How to persevere...

Hold your head high,
support with something white,
feathery, your head will feel lighter,
woolly, almost floaty.

Resist cradling your knees,
as an infant,
keep your chin up,
try a crutch-

Jack or Gin,
may help keep a stiff upper lip,
for a while,
you always wake though

and the air's been sucked out
of your eyes, your head is filled
with rocks, it's hard to hold your head high,
keep your chin up,
when you keep falling over.

2012 © LH

The Hypnotist

Rocked shut,
my harboured dead-eye,
yawns and stretches,
then resists,
I sorely slaved
to pare and carve
the wretched ache,
to make it fit.

You stitch my eyelids
shut, with numbers
and guide me back
into the womb
black lipped, you
prise me like an oyster
and eagerly excavate
my tomb.

2012 © LH

In the eye of the storm

Toes curled under,
those inconsiderate claws,
on tenderhooks,
careful not to fall

O how the ripples seduce me,
royally beckoning,
I dip my toes and so
I succum to the enemy 

Defeat is swift,
It moves through my veins,
rapid rivers, snaking
Into a polluted estuary

I used to have a fear of drowning
when it happens
you inhale lungfuls of tears,
cried by scores of injured egos,

You gasp for air
and lie down in the silt.
I watched you float towards the surface
as I sunk

My words simmered
then they were cast away
now my song is a weak whisper
In a passing cloud,

It is a jet stream meandering east
far far above our heads.
Memories come in the wake,
lapping at my unconscious mind,
Repeatedly.

As I slipped into the water
my eyes were leaking,
and a bell was unrung...

It's only when I reached the bottom
that I could clearly see ;
you are only a dead fish floating
on the top,

A dull flat note,
a black oil slick.
The seagulls will pick through
your anemic bones.

2012 © LH

On Prescription Only

For two days my stomach
Tumbled, over and over again,
So I stayed indoors, and watched
"The Walking Dead"
Reanimated, halfway between
Life and death,
My temples throbbed, and,
When the sleeplessness abated,
Fidgeting and nausea
Wormed its' way in.

You said I had cartoonish eyes,
Did you mean I looked
Two dimensional, like
A piece of art?
The Mona Lisa perhaps?
Without a doubt, there was a smile,
If you looked long enough,
At the right angle,
In the correct light,
Rising from the dead.

2012 © LH

The moon in my teacup.

Gazing up at me,
The moon, in my teacup,
Drowning in front of my eyes,
One tip and it becomes a crescent,
Then, a whole moon again,
Trembling as my lips hover above,
The great creator!
Left, trapped in a weathered hide,
Clinging to the sides,
Stale, pale, milky moon,
Now long forgotten
In my teacup.



2012 © LH

Walking Away

My feet roam the ribbon road,
As laden as my heart, of lead
Horses on the carousel, go around
And around inside my head
Mulish crows with malevolent eyes
Indifferent to my agitation,
Extend their wings, they kaw
And show me no consideration.

2012 © LH

Lamenting your departure,
The cherry blossom
Distracts me briefly.

2012 © LH

Atrophy

The sunflower
Died a slow death
Gasping for breath
It's throat slit

Yellow blades
Rusted, pointless
Powerless to pierce the
Blistered black heart 

Pursuing the brightest star
From west to east
East to west
Craving to bask in its warmth

A Lavendar sky
Bleeds ruby red
A blazing fire, smothered
The frantic crows scatter
Like windblown ashes

The candle extinguished
It is noticeable, how
The curl of gloom
Tastes of vanilla
 
Forsaken once more
As the first snowflake falls
From the starless vault
No rhyme nor reason

A delicate white fleck
So vulnerable
It diminishes at any token
Of warmth.

2012 © LH

Flashback In Traffic

I drove through a red light,
Like shrapnel slicing flesh
It happened so fast
I didn't notice until the driver
In the other car, the one in my path,
Swerved and mouthed,
Moron, or something,
I won't pretend I can lip read
I saw her pupils dilate, glassy,
Mouth, trembling, catching flies
In the desert, with her red cloak,
Leaving behind a trail,
As I sailed towards her,
In silence, dreamy,
Then, bam, bam
The gunfire,
Horns, blaring
Then she was just a memory
In my rear view mirror,
There is violence in Syria
I caught the end of the news
I was someplace else,
Trying to figure out how to tell you,
That I can't cope with
Reliving the suffering over
And over again,
Then all of a sudden
I almost didn't have to.

2012 © LH

Curfew

You beat me frantically,
And I was a mute for three days,
My screams woke latent birds,

Like black bats, scowling,
At my pitiful face.

I disturbed the sleep of earth worms,
And neighbours,
Bothering the mellow moon

I appeared as suddenly as
The freckles that bridged my nose
That summer.

Later, caked with my own recipe,
Of salt and slime.

As suddenly as my unripe breasts,
Beneath my Frankie says Relax
T-shirt

You just kept beating,
Three days of silence,
In the bath

With my colour changing toy
My buttocks,

Red, blue, purple
Brown, green, yellow,
I hated you

You cherished me, it terrified you,
Both of us terrified, of each other,
That boy! That boy!

We were just holding hands,
On Kirby's lane and listening,
To the crickets sing, Daddy. 

2012 © LH

The Monsters' Bowl

Ten pins on thin black strings,
Dangling corpses lacking limbs,
Their necks adorned with bloody rings

Infected bowls, three elfin holes,
Gouged eyes and vacant nose,
Roll like headless phantom souls

The waxen lanes, that entertain,
Howl and screech and squeal with pain,
As heads roll time and time again

Eyeballs, in darkened stalls,
Delight in echoed wailing walls,
As legless torso's maul and fall

A spare, a split, a gutterball,
A strike is what they're braying for
It's the moan of slaughter they adore.

 2012 © LH

Hide and Seek.

I don't dream of you anymore,
Where did you go to, are you hiding?
I wander the corridors,
With their white washed walls
Opening door after door,

Each room hollow, as a whales belly
The removal men in their white coats
Took every scrap of furniture,
With their rubber block,
And conducting jelly

Except for the bed!
Rattling metal, leather straps,
And the sweet smell of ammonia
Are you hiding under there?
Like when we played hide and seek.

Ready or not here I come,
Come out come out wherever you are.

2012 © LH

Anxiety Attacks.

I have throat cancer, I think,
I smoked some cigarettes,
Four maybe, in a week,
And I don't smoke.
That was weeks ago
I keep waking up,
In the middle of the night,
And I can't breathe,
Like the time you put your hands
Around my throat and squeezed,
Then you slapped my face, hard,
And I saw stars
I had never felt so alive before,
So close to the brink of death
I can feel it climbing into my brain,
Wrapping itself around,
Like a bittersweet nightshade,
It must have crept into my mouth
When I inhaled
It's arrow burned a path to my throat
Now it's suffocating me
With its tumorous tendrils
I'm paralysed
I need you to slap my face
So I can see stars,
So I can feel alive again,
Because right now it feels like
I'm dying.

2012 © LH

Birth of a Poet

Don't read my notebook I say,
I have nothing to hide..

But this is me, totally naked,
Spat out, raw, from a deep wound
Flailing, my lungs,
Taking their first breath,
A gulp, a high pitched scream,
And fat tears.
Little fists for hands
And screwed up face
Witnessing my birth,
My thoughts on paper,
In all this commotion,
Then words, delivered,
Like afterbirth.
Confessional poetry?
If I wanted to confess,
I'd visit a priest
Ten decades of the rosary
And I'll be saved!
No I bloody won't!
Confess to God? Where are you?
Where were you when I was on my knees,
In the darkness, pregnant with anguish,
Groping for my pen?

 2012 © LH

Arthritis

Why do you fail me?
Cadaverous claw,
Fourteen flaming phalanges,
A fire breathing Chimera,
Gnawing through bone
With your primitive saw. 

2012 © LH

The Stigma

I never knew you,
Half an inch, with webbed feet,
My lungs forming,
Yours, giving up

Buoyant in amniotic fluid,
Whilst you were drowning.
Silent.
Enveloped in darkness,
Both of us, with no voice.

You wrote her a letter
On paper, the colour of the moon,
Delicate white lace,
Her wedding dress,
Never worn. 

She held it,
Hands like nervous butterflies
Fearful a breeze would steal it from her
Unknowing,
She had already been robbed.

Then she carried it with her,
She carried me,
Carried the burden.
She was slowly drowning too.

A bastard child,
A shipwreck on the ocean floor,
Casualties of the war,
The three of us. 

2012 © LH

Loveblind

In our past lives
We passed as ghosts,
We briefly touched,

It left a mark
Invisible upon our skin,
Burrowed deep,

It scarred our hearts

Our eyes will search
The darkest vault,
Discover stars
That doth align

They'll burn our eyes
And leave us blind
Blinding love,

Immortal sign

Stumbling forth,
We query why
Compelling love

So long, suspended

We had but to
Open our eyes
Enlightened now

Our torture,ended.

2012 © LH

Mindfield

Grinding teeth, bleached white tombstones
Sleeping soldiers, lost in dreams
Buried deep, the caustic tongue
Whispers of a war beneath

Behind the poppy coloured lips
She masks an agonising pain
The copper taste and sanguine froth
Spill forth in conflict once again

Foaming as a rabid dog
The kindest cure, to take her life
Sleep with soldiers in their tombs
And flick the trigger switch to night

Dark tendrils stroke her war-torn head
Her tongue is silent in its grave
He stole her mind, her heart escaped
In the end that was all she gave.

2012 © LH

The Sycamore in Winter

Curious Corvids skirt beneath the cinereous clouds
A tumultuous wave of curling and swirling
In the crepuscular light they inhabit your bough
Rooted to the spot, scrutinized, analyzed

Disrobed and shivering, you reach out to me
I find you ugly, however, it's alluring
The guise of your sway,
When the light caresses your languid limbs,
For a brief moment, you appear radiant.

writerscafe
2012 © LH