Memory of Fire

I am the daily dulling,
the slow ingestion of normalcy,
of reason and rhythm.
I chase away the cool
seduction of electricity.

Autumn has brought strange demons,
vanity and stories of ancestors
that are not my own.
Eyes are a little too bright, and
I chase histories.

I claim crumbling ruins, battlefields
swollen with final desires.
I conquer, I conquer;
I consume your phantoms
and set your fields aflame.

But these worlds are not mine,
and no gods may walk
among this rust while still
I seek a chaos, a madness
to echo the fury once within me.

Nostalgia

He conjures simplicity:
A time when he had three wheels
and she ran behind him,
pigtails streaming.
Ice cream and chicken soup
could save the world
and they had never heard
of vultures.

Lovely, You Remain

Grey skies have forced you out.
(Chk chk chk on dirty window panes,
chk chk chk on cracked pavement,
chk chk chk on the rotting rooftop.)
Here, between a breath and a whisper,
there is only room for me
and the worms.

Spine melds with dirty tile;
How would I disinfect this cold?
Grey, grey, grey, as if bleach
can sanitize this cold.
As if a solution can neutralize this reaction,
and the monsters in the cupboard.

You speak of lines
and I speak of patterns;
Weak defenses against all this madness,
checkers warping
as the words drip from your face
and chaos shakes down the door.

Lovely, you remain.
(Chk chk chk on your heavy eyelids,
chk chk chk on those blue lips,
chk chk chk on your hollow ribcage.)
Here, between an intent and a motion,
there is only room for an end.
Love, and your remains.

Invocation

From the ruins of our cities, we summoned her.
She rose from the East,
desert sand clinging to her breasts and eyelids.
Her hair was tangled with the tears of the sun.
We called her from slumber
across the sea of blood and oil
to which we’d fed our heads.
She tore through our static and our shipwrecks,
below ruined towers and through walls
buckled with echoes.

She brought the winds, screaming her name
in the buzz of locusts.
The desert has lost his bride,
and at last we have found God.

From the ruins of our cities, we summoned her.
Now, we walk her hunting ground.

Sandman

Beneath fiery veil they crumble,
expelling breath and wish
in whisps of ash, cracks and groans.
Slow contentment dissolves
in the frantic collision of wings
and the screams of badgers.

Soon, the sky will roar,
and the sandman will send
the forest back to sleep.

Pandora

She found fury in the streets,
spitting Passion and Purpose,
throwing away apathy
and a brick or two.
The crack of glass and outrage
didn’t shake her,
zeal immune to volume.

She built a bonfire below City Hall,
and waited for the Negotiators.

Years later, she fell to the east,
and saw herself again
on a broke-down bus,
wires peeking from
the back of her dress.

Tick, tick.

Eye of God

Sky of diamond white,
The eye of God turned inward:
Blind to our demise.

The Cold That Remains

We do not speak of passion.
The sky drains from the ceiling,
Stars raining down on our tangled limbs.
(dri_pdr_ipd_RIP)
You have counted every bone in my body,
But the tally weighs in no favour.
I have traced each curve and hollow of your flesh,
But I still don’t feel you there.
We do not speak of passion,
Only the cold that remains.

The Treat is Only Sound

I remember when the addiction first took hold.  I was thirteen years of chaos trapped in a veil of flesh.  I fancied myself a lost cause.  A girl who had slipped between the ordered streets of the suburbs, lost amid the expectations.  What could I know of life, playing it safe?  Rebellion is nothing new for history, but is unchartered territory for a teenager.  I had yet to find inspiration in this world of dress codes and enforced respect. And so I decided to find it, chasing a dream, a high, anything more than what I knew.  And then I found it.  The elixir of the Gods.  My ambrosia.

I had heard the whispers, the confessions, but nothing compared to this rush.  I thought I felt nothing at first, standing there with my mouth still open, head tipped back.  There was no slow submersion, no testing of the water.  Just a breath, and the tide came in.  And oh, what a world lay beneath the curl of that wave!  Down below the ebb and flow, I find my heart has a rhythm of its own, a passionate counterpoint to the throb of this fever.

I never dreamed that I could be consumed like this.  The sky is dripping down from the ceiling, ravaged by the echoes of falling stars and fireworks.  The delirium is rising in me, seeping through the bars of my ribcage and setting my blood afire.  My body has become a battlefield, and still the war drums thunder.

A stranger moves her lips, shimmering at the edges of my vision.  Her hands dart beneath my tongue, plucking the madness from my swollen throat.  She moves more frantically now, a stream of chaos pouring from the core of me, twisting between her fingers, pooling in the curve of her elbow.

This is who I am.  She has summoned the very essence of me, spinning each trickle and swell into steady river, spiralling across the universe.  I cannot control this, I cannot control this wordless confession being drawn out of me.  This is where the panic sets in, and I am afraid to breathe.  Even my lungs are no longer mine.  This frame is too small, these ribs are too frail.  Too small to hold so much emotion, too weak to hold so much passion.  The light is dancing before my eyes, and still her hands beckon me.  Tease me.  Still, she pulls the depths from me.  I am possessed by this swelling river, this raging banshee, driving me, pulling me, dragging me.  And then, a gasp.  Silence.  I am alone and the melody has left me.

And now I am begging for just one more fix.  Suddenly, life has a meaning, an abstract variable that could define me.  It drains me.  It drives me.  Forget rebellion.  I wouldn’t trade anything for this inspiration.  Even if this addiction destroys me, it is better than the silence.

Echoes of Ophelia

I woke to a shapeless melody,
a whispered word.
She knelt beside me, called my name,
her tears resonating in me,
blood calling to blood.
I found her possessed by the ring of steel,
haunted by the voices of strangers.
Her voice has summoned me,
I who have seen the ruin of nations,
I who have washed the blood from their hands
with my tears.
Perhaps she saw herself in me,
but as she bent to pull a leaf from my hair,
I could not escape her.
I ached to cease her trembling, called her close
to calm the chaos behind her eyes.
How I longed to slow her racing heart,
to claim the burden that once was mine.
She slowly bent to kiss me,
and as I pulled her close, closer,
her hands ceased their shaking,
her tears poured into me,
and her heart raced no more.
And now she sleeps beneath my skin,
awaiting the death of time.
She lies in my very depths,
and now her songs are mine.

Siren Song

The crowd is all teeth and neon glow.
I can feel the undertow of sound
(the pulse the PULL the pressure)
but you laugh, and press my fingertips
to your lips
capturing your confession.
You start to shake and they pull you away,
thrashing through the writhing mass,
this maelstrom.
I scream your name
across this sea of hands and mirrors,
but I know.
The night will devour her young.

Morning, and I am alone still,
trying to fill in the gaps
(and holes and TEARS and holes)
in my twisting memory, trying
to conjure
the colour of your eyes.
The radio is spitting and hissing,
the tide has gone out,
and you echo in me.
There is wailing in the streets,
a violent banshee descant tearing
across the dawn.
The city will give up her dead.

Morning, and I am alone still.
Everything is quiet now.
There is only the girl in the mirror
and your outline in chalk.

Atlantis

Pavement gray and skies all summon
voices and the memory of sirens.
Monoliths of glass and chrome
shake their fists at the sky,
still trying to grasp dollars
in their teeth.

Come dark, the bonfires begin.
She watches from the ruins of the Opera house,
nesting in shredded curtains.
She glues mirrors to the old trapdoor
and watches the fires rise.

They swell from the bones of giants
like a last, bitter sigh,
one last battle cry
before ash.

Snowfall

Swollen skies of ivory and rust.
The snow falls like ash,
settling on our rooftops to spark
promises of fire.
There is no romance,
only a conspiracy of ruin.

Introduction

I am suddenly

mad and swollen with words. I am

all bones and I threaten

to shake apart

when you dare whisper

my name.

(“Morning star.”)