for Alina Baraz
Transient through the Urban Flora of London’s south,
I Drift atop rolling waves,
their depths rising, enveloping all
in each passing rock of the Bakerloo.
Deluged in Pretty Thoughts, serene
I Unfold words with each bars heartbeat,
poetry within each ear’s bud -caressed in my carriage,
I blossom your Jasmine words.
Her visage a familiar face.
-a granite façade etched content.
Eyes lacquered in tears,
her trembling bust
a vacuum tomb
-clasping at her chest’s air.
She inhales the pain of others,
stealing breaths of distraction,
scavenging peace through neglectful altruism.
In search of an opiate
to soothe her inner hurt
– a moment’s suicide
in another’s vein.
My eyes finally prized open.
The judgmental clock face
shows me pm, and half a day
unconscious departed.
The morning now purely theoretical,
the sun half way passed,
before I’ve spoken my first word,
or taken my morning coffee
As a newborn, blanketed in last night’s haven
I stroll,
through the social threads
of this already passed morning.
Dabs of white silk insulate us from the summers sun's glow. As I, legs akimbo s t r e t c h upon my bed. Yellow sheets kicked to a hill at my feet. The walls yellow and the winter throw too. A petit Sri Lankan Buddha perched on the sill clocks this summer's air.
In a carnal crash of two
eyes glazed
heated in sexual need.
We sought our delicious counter.
I approached you,
bearing words of no weight.
You were smiling, cheeks rosed,
eyes coyly flitting away.
Upheld by the bar and it medicines,
we back and forth, exchanged air,
hoping for a bold gale,
so we may sail afar.
And so,
surrounded by shoes fitting another,
in your bed, I wake.
An explorer of every pleasure’s niche,
my right arm humming, unconscious
from a precarious night’s pose.
We sip tea, and a second one too,
laying again exposed,
as we flick questions, discovering
passions and pursuits .
Clothed now in Hampstead, we part,
returning to our lives before this past morning,
our gaze locked, gasping reunion.
My eyes flee to all corners of my four walled hold,
liberation grasped through windows, stolen back.
Back to the luminescent glare of my old HP;
as I acquiesce to my paid servitude.
The week’s edge nears as time retreats,
the seconds absconding -drawing You ever closer.
Closer still, the embracing thoughts of Sunday’s sheets,
enveloping me –warm, contented, in your arms.
It did all go wrong
–its obvious end.
Our chance taken on the brittle words
that brought us together -shattered and disowned.
Leaving us as before…
Bereft of the other.
I retreated from our union,
jabbing thistles in our bond
ringing an alert of a union awry.
It should all go wrong,
we met in a place of false fronts and lying selves.
A glossy lieu, with suave social personas
titivated to an idealised reality.
Vollies of double ticked messages passed
and through their shallow blue
we were born to each other, rosey eyed
unaware of each other’s face.
We encountered in an entent fragile,
in a room sombre,
scented sweet with amber ale;
our social devotion weak and optional.
J.C. FitzDerick 