Nostalgia

Two short things written two years apart. One is ambiguous, the other is for my flatmate I wrote a month or so ago.

I. 

For a moment she was a beat of nostalgia
disappearing on the end of his tongue
then replaced- like a receipt
underneath an ashtray

or was she misplaced?
He gave up smoking to grow orchids.

II.

Do you remember the way-back-when,
a time before all this began
when I wasn't afraid of going to sleep
and you didn't want to be anyone's man?

I don't like Summers.

I don't like this time of year- summer's breath down my neck,
chased up sleepless from shorter nights,
all thorns and tired and dry,
hands that were shaken by day,
the one before still aching and sore-
day breaks to brittle hours, sunlight strips, sandpaper scratches,
at the corner of an eye and all the clutter catches
at the throat's back, dust kicked up
from summer's track- day breaks the thirsty flowers.

Enough

This was a poem that came out of nowhere and was a scribble and in order to adhere to Kerouac's rules of spontaneous prose I have promised myself I would not edit. Here it is. 
Enough,
I think I seem I am I think I am
enough,
I think,
I am not pretty.
as beautiful as water (from a tap)
but enough
of a pile of human teeth,
not grown-up but grown
from troubled daughter
(far enough from little brat)
so please, no need to look underneath
the words I say-
that's quite enough.
I think I seem I am I think
I am okay.

Poem pieces

Ash Sunday

There are still ashes on the sweater I was wearing

the day that bridges started burning. 

Sometimes

Sometimes,

sometimes I howl instead of breathing

and it makes me wonder

what it is that I am so afraid of

these days that could be the reason

for the times I am not breathing

but screaming,

sometimes.

Wake up 

Rooms yellowing, partially lit

with evening as it seeps into leftover hours,

time stale by morning and

it's another spend ignoring

the tsunami, as it taps

its warning.

Broken beautifully

Things can be beautiful when falling apart
and there's not always reason for crying-
just think of a leaf broken free from a tree
or the soft sounds of floorboards, sighing.

Called

Phone rings, and rings again,
again, there's no voice yet, but
already I am holding my breath-

or is my breath caught?
Only caught up in it all,
caught out, or caught
just in time?-

Then there is the voice again,
again it greets me from the other end,
on other side of the (border)line-
"Personality Disorders?"

I hold the receiver and my breath,
still. I am still not sure
if that is who I called
or what I am called.

Blindspot

For a moment, fastened at the bus window,
I consider what living without windows would be like.
On the other side suddenly there is an infinity,
the street is paved with star-stone, dust matters are astral
and I am wondering where on earth in the universe I am.

 He told me that a moment lasts ninety seconds
but it was gone and the grey came again
before I could count, before a blink or a beat
of heart or of hands, so I don't think
I can say I have really looked
for what I would miss, the sights I missed out on,
that were treasured by my sore eyes,
or that I've really given being blind
a moment's thought.

Unheard of

Here's what I have learnt about the phonetics of loss.
They sound something like this:
(which is to say, silence)

it's a note I've never heard anyone sing
and it's note that someday I will find,
 come morning, sleep has left behind.
This sound, like those in an old lullaby
until found, I can know only as goodbye-

as milkteeth underneath a cotton pillow,
as the sounds that I hear now:
(the black bedtime echo).

Clocks

Still, flat hands
tick time away,
filling up boxes,
making empty space.

I don't know this form
or who it is for,
only to still, stay,
and wait and to count-

the passing clouds,
each passing hope,

hope for time, hope none is waste
hope whatever it is was worth the wait-

but then there is more time
and there is more space.

It's a long time to sit and still
see only one still flat, clock face.

Mirror(me)

This poem can be read in four way. It's intended to be read firstly as as you would read a poem normally, along the lines one by one from left to right. Then, there are three poems that can be read in the whole one. Each one is goes down in a column, left, centre and middle.

Home

All that time spent on trains, wandering,
wondering until I knew
I've never really had a place to call home.
I found it in you
with no need to be sorry
somewhere I am welcome to come back to.
There is dust on my shoes from a different place
and dirt in the graze I got on one of my knees
when we went out climbing trees.
It has left a scar that looks like grace.

Sleeps

Outside, golden hands make the light change colours.
Hypnos tells me it’s okay; I tell him I’m fightless.
Cold daylight chews me into nighttime pieces
 and perhaps if I tell the sun what I’m reading it will stay a little longer.

Everything past the window is uneven and loud like the ocean,
Melancholy and pointed like knees and fists and teeth.
September falls into October and paper stays paper,
Though it used to be trees somewhere in the sun,
But the real truth is that there is emptiness in everything, not just beds.

October is coming in like a train whose whistle echoes for days,
An old steam engine with one hundred thousand windows,
Whole rooms for watching time but no space for little tides, big blinks,
Or eating up a list of books I must read before I turn twenty-five.

Light retires with a soporific goodnight and all that is left is a dearth of sleep,
Imaginary owls and other big-eyed birds contemplating stars.
Morning will sound like breathless trees stretching new leaves,
Clouds whirling, tiny winds darting through my sheets until I am grey again.
Sleep is just dust and I hate feeling filthy.