Past midnight,
come the hours of calm.
Where the ether is still,
still enough to see its reflection.
Minds and fingers twitch,
the heady rush of this world’s
many tempting deaths, abandoning reality,
in return to the cold sobriety of the bedroom ceiling.
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.
An alternate version of the poem “Union”.
For those I spent time with at the IOE.
*****
Our time dims twilight as our course draws to a close.
We forecasted a spring never-ending, sharing in optimistic lies, wishing on an unlikely future forever together.
Though together we have blossomed into a family.
Half-hearted, I half-listen,
to your half-stories,
feeling half-dead,
for the whole time you’re here.
At half-one, you half-know,
I half-care, what you say,
it’s halflife, too long life,
for me to wish to stay.
This day half-cast, brings half light,
sat half lotus, thinking half-baked,
about half-truths, I half-know,
that I still repeat to myself today
Will I be half-arsed, or half-keen
today’s halftime ‘s, but daydreams
as whole-hearted, I half pray
since I’m half man, half the day…
Read wide and vast,
adventure and explore,
speaking slow
though thoughts move fast.
Drink red wine
and tequila too,
sitting with minds intertwined,
allowing peace’s pass.
Debate the world flaws
shimmer in ideal’s gleam,
reconstructing this world
as if in an idealist’s dream.
Fail
and succeed,
recieve an education,
not a degree.
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.
J.C. FitzDerick 