, 

The condition, the transition,

Or the position. The knot untied;

They are only as deep as a falling snow,

And if we wish to understand anything,

Other than the apparition,

We must wave what's on the surface

Goodbye.

Armor - IV

My checkered shirt, a neutral tone,
With cardboard-brown-boxes over the creamy stone,
Almost like little houses, overcast,
The shapes drowned by the circle-sea of the past.

The buttoned sleeve didn't seem so tight,
But now my hands try too hard not to touch.
And I walk out in the mist despite
The knowledge that I can't see too much.

My early December helps me remember,
The cold of the bright mornings,
Lost in the ice's adorning.

And I want it, it's passive warning,
The transparent edges which I fold down,
The last sheet of winter paper,
My words' vapour,
Spoken as what's ahead is dawning,
My breath transforming into its own creator,
As my writing's fawning.

I feel a tug at my wrist,
But it seems to impossible as such,
And I should have known it when I turned.
A breaking branch, it's leaves clinging.
And all the while, the wind is singing.

Carefully, I take my other hand,
And with fingers forever still,
I catch the button, and the other limb trembles.
My fear shortens my breath,
This is the risk I am taking,
My last waking,
My middle faking,
My first; aching,
But I must go on.
As the fog is flaking,
The attachment disassembled,
And not only does the branch spring free,
From its fearful bind,
My hands stop shaking,
And although my eyes can see,
My fear is blind.

Armor - II

I like to set my alarm early.
About twenty minutes, give or take.
I know that I have time when I wake.

Whether the early sun marks another start,
It's shrill brightness cuts across my eyes,
One deeply in dark thought,
But the other forced to see through.
Or if the fading night stars play their game,
As I watch them wave goodbye,
Back into the past,
Where their constellations mark your name.

I never bothered to learn them,
Any shred of reason I have left,
Has been trapped by emotion.
And somehow it recognizes the patterns,
A sign of my delayed devotion,
My hands reach out,
But the signs only play out memories,
And to open the window would be
To let them go.

Sometimes I pretend that I'm
Somewhere, sometime, someone else,
I clutch my blanket to myself,
A spectrum of opportunity,
My closed eyes see more than I ever could.
The smell of a new dawn,
The first fallen leaf in a wood,
The last drop of rain, falling misunderstood,
Never knowing if it should,
Hold back, it's purity withdrawn.

But it's that musty smell of waiting,
The lingering vagueness, predestination translating
Into various longing, to break out
Of this half-sleep.
But where do I return?

I like to set my alarm early.
About twenty minutes, give or take.
But when it rings, the heartbreaking call.
Do I sleep, or do I wake?

November

The subtle package,
That time cannot trace,
Poison playing poison's race.
But sadness spreads at it's own pace.

The standing, when the seats are taken.
Waiting for the train,
That they have forsaken.
Facing the wall, as they face the crowd.
The sound of impatient silence,
The waiting seems too loud.

The would-have-been tiled walls,
A darkening creme, the empty frames,
Where colour would have teemed.
The bare and brash emptiness
Of the uninviting floors,
The non-existent doors,
Only a lack, that's all there is.

And I want to sit, down,
But I've already explained,
I don't want to feel that harshness,
Not again. And to look around,
To see that contrast, the blankness
And then them.

They lean against it,
They bask in it's neglect,
Pressed up against it's omission,
The peeling paint reflects them,
A less than perfected rendition.
But my passive eyes reject them,
The evanescence of my condition.

The tracks, that's where I keep my stare.
They only go so far, either way,
And I stand in the middle, neither here nor there,
Not knowing from where the train will come.
At both ends a tunnel, at both ends unknown,
Their direction leads to a close. As it approaches,
The beat of a drum, my thought postponed,
The undiscovered attacks,
And I stand alone.

Utterance

A broken brush against my cheek,
A careful crashing in my heart,
A wholesome heavy-handed blow,
The bruising grows, week after week.

My desperate search, hands everywhere,
But I know bandage, no plaster,
Will make me heal faster, nothing I wear
Will hide them.

The new perfume, your love in bloom,
Yet the scent mistaken,
Your nectar taken, the sting remains,
But your wings cannot take the strain,
But in flight you feign blossoming,
In your costume.

Before you were embraced,
By the apathetic hands of time,
You basked in synthetic prime,
The light infiltrated the poetic rhyme,
But you could not resist, as sweet
Variation insists, that change
Created this shock, belated,
But soon your other half elated,
By desires dwelled on for too long,
That the idea of symmetry seems not strange,
But the thoughts you've held,
Have led to imagination, dilated.

And I, the magnetic tree,
Who draws these traits, in order to be,
Able to draw up moisture,
And drown my state.
The constant immobility,
Renders me into stone.
I am held straight my by branches,
Yet left on my own.

My once fated self,
Has now lost all fate.
My once weighted self,
Has now lost all weight.
My once gated self,
Is now open for debate.

What is the difference, between
Love and hate?
For is hate not simply,
Love too late?

Tidal - I

As she seals up the envelope,
Her tongue avoiding the bitter cut,
Of the fastening strip, Her upper lip,
Trembling with the thought,
That once Her words are sent,
Unimportant in that brown paper parcel,
Her breath the glue,
Closing the gap like cool calm water,
Will vanish through and through,
As if the ocean had caught Her,
And sailed Her away to a place anew.

But in that ship, the creaking wood,
The crumbling floorboards,
The faded grey washes Her thoughts away,
But she still pretends they last,
Her care brushes over back into the past,
As the damp droplets of what was lost
Reign their way back into Her life,
And she walks in the wind on the deck,
Thinking she's putting out Her neck,
When she's really putting down Her heart.

She fears, constantly, a state of wreck,
Where every inflection will lead to
An almost glossing over of rupture,
The holes hidden in between
What's half and what's hole,
As she reads to herself,
A story she once thought of,
But let drown in the wind.

The memory, detached
As she hopes it will disembark,
Leave at a stopping point,
Never to return. The speech anointed,
The meaning patched, and
Now the puzzle is gaining to many pieces,
As the image itself,
It's complexity increases.

Armor - I

I look down, to shield my 

Face from the unyielding chill.

My pace picks up, but still my

Mind wanders in the icy thrill.

I raise my eyes, a stray

Strand of hair has stolen it's way

Into my sight, and the 

Carefully created creases, of

My hands in leather, first in pieces,

But now in two, reaches to

Brush away the unwanted.

I need to check the time.

My thick-skinned friend,

It leaps for my pocket,

And although I know, that

Inside that small patchwork maze,

Of fabric and thread,

There is something which lays,

Which if I focus my gaze,

Can lead my curiosity, to its end.

Of course, I cannot feel this,

The tortoise shell armour encases

My fingers, but still the sense of touch,

It lingers, but I know that it is there.

I shift my numbness, all five attached,

In an attempt to gain entry,

In an attempt to know.

But as much as I slip, and switch,

And swirl and twitch, my forged fervour

Seems but a glitch. The only way, the

One I know, is to dispose my gloves,

And dive right in. 

But in such fascination I forget,

That if I take them off, 

The stone will set. 

And although it may seem,

Like what I could feel, would be free,

I would be open, and as of yet,

I don't think, that frozen 

Is something I want my senses to be.

Bonfire Night

I leave the window slightly open,
To see how its slanted glass will cope,
I can vaguely hear the muffled shouts,
Of blossoming colors bright,
And swallow the distinct sense of smoke.

It sets off the aftertaste of a flame,
It's bitter spark still left on my tongue
As it yearns to set alight my lung,
With the fire of your name.
I fear its failure, that its incandescent smile
Will flail in the cold open air for a while,
And then ascend into the indifferent night.

And in between each burst of blame,
As disorder dissipates into the velvet sea,
There rests a calm, timid, peaceful shame.
Until the next crimson reaches its height,
And tints the sky with a shade of the same
Dazed cerise, the aftershock released,
But after a while the tint shall cease,
And all shall return, to that blackish hue.
With that slight hint of the preceding glow,
The memory I cannot undo,
The only burn I'll ever know.

Degradation - II

I turn away,
But still I'm blinded, misguided,
By the sight, the sound,
Of what I thought profound,
But maybe the pressure
Changed your ways, and you
Took measures to stop your
Vulnerability being found.

And then by mechanical chance,
The moon hid it's monthly dance,
And the time was right,
In the black of night,
You sought to solve the balance,
The method well known.
Yet was it well enough for the results,
Discovered in the image
Of selfish generosity,
Of vulgar mediocrity,
To be so willingly shown?

Was it too much perhaps,
Maybe it seemed ancient,
Or maybe too new, your patience
Tested, and as wanted,
All is equal; you are the hero,
So many problems you hope to
Complete,
You take your arrogance for granted,
Try so hard not to see,
That all you can do is compete,
With a phantom-force, his mask, his mark
Forever left.
All is equal. Equal to zero.

Your confidence will lead,
Your figures follow,
But soon you'll forget,
Why a hole is hollow.