OctPoWriMo Day 31: Mystery

the mystery of us

is the paradox of randomness

colliding with determinism

in an unfoggy raven night

the midnight meets us

making mauve our greatest hopes

as we simmer sonorous 

scarlet in starlight

the crimson dawn umbrously

sings outside shutters

brightening umber from pink to bronze

a rose gold ring encircling

the rust relents

revealing unblemished metal

in the sun emerging from shadows

as the lonely smoke clears

OctPoWriMo Day 30: Forbidden

Such a love that blooms
On such sere ground could never
Be forbidden thus.

OctPoWriMo Day 29: Breathtaking

You took my breath
then gave it back,
starting a cycle
of aerobic respiration
to last our whole lives.

Standing greenly on my earth,
I need you to inhale.

In breathing out
I breathe you in,
carrying you with me
molecularly.

Oxygenating
each other's blood,
you are the energy
in my every cell,
powering me
with every breath.

OctPoWriMo Day 28: Belonging

Belonging with you
is as natural
as the earth meeting sky,
you the Caelus to my Tellus.

Fusing forever to create life,
we ignore any catastrophic consequences.

You emerged from a form of darkness,
and with the pure air breathed by gods,
you bestowed yourself on me,
making me part of you.

In our collective presence,
cornucopiae flourish,
yet we sow without seeding.

Together we are the elements that create the world,
belonging together irrevocably, abundantly.

OctPoWriMo Day 27: The scent of a flower

The sunlit scent of the flowers
disappears with us
as we close the curtains and the blinds
to be alone with them.

Their ever-yellow glow persists;
it is what you always bring me.

They echo in the yellow of lemons.

My memory mostly non-olfactory,
I close my eyes to see them,
sepals persuasively curling
with Flemish detail.

Their lack of scent brings no regret.

We have other senses to attend to.

They cast their lemon light over us,
their saffron scent
lending the zest of earth.

OctPoWriMo Day 26: A once unruly mind

A once unruly mind
is tamed by love:
calmed,
harmonised,
synchronised,
cutting through watery depths
with a free diver's ease.

A once unruly mind
is made unrulier by love:
metasomatised,
foliated,
crystallised,
shattering igneously into rainbow fragments,
into kaleidoscopic, glassy beauty.

OctPoWriMo Day 25: Taste of satisfaction

We tentatively swirl our roses,
feverishly coloured pink,
piping bags straight up.

With all the lightness of Genoise
we laugh and listen,
lift the leaves
from icing into life.

Limits linger, yet too are lifted
as eyes meet over triumph,
satisfaction sweetened
by your nearness;
our sugar levels spiral to the sky
in a grandiflora masterpiece.

OctPoWriMo Day 24: When lovers meet

When lovers meet
in the world's mind's eye
all earthly symphonies do swell
and merge;
for us there is the music of silence
refracting eternally
through convex lenses,
as new fugues rewrite themselves
and bend through complex lines.

OctPoWriMo Day 23: What is the message?

The message is something that took time
to spread its wings and fly between
our outstretched hands. It fledged in
hesitation, the old
nest comfortable but
safe. Too safe. We
chose the sky;
love's light
heights.

OctPoWriMo Day 22: Purposeful passion

Our passion's purpose

is to illuminate 

the world,

silently,

invisibly,

like stars in daytime.

OctPoWriMo Day 21: Nothing remains the same

Nothing remains the same
upon your leaving,
with emptiness pervading all
in place of laughter.

The candlelight that lit our morning and my night
has melted to its pith,
silvery mosaic pieces mirroring us in wax to make
our keepsakes.

Changed irreversibly, it is its own
memorial.

Yellow flowers,
fresh at the week's waxing,
dry on their stems,
slowly withering
as we flourish.

Xiphoid blades of light fought for entry through shutters,
pining to shut out the world.

Returning realities force them open now.

But all is not lost:
quickly time will run its course,
expediting passion's meeting. Not the same, but better.

Kingdoms of
love are what hold us together and house
veritable havens.

Jonquils adorn our memories always;
glimmering and giving, and
zoning us into wherever the other one is.

OctPoWriMo Day 20: Desires and remembering

You had allowed yourself to quite forget,
Suppressed it, let it fade away and die;
And this with just a faint trace of regret.

You'd buried love, and let it pass you by,
Diminishing a key part of your heart.

Convinced romance for you could not exist,
For many years you lived a life apart
From passion's lure; achieved eroded bliss
Near symmetried in words and duels and lutes
That could not stymie long arising love.

It came to life awake, no longer mute,
Allowing recall and discovery thereof.

Rememb'ring, learning, how to stoke these fires,
You recollected, gave in to desires.

OctPoWriMo Day 19: fox or foxy

Sunny redhead,

you shine under street lamps,

scavenging scraps.

Eurasian in origin,

you now focus unafraid

on your smaller territory,

comfortably coexisting,

boldly blossoming.

Whether accepted or not,

you are here to stay,

a vulpine urbanite

explosively calling

both to and from the wild.

OctPoWriMo Day 18: Everyone went on eating

Not hearing the sun in my voice
when you entered the room,
not seeing your eyes swimming
when I took off my jacket at lunch,
and not sensing our connection's dendrochronic rings
when our minds break open,
everyone went on eating.

OctPoWriMo Day 17: And the dragon chose...

And so the dragon chose
to listen to the boy

and no longer leave her
eggs exposed, then
wonder why they died.

He explained
that if she buried them
inside a mound of grass
the heat would warm them up,
and she would have
a life to call her own.

based on Dragon Boy, by Dick King-Smith

OctPoWriMo Day 16: Losing your tears and fears

Seen as if through a shop window -
mostly clear but slightly blurred -
my tear ducts appear to have a sign beside them
reading
FOR DISPLAY PURPOSES ONLY.

But it isn't really that;
it's just that their secretions come
at a rather high price.

The fear of leaving you
coaxes them out;
they are precious for only you seeing them,
and for their rarity.

OctPoWriMo Day 15: Fighting the urge to vomit

The needle threatens,
taking me as its own personal challenge.

Cold as fire and hot as ice,
it teases my vagus nerve
to tip me over nausea's edge.

I flush and shudder
as my vision blurs.

The syncope wins;
the triumphant needle in the bin.

OctPoWriMo Day 14: Movement and words

Words moved us
towards each other,
speeding our orbits
until they coincided
to make an eclipse of love.

From then on time slowed
as we span through space,
each becoming the central stars
in each other's galaxies;
the universes expanded
to merge into one,
our words visible from space
and glittering at the speed of light.

OctPoWriMo Day 13: Art in the wayward mind

Art is just one way into
the waywardness of us.

Our minds meander from Monet to mayhem,
seeking Cézanne
in autumn's colours
and lutes in love.

We slow-dance in private
and the sheets sing symphonies.

Colouring me in with you,
we make our own magic
without a single trick,
lighting up the sky.

OctPoWriMo Day 12: Imagination stands in the road

Imagination stands in the road
of our collective memory,
forgetting where one ends
and the other starts;

our best memory
being also our best dream
in the autumn leaves below us
and the spring skies above.

OctPoWriMo Day 11: Move your body, move your words

Our bodies move as one
in a dance that's both
as old as earth
and new as now.

Wordlessly
we move in breaths
sustaining us
from east to west.

Words only form
when least tried for;
your lips move,
soundlessly
with each pulsation and palpation
speaking for itself.

OctPoWriMo Day 10: Power and control

The power that you and I have
over and between each other,
strong as steel,
powers our destiny,
propelling us to feel.

OctPoWriMo Day 9: Smoke

You curl around me

like smoke in the air,

our imagined newborn's first lock of hair,

or our furtive photographs.

OctPoWriMo Day 8: How do we know what we know?

Mountaineering

Agnostics don't place much faith in much,
but somehow we intuited
that this one might work out.

Yet trusting intuition seems
at times too much to bear;
you barely dare to imagine,
fearing both wrongness and loss.

Reasons are ticked off on
mental and physical lists
as to why this can both
be and cannot be.

Language is our strongest foothold
as we document our journey up
this slipperiest of rock faces.
It confirms and eludes;
all the right kit still no guarantee
of reaching where we need to be.

In darkness and light
the maps and the training
both cease to be of use.
Emotion is our guide instead;
this feels right, so let's go there,
where happiness might be.

Finally letting ourselves feel,
our senses overtake:
mouths taste minds
and ears hear what eyes say.
Following our noses
we let our hands grab through dim light
for guidance.

All of this makes memories now
that will make sense years from here;
they form a sunny fabric,
and we enjoy the view.

OctPoWriMo Day 7: And then I went too far

Some would say I went too far,
but I would say I went just far enough,
for once,
to where reality finds its face:
in your brown eyes,
inside your heart,
and in what true love is.

OctPoWriMo Day 6: While I was pacing the floor

While I was pacing the floor of my thoughts
you came there,
a whispering shadow
filled with light
who flickered across the parquet
and invited me to you.

OctPoWriMo Day 5: Finally I Understand

Finally I understand
what it is to create a scent
that is uniquely us;

it pervades the bedsheets
with a raisinbread yeastiness
and a passionate wetness
that mean we lay them out to dry,
childlike forts across chairs.

That outer child is something else
we now both understand:

it exists in us
as we laugh into tears,
pursue impulsive happinesses.

Finally we understand
the feeling of speaking
so softly we can barely hear ourselves
but know the other one can,
hearing from lips moving on skin
and tracing love all over.

Waking in warmth the next day,
we understand finally where we are
and what has brought us here
if not why it took so long.

We understand holding
until barely breathing;
we know pure happiness
in everything the other is
and the even greater
everything we are.

OctPoWriMo Day 4: Between The Clouds and the Water

Between the clouds and water
there we are,
banishing greyness
with our gold sunlight.

OctPoWriMo Day 3: Taste of Metal

He entered the world screaming
In the way that all of us do;
There were cold hands, shining lights
And a brief taste of metal
Before finally being drawn
To heartbeating warmth, and life.

He went through life dreaming
In the way that some of us do.
There was love, shining bright,
To help him prove his mettle
Even when downtrodden, worn.
Yet still the joys were rife.

He left the clinic feeling,
In the way that most of us do,
That there were options: fight, fright or flight?
Blood in his mouth brought back metal.
For him there would be no new dawn.
Yet in one life, he'd lived a thousand lives.

He left the world reeling
In a way that few of us do:
Barbiturates freezing his throat tight
With a cold taste of metal
Before being mercifully torn
At his behest, from his life.

*based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett:_Choosing_to_Die 

OctPoWriMo Day 2: We write because we must

We write because we must just taste
each other's words inside our mouths again,
sugary, sweet and fiery
as candied ginger.

It's OctPoWriMo time again! Day 1: How did I get here?

More later on why this blog has been neglected for basically a whole year (oops).

But for now, in an attempt to revive my writing as both a habit and a joy (as well as a potential career-booster) here is the first day of October Poetry Writing Month 2017:

DAY 1 - HOW DID I GET HERE?

Not just how did I get here,
but indeed how did we?

Magnetised over months,
we eventually merged,
mouths meeting to the music
of millions of bells.

Confounded by the very ground
beneath our feet
we staggered stunned and stupefied
to the place where we were born,
holding on for dear life
as we entered this new world
breathless.

Blinking in the cool white sun
as it shone through the covers next morning
we too shone in newness.

Now not so much about how we got here
but just as much about how we get back,
we spin and shake with surprise,
struck by the sounds
of this new mesmeric music
as we wait to meet again.