Lost sheets

These are lost sheets
time-shards uncollated
feelings uncoordinated
my diary is somewhere else
unloved and unwritten
I miss out so many sections of despair

Two years ago plus half a year
I found you there
since then we have held each other
so close from afar
time together has been limited
but it is now locked in to my heart

and you won't forget me
though you may try
to escape this stress
of our separation

Maybe over time our molecules will have changed
we will be less and less of the selves that we were
when we met
and more of something new
without each other

But always, on my own,
I'm feeling more and more of you
the memories will not escape
and I weave them, constantly
in to the fabric of myself
and I become built out of you

I wonder if you ever feel the same as this
meri jaan

I wonder if you rebuild yourself
as daily as I do
trying to find a shred of hope left
amongst the disillusion
we have created

I wonder if it leaks out of your soul
in streams of longing that everyone can see
if you miss me

if they have heard the story now
so many times
that they feel like they know us

it is nice to collect the support of strangers
and the enchantment of friends

I wonder how many times,
in how many languages
our story has been told?

One day we will see if I am able to tell it again
it is so hard working on this happy ending
there are so many cycles of despair
and we are caught in it
such a long intermission
to struggle with no answer in sight
our darkness knows no horizon

except what hope we can create inside
and nurture in our hearts
hidden away from the doubts that we speak
hurting words that cut deeply
that fly from sharp and angry tongues
From this, there are so many
bruises and cuts on the surface

My body bleeds
as if it won't contain me
in such a living grief
But art spins gold out of flesh

so perhaps there is hope still yet
as long as there is breath.

…..

I'm scared to leave the room that contains your memories
I walk the streets that knew your footsteps
I know the trees that saw us in the park when we were worried
I return to the shop, it gives me no answers about how I found you
I want to hold on to the light that fell on you
whilst you were here with me
The sun and moonlight will fall on us again, I know
I will make it that way my love.

3 Nov 2012
LEF

Insecurity

There is no consolation for this insecurity

that makes me hate you defensively, temporarily, imaginarily

I brought it with me wrapped up in my hand luggage, fragile 

ready to smash once I arrived

its pieces rain all over you

like a confetti of glass shards

and I don't quite see what it does to your eyes

because they look away to the TV

where something takes your interest now

instead of me.

ii

I fear a hell I left
as a permanent impact on my life
a footprint denting into my heart
because in retrospect, I was trodden on
as I allowed myself to become the floor
I hope for wings, to become the sky instead
but one journey is not the destination reached
This is as good as any place to argue
once an argument needs a location
to spill forth stuck communications

that bleed doubt in to life's celebration

12-03-2015
LEF

Tomorrow's sky

I woke up in the wrong world today
my eyes deceive my heart
the sky is tomorrow's
and the air belongs last week
Just the same as them, I am in the wrong place
it should be earlier today
I should be walking out as the sun rises
on a frosty morning
with a group of people,
relying on me to be there
perhaps if I close my eyes again
I'll be relocated
put back in a world I should have found

And so I sleep to try to find today again
to no avail
it is dark when I awake
and they have forgotten I exist

To stop being relied upon
is so much worse than disappointing them…


21-11-2004

The hollow centre

Friends, I slightly burn inside as savage guts keep me from sleep and pull me from tomorrow.

My eyes are dark beneath and mouth is sore, dry, silent.

What is painful more than pain's bones and buckles?

It is that silence of which I write to try and form the words,

That destroyer of all imagination's worlds.

I hide these thoughts in pebble pots where wishes lie,

until they may sprout dreams and fortunes owed or not.

Let me lie down amongst these concerns and sleep for a while,

underlain by memory's leaves and time's rot 

I try to renew myself

each ring grows anew around me 

age seems to expand me

but the hollow centre grows

Danger doesn't act as quick as you'd think

but moves so slowly it is not caught

as it drags me down to places without air

and deficit of love

I forget to connect with myself

no one answers, do I call?

23 Sept 2014 LEF

Silver lines

I forget to reach and nearly touch

what I must always keep a few millimetres away from

So much boredom chews my edges 

as the scream builds 

boiling like tar from my centre

surviving

and breathing

a few more bursts 

before I run out of myself

silver lines

pour through electronic time

and reach me in the room

that I've been calling "mine"

I wonder if I am still here 

once your words arrive

how was it possible to forget what I once knew?

open eyes are closed again

as years gave me an amnesiac mask

behind which I hope the truth still hides

29-April-2014 LEF

Self-censorship

Self-censorship 

Resist as you are consumed

by arms which pull you from your other selves

Drowning avoids the doubt you'd otherwise have to live with

as you dive forward in to the finality of silence

I'm spinning alone and no one catches edges of any thoughts

One day - will I too disappear?

Of course.

I sit in a time stream losing everyone and myself at the same rate

Can I teach you how to disappear?

teeth gnaw at communication's threads

as I fray

20 May 2014

LEF

Yesterday's Newspapers

I stare at your face through time
In every moment you are mine.
Precious leaves of an antique book
Unread by any but our eyes
Collect in the gutters,
Like yesterday's newspapers
Soaking up the rain.

I stare at your face through time
I wonder, were you ever mine?
Leaves of memories
Fallen from an ancient tree
Drift in to my eyes
Every time I cry
Like yesterday's newspapers
Soaking up the tears.


18-06-05
LEF

In everyone

In every other face I meet
I feel in a way I am greeting a new part of myself
Perhaps unfamiliar
Or maybe strangely recognisable
But either way, an adventure.

In every other hand I hold
I'm holding on to myself
A reassuring grasp onto physical reality
Touch
In every hand, half of a new story
In every face a past, present and future visible

In every voice, a promise
In every eye, a tear
On every face, a shadow
In everyone, a fear.


17-7-2002
LEF

Umbrella

My useless umbrella
let me never put you down
though I hardly ever put you up either

Your spokes become an arm
that feeds my iron heart
with time you will be rooted there
upside down and unusual, a self-sustaining novelty
mottled by metallic moss
and weathered by the world


13-01-2005

The moment

The moment before sleep

I try to bring myself back in to this moment

just this very moment

though the time it contains

seems to stretch back

over the whole of history

infinite reflection

Perhaps like the moment before death

the second before giving in

asks to feel again

all that has ever been felt

to remember everything once known

and everyone

All faces sculpted from 

the disappearing air

all thoughts swim in to a dark

subconscious sea

all clocks are paused

grains of sand float halfway down to the floor

Outside of time

there is no such thing as waiting any more

For now may as well be forever

With the next second a life time away

you'll eventually be gone

but in the moment before sleep

exists all of eternity.

11-07-2007

LEF