poetry collection IV: a new kind of lakeside

archive of my poetry, May-October 2023

May scraps* - May 2023 & prior

nothing has changed between me and m since that night in december and that january morning how i cried and the sun grows stronger now but i'll never fade i'll stay the same 

there's more space in my mind i can take my time let it fill me up and let the wind take me through the woods and down the arbitrary paths untread 

i see glances and glimpses, reflections and refractions of your face shimmering, and i know you're predicting my calculations and my machinations (are you?) but i'm away in another world 

i think back on where you saw me, and we were torn apart - splitting at the seams because weak things aren't made to last 

i feel a boiling bubbling poetry and plant the seeds, but these things can't be rushed, they grow slowly, if you'll take the time to walk with me

a night of tripping on my words because my mouth hurries to melt with yours and a day of ice skating around the questions that come alive and burn 

another day of nurturing the wildflowers in this torn up wasteland and letting time slip by but none passes at all 

it never seemed so far away and so curious, so arbitrary as when the summer sun beats down and i wonder how - each wave washes me clean, the bruise marks stay but my tan fades out 

you've taught me lessons but you don't know how, i'm finding prayers and preachers inside of me until they speak out loud

a summer left unsaid - 5th September 2023

once again
i am struggling to reconcile anger and love
my anger is not playful, not bratty, badly-behaved
not drip-fed, not honeyed, lacquered and balmed
with the promise that this only ends

once again
with your hands around my neck
let them creep down my throat
steal the words from my lips
quench me from the poisoned chalice 
prise the gap apart between my thoughts and my actions
eternally expand, a wide horizon i cannot cross

poetry coursing through me like a live wire 
you hesitate to touch, a certain ugliness 
a poison roils within i cannot spit out
it creeps over my eyelashes, runs down my cheeks
winding down the road, the darkest of hazes

i’m tangled up in the most inexplicable mazes 
the summer air and the bars fan the flames of my doubt
that the road ahead is any less corrupt
while i drive fast, in the rear-view my past
glints like stones stolen, precious yet tough
gleaming reflections of glittering dreamgirls 
whose fears disappear when they get fucked

so if i’ll never be heard, i’ll leave it alone
let time take from you, everything you’ve got
i’ll forgive myself for all the things i was not
for summers spent idly, for the flowering rot

attic-shelved letters fall apart, dust to dust
murky calm hangs over your moonshine memorial
dark brunette, strip me down - born again, then and now
i can make you out, buried deep, in fragmented dreams
dirt in your eyes as i rise, bones cracking, watch ticking
my sleeplessness, aged like sweet summer wine
coins clatter, the drain claims my sweet wasted time

is this contentment; scraping down to the rind?
leaving gold beaches, lost lovers behind
must it end here; from the root upward torn?
i clutch at the soft spots, worn as i warn

dreams distilled taste bolder and wiser
they dance on my tongue down different paths
yet with each step, i wrestle to wrench myself from
the bed we shared in my dreamland, seaside room
and so, the road not taken falls further from view

while above the surface, i struggle to breathe
only in my dreams, do i find myself free
your arms, somehow, a space that transcends
eternal, rageful flames, violent ends
melted by your touch, numb fingertips struck
for one prize only, i'd give the fight up

dare i dream to unburden the agony silent?
a trade for national parks and college grads
kitchen sunlight, warm home and infant’s cry
barefoot in the yard, the air soft and sound
where time is money, cash flow will embellish
where empty words, false promises 
cannot fill a deep and desperate
hunger, a desire to be understood

how lovely, how frightening a thing to behold
how wild, how maddening the tales yet untold 
the clothes i don’t own yet, the scars on my knees
the room not my home yet, the feel of your teeth
i’ll root myself solid in this earth, lest i forget my mother
let a higher force guide me toward my desires 

though what they are yet, i cannot conceive
like all the best things, my form changes shape
along with the years, the places, the faces, the names
no longer lost in a foreign land, praying for my escape
not quivering with the undefined, auburn hair and painted face
nor settling under a quiet tree, as the world around us fades
not hurling ourselves, past city lights, into the scorching flames

time and trial sand me down, smoothing my rough edges
lost deep in the pages of history books, my mind awash, anew
i discover i own nothing now, but the path i forge ahead
walking down, you’re a distant sound, nothing obscures my view
this time, no pen, no price, no purpose aids me 
in my treacherous climb, nor my hopeless plummet
i clutch at hope, i grasp at desire, i grapple with my fears
i push the boat out on the lake - the fog on the horizon clears

a new kind of lakeside - 30th October 2023

gently, remember
the stable door smoke
slipping past, back of the cat
on your arm, acutely arched 
let the snakeskin shed

presently poised, in denim and leather
with the pink-nosed, cold canadian air
of things yet to master- control, the art

unfold, relapse, peel back
i let your poetry drip over me
and so the tackle for the knife edge begins

in the chase, charms fall apart
my diamond mine, once impenetrable 
solid, stagnant, eventually unmoving

begins to warp and distort
fall to new depths, climb to new heights 
stood facing, once again: my rotten autonomy
a new kind of lakeside, with no hand to guide me

in a momentary lapse, i fall into you
unfold me, take me, down to the maze
unwilling to go back to that heartless place
i wade into the depths of piercing proximity
the practical, the tangible, weighing down upon me
tangled among weeds, cutting my feet- in search of
the spot where heaven sits- your fingers find it

my lessons in autonomy; so swiftly forgot
an endless unstringing; i feel my throat knot
a heart once certain now gives way 
falls beneath the waves- to the mind’s spreading rot
well-oiled machine, rusting for the sake of knowing 
breathless, though the tests of endurance never cease
the plots, the cunning schemes, to find the weakest spot

i watch the twenty-eighth moon rise
in brief interludes and intermissions
i stir, coming to my senses
knife-sharpen my blunt edges

decked out in glittering gold
decorated with glass shards
of smashed champagne flutes
in anger and anticipation
guts spilled on the floor

i want to be soft 
but the urge to bite
to stab, to be sharp 
consumes me

now the free fall motion slows;
knife in hand, i land - i see before me
such multitudes contained within
the pictures and the parties
fates, fatalities and collisions 
darkness behind each pair of glassy eyes
and secrets scattered with the wind

in spots you’ll never find 
the only thing holding down
this volatile hinge on my mind:
the arms i woke up in
the woman my home is
treasure chest of things taken
lessons learnt marked by bruises

who i am, i hold, with a steady grip
and when the snakeskin sheds, i heed
feet weary from the rocks, i know now, not to slip