Poetry

The Starving Part

There lies in me the starving part, the stilted, beating, laboured heart, the Rubens Venus carved in stone turned gossamer on brittle bone. A practised, broad, malignant curse pulled steady by black horse and hearse, slipping slow and sweet in vein to numb the counsel, nerve and pain. The arrhythmic guilt of more and more…

Lady in the Blues

This town is a song about you.A symphony of measured beatsmeandering through the dead-end streetsand winding paths down memory lanethat echo with a known refrain. The ringing notes of drawn-out nightsand cymbal clang of booming fights,set off by your all-too-short fuseto paint me in the shades of blues. Old lyrics haunt the faded corners,calling out…

A Sickness

It’s in the way we bloomed togetherand in the way we fell apart:wound tight and scraping rough against the softest parts,to claw-caress, and sting to soothe. All that’s left now are the ugliest parts.The looming shadow of two naked vulturescircling each other in anticipation,plucking out feathers to keep warmand choking on air we once shared…

Stranger, Stranger

In truth, it starts to ache at times, the wear and tear of all these years, stripped and laid bare eventually. Anchored first by steady hands, rough sand smoothed into blinding gems and stems that flowered beautifully. Was it then we learned to lie? Shiny words of trust and submission as we buried the truth…

Adam’s Apple

To boys of blue: you must not cry,for yours is but to do and die;to march without the dire complexand folly of the weaker sex. The world that you were born intohas spaces carved out just for you,ripe with fruit fit for your pleasure—pick and plunder at your leisure. Power over crafted creatures,(fragile forms with…

for love of butterflies

In order to loveI have surrendered the part of myselfwith the softest and most delicate skin. A simple touch will bruise, andif the nails are sharp they caneasilytear it apart. Mine isa prayerwhispered quietly intomirrored hands. Yours isan explosivebursting with the potential toscatter me.

The Love Eaters

Dear friend, you are the Love Eaters, you that do consume it. That see the entry and exit of blood and breath, the coming and going of life and death as waste if performed in the absence of a lover’s face. (From the start, were the spaces between our fingers set apart to make us…

Lamb to the Slaughter

I set my heart between your teethto fulfill Delphic prophecy;slit my throat and slowly bledwhile chanting prayers in my head. Gouged out my offending eyesto strip the pretense and disguise,set them at your burning altar—these first sins of Adam’s daughter. When was it that I misspoke?What ancient rite did you invoketo carve me up as…

The Minotaur and I

There is a rope around my neck and it is pulling tighter and tighter until I can finally breathe past the stones that have rolled up from my belly and coated the surface of my tongue with something that resembles fear. I am running, further and further away from a sun that would cast light…

The River

There’s a river beside the trees that flows around the broken glass and hurries through the trays of ash that choke the birds, and hush their words and dull the budding roses. It winds around the crumbling brick, surging past half-painted walls and echoing through empty halls to wane and crash, break back and splash…