Flowers on a Bridge
A short, thematic poetry collection
Flowers on a Bridge
I went to pick a flower but it reminded me of you. Paralysed in its power and the scent of your perfume, I felt dirty digging through the bush under the gardener's dirty look. I fear if I wait too long the seasons will change and my timing: wrong. I'll be too late , the bloom will be gone. So I sing a portrait made of wind— painting to take away the pain within.
I've missed my neighbour ever since I left her, or rather, since she left me. I won't ever forget the day where I gave her the morning paper.
She was yawning in dawn's vapour, crowned by clouds, and for once I felt the son and didn't catch a cold for a month. You couldn't make her more perfecter, the angel of my neighbour.
Some days I played detective, gazing through the fence, praying, preying on her ignorance. Such a strange perspective, too. I saw a cigarette become a flaming sword. I didn’t mind the splinters, much (they warmed me in winter after all), but I imagine all the dinners I missed, lingering, scrounging for a kiss. It's so much fun to reminisce when it all comes back as clear as mist.
When I wished for no fence, I meant no offence. I just loved how her aqua dress swished around her legs, like a licking seafoam. The closest I got to her peachy skin. A guardian of the garden within. A garden I was never let in.
Those blank parentheses, holding no memories, where a minute feels like entire centuries— what are they made of? It's not flesh, bone or blood nor the touch of love. That is the mystery of the fabric of dreams. Nothing's as it seems. The arena of sleep, the fabric of dreams. At school it's called idle reverie, but back in bed it's free therapy when your forehead brushes foetal knees, swimming in the sea of tranquillity. Go undercover under the covers— the perfect place to go hiding from a hiding: the arena of sleep, the fabric of dreams. But if you stop, you've dreamt and it ends empty. If the adult world calls it maturity, I'll stay curled up in my sanctuary and invite six friends to join me in my den. If you ask me what I did when I slept or about all the creatures I claim to have met, I'll tell you that Mr Bee gave Mrs Bird a throbbing sting which hurt so hard that she flapped her wing and splashed her bath and the water wept all over my lower half. The fabric of dreams is no tapestry, the fabric of sleep is no mystery, the fabric of dreams, something's touching me, the fabric of dreams, nothing's as it seems, the fabric of sleep, the fabric of dreams.
I'll always admire whoever tethered the tire over the highest branch and gave us all carte blanche to swing and sway our gilded days away, exchanging eternity under the shady tree. Under the shady tree, under its shady leaves, where lazy feet swing in the summer breeze. Sunbathe in the hazy heat, but stay away from the hot steams under the same tree where girls in May comb their hair, where boastful boys stash contraband but don't come home because they're scared up there up in the shady leaves Up in the shady tree Under its shady leaves where lazy feet swing in the summer breeze. Let the branches creak but don't let them crack. Only swing in the tree behind your parents' back. Roots set deep in the dusty floor, today's pleasure and play a slave to rustic lore and whatever happened so many summers before, when girls changing bare-chested before boys was still accepted under the shady tree under its shady leaves where lazy feet swung in the summer breeze.
A trip to the beach: I tripped on the rocks, ripped open my knee and wept with the sea. The tides in my eyes shrank away to see a girl with short hair standing over me. Shoe scuffing the ground, hand covering frown, crouching down to see, she kissed my nicked knee. No night in armour, but my Nightingale: a girl with short hair standing over me. Stumbling and tumbling over soggy sand, I chased her skipping shadow to forgotten lands. Back at the bus at the back of the bus, hands thrust in shorts, I sat waiting for a girl with short hair to stand over me. Frothing like the shore and blurry school talks— that's all that remains from my days of daze, besides playing with a decaying bit of driftwood a girl with short hair once gave to me. Yesterday I drove to the cove with its caves, encrypted crypts and salted secrets. I watched meek waves dashed to death on rocks where I sit and I wait for a girl with long hair.
Fresh-cut grass in the public park; I'm at a loose end until the carnival starts. Don't be surprised behind the toilets tonight, if a boy's losing his mind and a girl something else, both of them fumbling, loosening belts. A manic mother is losing her mind as her two-year-old tot tumbles and cries. Mud on his hands, don't let him rub his eyes (unless you really want him to go blind). Fresh-cut grass in the public park; I'm at a loose end until the carnival starts. A guileless girl's losing her voice as a wily guy quells her choked choice. Blood on his hands, footprints in loose soil; good luck catching a man without a soul. The sun is setting, it's getting dark. Fairground lights, it's about to start. Welcome the night and its pyro sparks Say a dull goodbye to a day in the park. Say a dull goodbye to the dullest day, a day so dull even the clouds weren't grey.
The lights blink on, one by one, and so I see the fun has begun. Crazy kids, kamikaze speeds, a helter-skelter sweat stampede. Topple bottles throwing balls— win yourself dead animals. If you’d rather an electric shock, go meddle with the metal box. Such switch-flipping flashing is so back in fashion— listen to the tingling skin of two fresh-faced lovers, envied by others, who waltz to the waltzer where he exalts her. I wouldn't falter in shoving them over into the water, seasoned and salted with a live toaster. Further on I find an answer in a fervent Morris dancer with legs so high they scrape the sky— no underwear under there. This entrancing snake charmer flirts with every fat farmer, flattening her skirt crease, teasing their grease, tempting their peace in the evening's hot-blooded breeze.
Flushed from the flashing, a lusty burning passion, my perpetual pursuit of the forbidden fruit— finally, breaking my peace, I sink my teeth into the peach.
Enigmatic. I enjoyed the rhythm and flow.
This is a great way to share a collection -- it works really well.