simply grace

this last of days
is measured by stars and scales

within your archway
I remember; loss
cannot assassinate the marriage
of hope and bone.

like a mermaid
crying to walk in a pair of steel shoes

I try to clasp your attention.

nostalgie de la boue

to you!
to you, my sweet assassin
I bequeathe
my bouquet of umbrellas,
my truffle oil, argan shampoo, tulle skirts

and sighs and heaves.

Anne of Cleves
kept her unlovely head;
Anne Boleyn
was less fortunate.

a lily grows from mud
even though her neck is the dimension
of a hearty tree trunk

I expect nothing

and I forgive.

follow me down

and you can follow me down
past your shantyshack town

I will be wearing a dress
stitched in water.

my tresses will curve
like the Moskva
with verve

my killer
your stones were heavy and cold
but how pretty
when dripping
ruby droplets
from my stilled heart
to your banquet goblet

pink shoes murder mystery

elegant and elongated

in repose,
your faux-haute glamour

trips you over
a man-hole.

that plunge
stirs vertigo in heart and heel and soul

poor baby steps
for a stilted girl.

my sister—my killer

your silence
erases all features
even the ones
perfect and cold

this dead January,
you approach two-faced
and I cannot fathom
a chosen direction.

duality and the madman

gone
those days
when your dual nature

sliced my skin-pink
figure skates

then left me
looking into the bottomless eye
of a timeless ice-hole.

carry on, savage winter

my nostrils attach
under blind-white
chill factor.

carry on,
savage winter.
you are dressed in icicle
splendour and your victims

are lost amid snow-drifts,
like holes in white cheese,
they have nowhere to go
but under.

the post and mistress

self,
hostess at twilight
with imported orchid lights

you whisper
at midnight
to guests

who leave
like hopeful ghosts

colour bleaches
from your throat
which locks
in loving protest.

The Life You Save Is

 

never your own
and that is why
you crumble

like a stucco wall or lyrical dancer.

You were never afraid
of living alone, rather

terrified of majority's noise—

its unrelenting blather.

 

 

slave girl

I have visited your cruel terrain
you are swollen, insipid and vain

yet youu twirl instruments of torture
as though you possessed honour—tenure

your teeth rot,
your flab glubs like
olive oil
churned rotten

oh,

my killer—my rancid one:

yellow is your colour,
true and five-pointed.

How is it that you disdain
hygiene in favour
of something

I cannot  quite
wrap my death around?

fish glass

here kitty-fish-fish
the bubble-gum stench
of your deep-sea lips

pries open pink flesh
inside a stained-glass wish

I am dying for you Bosnia—dying

behold

the faker's pasty face, his hold
on ancient Venice.

His followers are fat and fucked.
They've seen this card trick

tweaked and tucked
under sleeve or hem.

The executioner
kneels to be redeemed.
His silver bullets
are more merciful
than the poet's pre-fabricated
holdings

called upon

To be
something other than self and shadow
in failure

at rest

the fatigued seamstress
stitches her best
copy of wings on a runway

Then
needles her way through  torn text

Seamstress Post Operative

your costume shot
full of worm-holes
and absinthe regret.

The whir of bobbin and needle
fine-tuned pumped
operative.

Golden threads
bloom like mushrooms
or spors spun
out of control.

Tell your father,
blood-stained progenitor
who mudered his whore.

Compromised

hello once more, little darlings.
I am so sorry
to have abandoned you in hell,
but I had meetings and contracts deemed

important. Kiss your father good-bye.
He has let you down
in phrasal verb limbo

and his good will
is with you no longer.