flowers and stars

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[cashmeremammoth]

i’ve made a chapbook!  trends includes 11 poems that i’ve worked on over the last few months, as well as illustrations. it’s available for free (with a pay what you want option, if you fancy) at the link below, and i’d be really happy if you had a read.

“a word, a name. [...] it makes one aware of the depth of beautiful.”

download and read here

[cashmeremammoth]

‘something about sitting alone on the train’, for @knittinganarchist

i. watch as the view gets pulled away from you, hand over hand, mile over mile, rolled out and then up again. remember there is no constant like the carriage, the stain on the carpet, the autumn sunlight on this particular stretch of tracks at 10:53. this is the only thing you know is real, in this moment, and it is forever.

ii. you’ve been travelling this line since you were a child. the names of the stops could not come in any other order. there is a rhythm when they are listed. sing it. these towns are ancient and alive and you have never stopped there but you know them. let them lull you.

iii. start your book. live a thousand days. finish your book. breath. outside, one day has done what it will. it is a pleasant truce.

iv. it’s not that the world is happening apart from you. it’s there, behind glass, from strange angles. it’s there, waiting to greet you when you got off, intersecting lives and a thousand more places to go, waving hello. but, for now, it is a zoetrope, spinning on. you are its observer. watch.

[cashmeremammoth]

prompt maybe; how can a love stay fresh even across states and miles? how to convey softness of touch through texts and Skype calls? how to stay in love until the end of time?

i still think of you when certain words are said/unaware charms which close the distance/fold away the borders of nations and years/until i’m left, knowing less but knowing you

this is when i send you my heart (<3<3<3)/and you reply from your new home, unknown/with a joke worn low, to the bones, to the embers/that is: to the hottest part of the fire

[cashmeremammoth]

nothing, nothing in all the world is as grandiose as the anticipation before going out. it’s the moment before battle and you might not survive but (the gods know) youre going to fight. and theres a girl at the bar you wanted to kiss, and a boy you want to and nothing feels as sharp, as much, nothing captures the past and present like this eclipse of crushes, all flash backs and flashing lights that will never hurt you that can only lift you up.

and here, the greatest unknown: will you kiss the boy, will you kiss the girl. will you walk home alone with your shoes in one hand and your heart in the other. you’ll find out you’ll find out you’ll find out

[cashmeremammoth]

i'm an anecdote for her, her just a phase and she's the girl i can't write poems for and yet we keep coming back here: a bed, four hands not kept to themselves and an hour far too early for good decisions she has inhaled my biggest secret, i have pulled it across her skin, and i hate that i have let something out, but at least i also know how grotesquely real she becomes with her eyes closed her tongue on mine i know how to make her breathing thick - i can hold how she held me against her i hold her against me and all i can do is wonder if she is in love with me and then wonder if i have ever been in love or if it's just that i have kept it all so close that even the slightest exhale seems to be a storm - but anyway, none of that matters not here not her (we lie alone)

we lie together (c.s)

[cashmeremammoth]

your type is forgetting the warning and looking back at the place where you grew up, all chances there gone your type is ancient cities that youll never see glorious has-beens you've been to, been through, beings who are, god, everything you cant be, theyre your answer on the magazine quiz, you circled mostly 'x's, congrats your type is: charming, handsome, romantic, the kind of person oracles sing of, or at least, indie rock bands that someone was playing at that house party, cramped and messy and filled with people you like likelike, a childish prodigality, but outside the sky is so big, so old and you and your type underneath it both, and more, laughing down ancient, well traced streets to sober up your type is an eclipse, nothing until they grab your hand and then it's vegetables growing in fast forward a whole lifecycle of love in the walk to the chippie

another ode to house parties (cs)

[cashmeremammoth]

i'd given up on revolution put such an effort into forgetting the feelings he used to inspire that i used to have, all that hope, all that, all that, only for him to return apathetic and passionate and grinning too wide given the dark stains on his bomber jacket he hangs over the back of my desk chair as i paint my nails (not red, some still shade of blue, not symbolic) 'you read that book, huh?' he asks and i tell him not for you, and i don't mention that i hung on his every appearance, but i do ask why he failed each and every character in it, and he only rolls his eyes long-suffering once, yknow, i was serious about this, me and him, and then he let me down he got himself shouted down and now at best i'd probably make out with him at a party casual, late and dizzy with alcohol and night air and the hope of fairy lights, just because he's been to places i want to go, places i want to go with him- fuck. he's so worthy - so noble, considering he's one of the people are filling the street when i see him waiting and i ball my hands into fists so he cant see my nails and hold them down at my side, a firmly neutral stance revolution poses, he is languid, he takes photos, he takes me, he takes a million others, his history is one of fucking people over it's his thing and still i think maybe it won't hurt this time, maybe he's better now maybe this time our revolution will grow old with us we'll see it through maybe we won't give him up.

from a cynic, to a concept (c.s)

[cashmeremammoth]

fire witches they’ve given enough to the flames, over the centuries, to deserve something. this is what they get: the remnants, crawling upwards; the replacements, all efficiency and no passion. but the sparks too, arriving on command with the flick of a lighter, stranded starlight tender against the night air. this is what’s owed.

[cashmeremammoth]

the bin in my room is filled with compacted post-it-notes on which i wrote words i though i adored, except it turned out they wouldn't write easy from my pen (some poems just don't work in pieces, you see). this must mean something, i think, just like the waves clinging onto the beach this morning with such desperate strength, or your parting words when i called you a riddle i set myself to solve. and something else that has to mean something is the fact that this poem began audienceless but now there is a you, - you are not going to know about the words in the bin, or the waves, or your goodbyes (my riddles), or this.

“them to see”, or, another poem in which i don’t talk about love (c.s.)

[cashmeremammoth]

graveyard witches have you heard? - there’s something in the old graveyard. everyone agrees. something old, and unknown. anyone that had an answer is in there too, but not moving anymore. long gone. she morns them. she’s a myth, a horror story, but you know, if you need a message passed on (you know where to, you must), she can do that, i swear.

[cashmeremammoth]

one quite how many hours i waste blowing time away like the seeds of a dandelion (old charms, failed attempts to find answers) two that when i show her poems (not mine) and ask her to read them, i know she won't understand them three those poems (not mine) are each an attempt to confess and each time i know they will fall flat four that i write poetry myself four (encore) that i write poetry selfishly that i write poetry for her five i don't know when i'm being sarcastic either - maybe i am just cruel but i'm hoping not six i want to complete her i want to hold her up i'd be a bridge for her i'd be a staircase a pen i'd make myself inanimate for her

things i’m not telling her (c.s)

[cashmeremammoth]

endings are each a miniature tragedy whilst beginnings are jumps into an abyss and i'm starting to wonder if icarus was onto something because at least falling is a constant (and a crash into an ocean is a finale which stays final, instead of these bracketed experiences which all inevitably close, whist the narrative flows on)

full stop (c.s.)

[cashmeremammoth]

teen witches there’s a future spreading itself out in front of them, which is blank and cold in its emptiness. they do not know what it is going to become. but now, although they occupy an edge, an inbetween place where how they are seen flutters and fluctuates like ribbons in air (like magic), they have found themselves solid ground. now, they know what they are. they are witches.

[cashmeremammoth]

hi!! this is a quick message to let you know that i’ve set up a twitter account; @cashmeremammoth 

i haven’t tweeted much yet, but i'm hoping to dedicate largely to writing; snippets of poetry and the like. if you have anything you want to ask me, or just want to talk i’ll be more likely to reply if you message me there than here

[cashmeremammoth]

desert witches you see them, flickering on the edge of your vision, the edge of the horizon. it is impossible to tell whether they are real, or merely the heat contorting itself. and yet, there are signs. footprints, although there is no one around. patterns, drawn in the sand, with no meaning you are able to understand. water, where there is no spring. you drink thirstily.

[cashmeremammoth]

long distance covens they are spread, scattered irregularly across boundaries and borders. they aren’t connected, not properly, not in breaths and looks and touches. but then again, they are. they are bound tight by letters and calls and words. words more ordinary and powerful than the chants and hexes that initially drew them together. perhaps their strongest magic is that which makes the miles melt away.

[cashmeremammoth]

flower witches the winter is quiet, for them. but spring arrives, and settles, in the form of trees crowned in green and warm, alien breezes and - finally, finally - flowers pulling themselves up and out of the soil. it is time for them to bloom.