Respirate.: June 2010

Tuesday, June 29

THE CELL.

6/29/10

Flicker the light; your eyes ignited,

Uncertainty dwells deep within.

The sighs and thinning voice,

Wavering,

Like your conscience,

Betray you; convey your thoughts to me.

Feeling, irrelevant.

A history behind you

Holds the present in a cage of doubt.

Still looking for the key.

If only I could shake you,

If only it would break…

The bars grow weaker with every night

And you,

Asleep in my arms.

But your prison cell consumes you

Like the darkness on our shoulders;

The heavy breaths irrelevant,

Wavering.

Sunday, June 27

TRESPASSING.

6/27/10

In summer’s breath we hold still,

Frozen like deer,

On the tracks of obscurity.

An early July sweeps the air aside;

Compassion moves

In nitetime fog and morning dew.

And while the little rabbits run,

We breathe together,

Heavy like the rain at midnite:

Seeking a Forever to hold onto,

Or a taste of the intimate.

But when the trains won’t come,

Your hands fall numb.

With the chain of your necklace

Tangled in my hair, like a misled catch,

I sink into these sheets

Alone again.

Saturday, June 26

HIDDEN.

6/14/10

Patterns of shadows,

Painted on your face:

All shades of beautiful

Against the mystery you are.

Closed eyes and lips of stitches

Far beyond my reach.

Where are you, in here?

Warm:

The scent of summer

Stuck in my lungs

Wrapped in my hair,

Like your fingers

In the quiet.

Where are you, in there?

Automatic,

Like the race of hearts,

I slide into vacancy

Each night I give you up.

Watching for little rabbits,

Counting the silences

And the poetry of candlelight.

Where are you?

Wednesday, June 9

ABANDONER.

6/9/10

On the other side of ice

Clear like sunlight

Time has told

Stop the clock

Have I wasted away?

Washed out like rain

Another phase

Abandoned

Sleeplessly

In a queen of empty dreams

It was all in the eyes

Lies like love

Can I walk away?

Bathed in ignorance

Another phase

Abandoner.

Tuesday, June 8

DEADWING.

Note: This is a found poem from the lyrics of Porcupine Tree's 2005 album Deadwing.

All individual lines © Steven Wilson.

DEADWING.

6/5/10

Like a cancer scare,

It rifled through the grey and disappeared.

Ghosts of the twenties rising,

And in the morning when I find I have lost you,

Ignore the splinter.

Unravel out the finer strands;

I let the pieces lie just where they fell.

Every thought from here on in,

Drawing the line and never crossing it.

A tiny flame inside my hand,

Afraid to touch someone.

Maybe it’s the smell of gasoline.

Don’t look down.

Innocent, the time we spent.

I bare my soul.

The more I show the way I feel,

The less I find you give a damn.

Here is the sin, something to lie about.

Golden summers just holding you;

Drinking down the poison like you were taught.

Don’t look at me with your mother’s eyes;

I got your spirit in a photograph.

Something broke inside my stomach.

Always out of reach you are.

Friday, June 4

WHIRLWIND.

6/3/10

Heat and sweat

Your scent on my skin

Marked like a toy

Have you known all along?

The steam drags you inside

Through veins of ventilation;

Breathe new.

You run in my blood

Thick like an illness

I’m compelled to chase,

To catch

The cottonwood on your fingers:

Make a wish.

Trains in the village

Unmarked, unseen

We believe in the summer heat,

And the smell of your hair

Wrapped around my fingers.

© BLAYKE MORROW, 2010

Thursday, June 3

THE TIDE.

2/28/10

Eyes like sunrise

Bloody and calm, peaceless,

Tranquil, holding stolen vigil;

The sky dreams pink,

Yellow, and dawn,

While the earth still slumbers

Beneath frozen toes and numbing limbs,

Heavy with the hunger of a storm

Brewing, steeping

The amber seas

Wash ashore familiar memories

Of sleepless nights

And dark daydreams.

ETERNALLY.

5/17/10

Sparing the sunset

Safe from midnight once again,

Like a mosquito when the light flicks off

Rescued from the hands of anguish.

Head upon the sill, I watch

Forlorn and longing, for the rise of a sun

Which has not yet set

And stars that cry my name and Mercy.

Moonlight, my Love, must wait

While strings detach and scatter.

An eternity before nightfall

Brings me to the floor in plea;

Mercy.

FLOODED.

5/20/10

These scents stick to our fabrics

Like dandelion seeds caught in the wind

The boy inside reaches;

Make a wish, Nostalgia.

While the afternoon sun through summer woods.

Our reflections cast in flooded fields.

These thoughts cascade into a sweet melody

Like leaves in the breeze;

A kiss in the shade.

THE COLDER MONTHS.

5/13/10

Ash in my lungs,

Remembering you and autumn afternoons;

We’ve held the breath from sunsets

Together in our solitaire,

In two minds companioned.

Now far we’ve grown and still

The wonders of this world remain,

Heavy and thick like liquor sedation;

We cling to the skirts of our mother of Change

Pleading for mercy for our broken past.

These deceptions reside;

Broken speech and the cry of our child of Hope

We echo in the silence of an unknown love,

Smothered in smoke like a winter night

While mother lies dormant,

And we, side by side.

TWENTY-SOMETHINGS.

5/9/10

Wine from a plastic cup,

Like our falsehood

And the sweat and filth on these sheets

The dryer’s broken

Walls of fracture, we’ve built around ourselves

Carpet stains and alcohol

Yellowed fingertips,

Your lips never leave your hand

Gravel and dirt,

Passed out under the street lamp

Your collars stained and bloodied

Tobacco tucked under your bra strap

Loaded up like belt rounds

One bullet to your heart,

One to your mother

And one to this god who flips our labyrinth

As we stumble like drunks down the road towards medication

Looking for a way out.

HIGHWAY BALLAD.

5/7/10

Dear lover,

Have you been painting these roads again?

Drenched in reds and greens and flickering.

The air con smells like rain and your smile

And the memories of your sigh slip into my heartbeat.

Speed up, speed up…

Like last night’s dream, yesterday’s gleaming,

I’m autopilot in the left lane,

Headed for the predictable.

Speeding towards a broken conviction.

Dear lover,

Is it your gaze that beams in the sky?

Pitch blue, like lilacs in the night…

These beaded clouds adorn me like jewels of misfortune,

Thunder under my skin;

I’m reminded of the wings I shed for fear of falling.

Slow down, slow down…

Have I too shed the possibility of you?

BIRTHDAY WISH.

5/7/10

Time summons these ghosts like the candles on your cake,

Each one exponential, anguished, extinguished;

A year of cold shoulders, your effortless abandon,

The compassion you once had for a kindred soul…

A year ago today was the last exchange;

But still your voice follows me in the darkest of times

And like a child I question the unanswering.

So they’ve taken you from home, swept you up into false freedom

And there you sit, wrapped in ignorance and illusion.

While you play your game of silence, do you ever wonder?

TRAINS.

12/30/09

I’d always thought

He said

‘I’m in love.’

I suppose that’s what an accent will do

to a romantic.

It was the rhythm, the pass

Into depth,

Into passion…

Those chords wound around his fingers

And a cry for something higher

Brought me closer to you.

Now we live the quiet lives…

Months fade away into paper,

But a note is all we’ll ever need

To find each other again.

So it’s Luck, is it,

If it’s not love…

GAIA.

9/20/09

ed. 2/28/10

Among these tides,

A mother is in keeping;

Lulled by the waves, her children sleep,

The gentle sweep of seafoam greens…

That green-foamed sea,

Like mother’s hand,

Sweeps mossy locks from the pier’s brow…

Until the fingers brush upon your ear,

You too hear the ocean’s hum

Like a shell in the hands of her children.

SIMPLE AFFECTIONS.

10/09

You woke me in the night,

(Or was it morning then?)

With the street lamps seeping through the damask on the sill.

You woke me with a kiss,

(Just soft enough to startle)

In the opaline haze of October.

And there, in that bed, our voices locked in feverish silence.

You woke me in the night,

The night-morning-light silhouetting our kiss in a mix

Of twilight blue and tungsten yellow.

And in that kiss you tore me from sleep,

Into the tidal of a nightmare,

(Night-morning-mare?)

With a cool stream of darkness splashed upon my cheeks.

With a frigid, dead blood,

Blue in the twilight.

for one reason or another, i've decided that i'd rather create a blog entirely for my literature. facebook notes don't cut it anymore; while i appreciate the opportunity for publicizing my poetry, i'd rather that only interested and avid literature fans have the opportunity to read, review, and help me with my career.

that being said, i will upload previous pieces now, and begin posting immediately after finishing any new poems. if you have comments or critique, i'd love to hear them; however, please be respectful of my work, as well as creative commons laws and copywrite.

thanks very much for your interest.