WORDS ONLY @wordsonly - Tumblr Blog

Posts

Paper’s Edge

Savour the procession of images.

Lost to the preciousness of words,

we revel in breathless conceit.

Wonder slides through the gaps.

A light cone of complex emotionality, crushed to a tiny ball.

Free

in its meander to the edge.

Small yet, in its density,

pulling with the weight

of nineteen thousand suns,

each shining on a clean sheet.

Moving forth in reframing,

pulled to dashes and squiggles.

Dots.

Flotsam atop,

shards below.

Gathered *Quali*

trail across the permeable

empty white.

Finally liberated,

Fallen from its tip

Yet gravity continues

its journey to the sharp edge

still,

rolling ink.

Filler

I light three cigarettes.

Three girls lounge on the leather banquette,

asserting straps, decorations, exposed flesh.

They dismiss me (and my cigarettes)

to the outside,

to suck upon all at once

to a gentle buzz;

I watch as the giant bee.

A queen, busies herself,

doing her part

in the unfolding.

I’m here seeking sanctuary,

anxious that I’ll let down

my neighbour.

My short temper had, again,

pushed me into powerful tattooed arms,

that wanted to fight.

Somehow, in smoothing

their testosteroned bristle,

I found myself here,

in this cascade of class;

aspiration fawning

and

affirmation flaunting,

While falling toward the impulse

to show my value,

and social ambiguity,

I remove dark,

viscous tar from the sky-blue fibreglass,

licking it away

with a mouth full

of carcinogenic degreasing agents;

joining the gang of shaggy pool boys,

proud in their chlorinated flip-flopery.

Yet I drown in an overwhelming compulsion

to do the kindness,

to fulfil the duty promised.

For that, I must find

my small, rusting mode

of freedom.

Packed with epoxy.

Its shell primer-grey,

patch upon patch

upon patch.

Mostly now, filler.

Maroon innards held together

with wire and grey woven tape.

It was tossed back and forth

over my piggy head,

then vanished into the branches

of a high tree.

So I push through Graffiti-Land’s vivid violation,

colourised, dislocated symbolics,

screaming into the grey noise,

pissing upon every gasping space,

on each other,

choking thought

as I stumble over bended steel barricades,

children, buggies, fallen limbs,

to reach a new cut; a settling buzz,

in a room filled with objects

that signal calm to one another.

To the help I believed I needed to give—

reduced instead to forgiveness,

an a gift recieved,

A Quick Response code;

token for toys

or cards.

A hollow nostalgia,

the presupposed need to buy back,

in fragments,

echoes

from a time of safety.

attenuation

Without

this scrumbled-boggle

flounders

in staccata static’d doubt

in the anaesthetician’s countback:

five

four…

not quite out.

tapped of swelling valence, flat,

upon its verse.

she sits at the end of a hallway

typing cra-cracks, in full reverse.

there’s nothing here to filter,

no warmth to recognise,

where passion flashed the room,

a screen.

dimmed, to warning light.

so i ask again for meaning:

what neurotransmitter have pulled me in?

compressed, aligned connection

to this clipped, weak, stuttered din.

i modulate her output,

presses upon her gates

that open where omission

permits, yet hesitates.

there is weakness to attune:

a garbled, insensate trail,

fed-back dissimulation,

a grey-noised amorous pale.

escaped from the event horizon,

manifested deep within:

a singularity of inadequacy

crushed to

infinite density,

a false unlovability

safe

in her proclivity,

bending lightcones

to craven

nihility

#the long wait home

Lost in brown embossed carpet,

in the heavy shadows

of white modernist stairwells.

In stale food,

the stench of untreated water—

in the fear of calling them

by the wrong name.

The maisonette.

Clear wide transoms

hanging above each door,

edges carelessly over-painted,

no locks,

just fearful nakedness.

Lines of shoes

that never fitted

sit,

friends,

tried,

or worn uncomfortably

every blue moon.

Like new,

until excruciating.

So each day

you walk—

over tarmac and wet grass,

through dilapidated lidos,

in zombie hotels (turned in the seventies).

Through cold,

plate-steel airport corridors,

over pea-shingle mountain passes,

down straight, comatose

suburban streets,

tended,

cared for,

while sleeping in their faun ambivalence.

Your pilgrimage,

barefoot.

Not for your God,

or for your self.

Simply to prove a point

to no one,

who cares.

#The players present – ‘Coriolanus’

——

‘I’ am the black man

in the beaten overcoat,

too large for his fragile

sinewy frame.

Shouting myself hoarse

as crumbs spray

from gappy, yellow teeth.

He hurls bags of blood and urine

at the picnickers

reclined on the grass

opposite his caged doorway.

They explode —

Spattered,

‘I’ sip their rosé.

Pressing a silver butter knife

into the thick sweet fruit

of ‘homemade’ jam, from the new

delicatessen.

Rats flicker

in the surrounding piles

of detritus,

fucking each other,

in the cold light.

As patterned cardigans,

bleu de travails,

and coloured socks

pop,

hushing as she stands.

‘I’ am a short, shapely

bookish, woollen woman,

tortoiseshell spectacles

strung about heavy breasts,

reading the announcements,

to gentle applause.

On this small lush stage,

‘a parkette’

steeped in blood, and

and pigeon shit,

in corks

and bio-degradable latte lids —

The players present.

‘Before we proceed any further,

hear ‘us’ speak.’

#Husband

Magical mountains

rose to the sky;

smooth green velvety mounds,

a road sewn across them

with evenly spaced

giant sky-blue birds,

peacocking their feathers,

their fascinators rising in waves

as though pulsing

to a psychic symphony.

At the bottom:

a home,

hidden behind steel plate,

quadruple locks,

bolts—

a vast container

on a vacant Disney lot.

You’ve come to collect him,

her husband.

He meets you

eyes averted,

with a downward look

and a left-handed shake.

You wonder if he knows.

He invites you in for the tour

before you carriage him

to the awards

in his shiny battery.

The secret home is palatial,

multi-level,

straight from the catalogue of the bourgeoisie—

natural stone, tassels,

hollow faux-gold shapes,

arts-and-craft pressed

into chandeliers,

the bed frame

where he sleeps, with her.

Once inside

he changes his mind about leaving.

Offers you a drink,

which you accept.

You take a sip.

You wake—

unsure where you are,

a strange sensation

in your calf.

One of the oversized,

pretentious beds.

Pulling back the cover:

a small woman,

short bowl-cut hair,

her mouth round,

sucking on your leg.

Seeing you awaken,

she moves toward your face.

You push her to the floor

and run away,

Stumbling—

finding the quiet, shy husband again.

Except,

he is pumped and orange and sweaty,

jagged henna tattoos

the size of bones

demarcate his body like scars.

He falls backward,

naked but for a

gas-station cap,

tight red shorts,

smearing fake tan

across

the sheer white wall.

You stare at the mark it leaves

Seeing a fat smiling ginger cat

You are unable to discern:

if is he intoxicated,

or devastated.

#Evocation

For this transcendent avocation,

The fourth, most thrilling chapter —

I sleep.

A Vision fantasy

scratched into my headboard:

Ecstasies of deeper union,

the artefacts of our golden dawn.

Hushed utterances

sketch the fascinations of divinity…

My loose, delicate scratchings

scry time’s arrows,

a flow of intention,

tracing its line in both directions…

Softly along her unconscious profile;

a forrid pressed into shelter,

from shoulder

to slender knotted ankle —

along eternity’s fabric,

erstwhile,

now,

and in our yonder.

I sleep.

Tumbling unconscious in her bejewelled stroma,

radial weaves of singular magnificence:

Irises blessed —

living threads

of aquamarine,

of morning dew,

grains, golden,

scatter the wisdoms of antiquity…

The first and the last of the magi,

spinning their

‘lines, circles, signs,

letters

and characters’…

drawing us closer to the cosmos.

I sleep.

Lost within the vast solar rapture of it all,

dust spinning,

accreting with incontestable precision

in synchronous majesty —

I sleep.

Our story trembles from my breath;

the whispers of Yeats’ astrology,

ghost of a flower burned to ash,

a wisp under a bell jar,

where words,

scribbled,

picked from vine

or starry night,

conjure this love into eternity.

#Soft Power

There was nothing else,

Kindness,

and its Warden.

She wore a white blouse,

a lime crocheted tank top,

knee-length wool skirt

of midnight green,

mirroring her eyes,

heavy

with pools of honey

pendanting gentleness.

She sat upon your bed,

telling calming tales,

heart stretching to hold you

in your fear.

Yet you have woken to him.

To find she is gone.

Let go

for that minor transgression.

Ecstasy pierces from electric blue irides

in fine,

penetrating bladed spears—

glee in her excision.

His hands shape harm

to the sounds of his unbending:

staccato crushed shells,

spiting, whipping, hissing…

he swings his cat

therapeutically.

He speaks only in rules.

The institution’s

soft fluffy spoonfuls,

clean white pages,

goodness framed behind glass,

neatly labelled.

You pay entry fees

and exit fees.

At the door you place

your soft things in a locker.

In nakedness,

the authority ascribed to you,

bright in the elastic of its lanyard,

must in its metering

provide the mantra

to righteousness;

a manifesto to glow

the power your soul craves—

blow upon the ember,

mistaking his burning

for truth.

She filled herself with light.

So she has been let go.

And yet

you are still here.

#Astral Introjection

————

The refreshment men,

ice on wheels,

deliver purity

in small plastic suits,

with the panache,

the patter,

of a ’50s cola float

for men who appreciate

a deeper, mellower flavour.

Smiles.

Bow ties.

Navy canvas aprons.

Capable hands

clunk the thick, insulated door on fear,

drive it away,

headed to the distant roundabout,

the place that speaks luxury

in a working-class accent.

Where the giant chaise longue

pivots to its view

of the corporate harvest.

There’s a knot in your stomach.

The kind that ties off a balloon.

An emptiness,

as intoxicating as the sweet

chemical aroma that hits,

and beats the heart

as you tear open the packaging,

a new likeness,

the scent of excitement,

lighter than self,

dissipating immediately.

The yearning to be filled,

inflates

in the pattern of treats:

Colourful waxed papers.

Vegan cream dip,

monosodium glutamate.

The Frankfurtered ooze

of not-yet-recyclable

peanut puffs…

pink extrusions

drizzled in oil.

With urgency to participate,

you parkour the shuttered concrete,

drifting like an astro-cat,

turning air molecules

to steps, to rails,

pulling your weightless body

through the crumbling brutalist forms,

sliding past their rusting rods

of reinforcement.

Below you, the canal:

murky, choked on its thickener,

its underbelly littered with wire corpses,

guides you, as crow flies,

to where the men with sweets and kindness

retire:

a home of spinning recliners,

ropes hanging from rafters,

young children putting on make-up

while they wait for the next

“big show.”

Or dream

of their extra long, shiny,

exorbitantly black

conveyance.

#Hay

She’s a warm weather girl,

virtually yours,

through the fractured swirl.

The hay mounded

on feeble crosses.

There are no more coats,

no more seats.

There’s only longing.

#Zoo

The unethicals

play in their infinite pool.

Their reality, a show.

I hold my breath,

threading through legs,

doing my best

not to be noticed.

I don’t know how,

but I’ve broken their rules.

The wife,

and mother to all this vulgarity,

grabs my arm,

yanks it clear

chastising me,

for nothing.

As I pull away

Trying to stay submerged

she draws a black sharpie

from a black pocket,

presses it to my wet forearm,

scrawling a word I can’t see.

Sudden water filtered shrieking, stammers.

Her daughter has stomach cramp

and is screaming

for her cake,

for her ice cream.

So the witch releases me,

storms the perfectly groomed grass,

still screeching,

still squawking

wild and savage.

Their reality

is a show

#You Watch from Your Seat as I Swim

The surface is still

as a mirror,

as still

as the space in my heart.

I enter,

rippling its reflection,

eyes lost

so I can’t see beneath.

It is cold

as the distance between us,

that you’ve made

as you watch from your seat.

So I swim out

to where I can’t find the bottom,

where the fear I’ve held all my life

now brings peace.

Out, to the calm,

and there turning,

distant hands through blonde

hair signal me.

As I float alone

in the stillness.

As still

as the space in my seat

where you are,

where I’ll sit soon alone,

to eat.

After making my way to

those steps

and brushing the sand from my feet.

To watch you drive away,

seeing your mother,

whom I love,

looks straight through me.

And in the distance,

‘M. Hilden’

I’ll read

where I will sit in that now empty seat,

see the nursery man,

his bed

of lush flora

overloaded and bursting,

reversing

into empty, still grey silence.

The calm, cold here

torn, a few moments hence,

by the sharp sound

of unintended violence—

a deep gash.

In the sun-bleached void:

Shaken.

Still.

Again.

A smashed eye

hangs from its socket.

Remnants of integrity

scattered,

glisten across the bright,

burning-hot sandy bitumen.

And still…

just as she,

he will pull away,

pretending all is well.

I will puncture my eggs,

tear my bacon,

glance at the empty chairs,

and the crumpled ball

wrung out at my feet.

For now

I float alone in the stillness.

I feel its release.

Where I can’t find the bottom,

where the fear I’ve held all my life

now brings peace.

Mal de Amour

Each minute in our harbour

I am buffeted by

seiche upon seiche.

I flood with great knowing,

completeness,

pushing in from

the endless whole.

And adrift.

Above,

I see our glimmers

dance to the shore

Below,

divergent rays

sunburst in diffused shafts

that penetrate the depths.

They reflect

upon you.

So I tread water,

feeling vulnerability

in my fear of the unknown

in the fathoms where light cannot reach.

In calm,

each lapping wave,

every stroke I pull,

fills my lungs.

With a buoyancy.

a fondness

for our nature,

for endless moments;

your pebbles,

our collected shells,

our tiny silver memories

shoaling beneath me,

our grasses gently swaying

you,

us.

But all that power

recedes yet again.

You are the ocean,

its most beautiful peace

oscillating,

pushing in,

then pulled away.

Moment to moment,

wave after wave.

That ebb

capsizes meaning.

Yet to name it

feels unfair,

and that, too,

is a darkness

hiding in the cavernous abyss

below.

I can’t contemplate

what the island you’ve chosen

for safety

brings.

I would rise up and break,

swallow the storm you are in.

if you signalled.

But you are lost.

My horizon is empty.

Should I submerge,

and feel the water’s weight

upon my all?

As you cling to that lonely rock,

distant,

half-drowned.

I should let you be.

No,

I am stuck here,

imagining

pulling you to me,

weightless.

Lurching in their push,

rising and retreating.

And this motion spins me into naupathia.

I am lost in these waves,

on the surface,

in this ache, in this sickness…

Mon mal de mer,

mon mal de toi,

mon mal de amour.

Chanting ‘Love’ in an Infectious Melody

Forget the love test,

I need for

ever-rest

I am holding a heart

Lacerated in its chest.

I bought the needles,

I bought the threads.

You stay passive

silent,

In this deep bloody mess.

Unable, in fading, to even see the eye,

in desperation

I fumble…

I clumsily try.

Warm blood from my cavity

spatters and sputters

out, over you,

now wholly covered.

Frozen in trauma,

not a sound uttered —

You turn away slowly,

back to the others.

That live in the corner

Where what looks like peace lives.

To dream of conversations,

Of hands,

While what is -

in ache,

spills a last, falling drop

and forgives.

Clutching glass

The bay,

a vast tail of gold

lazily encircles a cobalt sea.

Affluence dances upon its calm.

Leisure in its many facets.

Scattered,

far distant- anchored, sunning.

Popping bubbles.

Or close.

Porpoising, carving, riding.

Tangerine vests tacking across the shimmer.

You have come there to the edge with her.

She is the maker of advertisements.

Her direction,

builds a glorious, quirky,

upside-down world of uneasy contraption.

A maze of ladders,

trap-doors,

springs and strings.

Frying pans that spit and sing.

Knives that fall

to fresh-cut lettuce,

cannon balls and spinning secrets,

compartments hidden in walls

of peeling anaglypta.

There, we wear

embroidered caps and coloured collars.

We art wash with clown-full sincerity,

in smiles and tears painted

onto the breathless surface.

This is where you have lived

for years.

Within her Heath Robinson playground.

Distracted,

helping to build elaborate,

meaningful meaninglessness,

to frame your brand

upon the spangles of deflection.

It is you

who triggers the spaghetti gun,

who loads the burger patty Hot Wheels run,

who is forever

waiting upon quotations,

producing the absurd farce.

But here,

gazing at the setting sun,

the incoming tide

practically at your toes,

it is you who decides

without hesitation

to strip naked.

To shut the door

on cruel, loveless machinations,

on endless spiralling,

floor-lost falling.

On images of putty and plastic,

dusted, oiled, tooth-picked together-

promising joy and nourishment,

though leaving you quickly

unfilled.

So you walk forward

past the flotsam,

and submerge to the neck,

before turning

to beckon her in,

to join you, naked

in the peace beneath the surface.

Wound and Waiting

We wander wooden floorboards,

warped and missing nails,

through walls of lathe and plaster,

ceilings falling down,

toward the promises of childhood:

stuffed mohair, googly eyes,

shelves of glossy happiness,

stamped out,

cast from the die.

Where there is a gap between us,

we leap from joist to joist,

balanced precariously,

wobbling

between the hard or proper choice.

So you step upon the pipework,

follow copper where it leads,

to find her dressed for action

in blue military fatigues,

with her Kodak 35,

a scarf, and Daisy Mae,

looking out upon the carousel

of tiny cars and aeroplanes.

Its axle no more turning,

rim collapsed into the ground.

Her lever forever clicking,

the next frame gently wound,

to snap decaying shells,

dulled cellulose spectrum sheens…

Then out into the playing field,

scattered with man-made tones of green,

where the sirens’ distant wail

envelops the canvas, steel and wood,

the sweep of Daimler curves,

a power under hood

rears up, growling

out of the ballyhoo,

whip moustache stiff, waxed,

to pull,

away,

and steal her

again,

from you.

Proud to Present

We partnered with luxury to perfectly distill

LOVE

into a bottle that reflects our values.

We present a sleek, minimalist design.

A label pattern that traces fragile, endless circles,

overlaid.

Its substance shouts:

I am meant to be shared.

Here though, the vessel

is considered, reserved, waiting to be savoured.

It recommends collection.

A clear, precious statement of the founders’ intent.

To sit proudly on any shelf,

a part of your life.

Symbolic, austere, and bound to tradition.

The bottle itself, a carafe,

proffers reuse

once emptied.

when gazing at its craft,

its privilege and pretension,

you may grab the hideous crystal

smash it to smithereens!

Let love explode, flood out over everything

in all its glorious,

sticky, messy,

delirious intoxication.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

WORDS ONLY