...and then

Sunday 17 January 2016

Let me string flowers and other poems.

Let me string flowers,
a wreath of regret and light
for your foolish head,
and make a crown of thorns
that hold promises on their points.
let me place them upon your head.
The flowers of trying again,
and again and again,
the thorns to remind you
of the things you left behind.
Let me lay you down
on a pasture of faith,
let me water you 
with shining understanding,
let me dig around you 
a moat of assumptions
and let me drown you
in the thing we call
together.

Will you survive, then,
as you watch the endless blue,
as the sun burns your irises,
and you lie still
being watered, 
cared for
made sacrifices for, 
sacrifices you never
asked for
to begin with? 
Will you, after the moat is filled,
after the watering is done,
become a single, dying rose
of joy?

*****
In a dream last night, 
awash with watercolour purple
a fading blue and the firm hand of gold spots, 
a face I love, a name I do not know
Asked me if I would make him my muse. 
Long hair the colour of a tinted evening, 
Straight as the lies he was made of, 
Hands that found a thousand ways to smoke me, 
To show me a mirror.
He asked again. 
Can I be your muse?

What good is a muse, I ask.
And I tell him a story from long ago where
I was singed by a muse,
a shimmering muse
with wings of eternity, a firefly spirit, 
and a sailing ship for a totem,
that he left on my shoulder. 
A shoulder he claimed as his.

Then, my silver-fingered one, I ask,
As poetry fills me tonight, 
how shall I carry the burden of you
on the one shoulder I have left?

*****
Dawns don't stay.

Dawns go away
Dawns play
As a mere interlude 
Before unleashing the harsh light of day, 
Where the sun leaps over everything 
Where daylight is harsh, real, flat
Because dawns don't stay.

Dawns don't stay
How can they? 
The day brings with it
Light and movement, predator and prey
Where music drowns, and art fades. 
Because eyes don't don't have time to watch the sky be perfect.
Dawns don't stay.

2 Comments:

Blogger Aathira said...

This is just so beautiful. I can read it over and over again.

6:11 pm  
Blogger Omani Princess (not Omani...yet) said...

Evocative, really.

12:15 pm  

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