2010 #1: A Collection of Poems

When I was 17 I wanted to study Creative Writing at RMIT. To get in required folio submission and an interview. The folio submission required sending in up to 4 pieces of creative writing at 3,000 words each.

Whoops, no... that's... that's not right at all. The folio submission required sending in up to 4 pieces of creative writing at 3,000 words in total. I sent in 4 pieces at 3,000 words each.

Needless to say, I didn't get in. Heartbreaking, really.

I still have the pieces I submitted, though. I'm posting them here for the purpose of reminiscence. Especially since back then I was a blissed out teen and wrote every day, whereas these days I'm a burned out alcoholic 20-year-old with the cognitive functionality of a preteen with autism. 

There is a forth piece (or, in terms of chronology, a different first piece) but I'm hesitant to post it as the contents are far, far too personal. It is a piece of my life - a fragment of a memoir. Autobiographical. Then again, if you do see it here, it will be numbered under #4, and I guess I gained the confidence to post it after all.

Let's begin.

-

When I was 17 I used to write poems on leather-faced moleskines. 

I. Before

A change in the wind, I felt it like fire

What all-consuming tempest does make my bones brittle and weak; knees bashed with cold.

My hair is suddenly messy now.

The fire and wind does cauterize my old wounds

Piteous, perhaps, but such an inspiration.

This frenzied breeze does sting at first, however gentle on my arms and face. I like this.

The hope this one torrent brings is controversial, as I have been lectured many a time, and seen with bloody cruelty and unmistakable vision, most correct

How blazing fires do burn out to become razed and blackened pyres.

My hope anew, I ride this wind; to any port but for one where company is unfriendly

I pray you; press against my sails;

Do kick up again.

I start a new incision along an old and faded line; with uncertainty, pierce the seas along a choppy old way that time has never feigned to forget.

You seem to take to my presence on the ocean

Although my destined shores are too far for you to carry me, you stay.

I thought, ‘To commune with wind is futile,’

But this breeze whispers to I and itself, ‘Never die’.

II. After

The black bird hovers around my window now.

It speaks the truth; bats the lids of its eyes

Although I wish it would stop.

Like a kite it gently glides, trying with subtle beats of its wings to catch my eye, but I still see it regardless.

The kids, they touch each other, not knowing what’s real and what’s not.

I wonder if they ever will.

What I have seen, like my grey feathered friend,

Should inspire them to keep their hands firmly placed on the table in front of them.

For myself, in chastity, I depart my own requirements, laid like food left to someone else’s similarly starving stomach.

For myself, I think little, although a selfish masterpiece I’ve started.

A white dove I’ve begun to paint in my fevered daydreams.

The reality of my subject, however, is one of black eyes and black feathers, a testament to death - a lonely murder.

You cannot draw a dove that is not a dove at all; hopelessness invades.

My black-feathered friend will fly away soon.

But whether or not it is to a place or a person willing to paint it bright?

The port I’ve reached is full of fools, and the wind dies.

III. Now

You are no more a friend than the transient wind that finds warm comfort blowing through the open doors of self-degrading idiots

Than the wide ocean; to kick up the sails of those who need you most.

You are no more a change, a changer; a fiery new beginning; than that pathetic gust that does kick up the skirts of pretty girls, only to cease again and again.

That portrait I painted; I find is nothing resembling a dove when I reach sobriety.

The guilt I feel is so great, for throwing you—

What a dove or a great Arctic wind you could have been.

But I follow your lead; I fly away.

I set sail on a new wind, that when it whispers ‘Never die’, it follows its own advice.

—Into the fire to burn to ashen cinders.

The scent of smoldering paint and dying brush strokes does tickle my nostrils; it stings my eyes.

The incision I’ve made before is simply another lost hope.

The most promising and beautiful of paintings, if caught in a fire, will always choose to die for fear of not escaping its hot licks; resignation.

You are no more a lover than one who merrily sleeps with other men; cheats themselves.

No more a wind of change than one that feigns promise and then dies.

No more a dove that chooses to flock to the dead like a raven, and slips in and out of black ink like my brush.

What could have been; a waste of paint.

Do not come again, dear wind, unless it is with intent to carry me onwards -

When it is not the wide ocean you fear;

When you choose not to take up company with fools;

Until then I start a new canvas.

The incision heals; my sails are up again; I wait for the next big wind.

Love and loss

What love could do with love lost,

Return it unto love and let love share lusts most lusciously.

For love cannot share lust with a simple like,

But it parries and dodges the blows of a most tempestuous lust, for fear of love lost in lament.

So love loves love and finds faux-love in lust

But it cannot love lust.

For once mere lust is discovered in place of a once-thought love

Then love is left in loss.

Lust may be shared between love,

But love cannot love lust.

For lust feigning love is a lie.

Free

I knew a man who once told me

That my heart was free

Free

To roam the plains of Kenya

To prowl the deserts of Egypt

To laze in Parisian laneways of many an archaic design

To seek a sensual touch from gorgeous Swedes

To lament a boring life in Barcelona

To parry the precise pokes of fencers in fancy France

To write of beauty in most ravishing Rome

To be lost in Spanish serenades

To find lust in Greece and seek the beauty of Santorini

He said my heart was free

Until I found my way, and a place to stay

Until I found it in my heart

To be

And with all the grace and sorrow of a willow tree

He swayed on the shore and he waited for me.

The Lady of Shalott

Even the Lady of Shalott did sleep

While her boat did crawl and creep

Along the river which feigned the sea

To Sir Lancelot and keep

Her heart damp and cold

Dreaming of wealth she would never know

Her sir waiting by the shore in snow

But her creaky boat moves far too slow

Clutching straws of sanity she lies

She sees the sky through dried-up eyes

Patiently she rests for long

Serenades passing sailors with her song

And when all is but with fear

When a bore is her despair

She feels her death drawing near

Cloaked with long departed hope

Riding on the wind, it comes with horses’ trot

Tousles the unwashed hair of restless Sir Lancelot

To the doomed drifting maiden upon the rickety barge

It does not take her long to realize that Death itself is at large

A lonesome boat does crawl and creep

Remembers weighty presence with a creak

Along a journeyed frozen river it finds Sir Lancelot and keep

Within, forever, in embrace of fallen leaves

Damp with saddened skies and incessant snowing

With no sleepy song to match a young man’s longing

Lady Shalott does sleep

For one bitter purpose of this prose

And only death itself would know

Is that she would linger cold and lone

Until her dammed blood would turn to stone

Over and over, the cycle flows

When it will stop, burning pages let us know

For poor Lady Shallot lives and dies

Every time you read these lines

Meeting

Him:

I met you at the bar, and you smiled.

Was it the stark contrast between you and I that caused you to grin?

More than male and female - my pale white complexion to your warm olive skin

Skin I'd like to touch

Her:

Your bright blue eyes hover over me, and I almost feel contested

So much so that I can do nought but allow the smirk to break my face in half

The pairing would be scrutinized

A sin to my own kind

Blossoms

Him:

Your sisters treat our unity like blasphemy

And I cannot help but smile

When you tease them, "Sexual chemistry,

The most important connection you've denied."

I feel blessed that you allow me into your life and the sturdy walls of your family.

Your world is rife with music, dance, and passion - culture.

Yet you remain my finest muse

For my simple life with simple pleasures

Her:

The air is clouded with ambiguity

Escapism I've found

From a scandalous life of bloody affairs

You are my angel of change

I cannot dance upon tables as you do without fear of embarrassing my elders

For ostracism is a thing I know all too well

This isolation and comfort I find with you calms me

And I fear not the opinion of those with whom I share my flesh

Realizations

Him:

In your joyousness I suddenly detect sorrow

Although in jest you profess it's merely that monthly time again

But still you feign to hide that

Aching disruption at your side

Family initially found most amusing I find now amazing

I cannot begin to fathom why your family sticks so close, so protective and watchful over you

A most untouchable connection

I could never hope to unglue

Her:

I feel the sharp sting of regret

Detachment, I've discovered

Denying years of fruitful passion

Is no key to loving another

Baring my heart, my all, I take you to my home

The lies all washed away to reveal the reality of my identity, a surface most scarred and armoured with anguish

I open the door, lead you in, and rest my hand upon my guilt's shoulder

I gaze into your eyes as she once gazed within mine

Acceptance

Him:

A wraith, I think at first,

Yet 'tis only a woman in what looks to be a black shroud

Intimidated I feel, although her fragility is evident in her age

Until I see - her warm olive skin is not unlike yours

Her smile speaks ancient messages of cruel sacrifice, bludgeoning her innocence

I can feel her breathing on the air, a pulsating inferno of loss - yet love

She reaches forward, through her veil, her frail and veined hands outstretched, her eyes old, rampant with sad memory

And she gives me her heart.

Mother And Child

You’re like the child in that little book

Unknowing of all the time it took

Screaming, crying, wanting more

To lift you from that sterile floor

Looking into your mothers’ eyes

The fruit of all her sacrifice

They gave it all to give you life

Yet then it’s as though you yearn to die

Still like the child in that little book

Barely aware of how it makes your mother look

When you thrash out, crying, wanting more

For her to lift you from that unclean floor

Looking into your mothers’ eyes

To wail and yelp, to spill forth lies

What candy sweet she gave you not

You swear, t’would set your heart aloft

You are the child in that little book

Near-knowing of all the time it took

To relent to give, though you want more

To pry you from your bedroom door

How light you must have felt back then

When she dressed you in your first nice shirt

You prayed like hell she’d understand

The space you need, rather than take your hand

You were the child in that little book

Never learning of all the time it took

To pull you from your crafted cave

To suffer the fists, the claws, the tears, the shame

Your eyes murky hollows, a frail mess

Yet still she raised you from the abyss

She gave it all to give you life

Yet woe, alas, you yearn to die

Ethnic Parent

Pauses, blank stares and uncertain glances

I cannot speak to those I know, only strangers now

You look at me like I'm a floundering fish

I see it in your eyes - my money is no good here

Great sacrifice I made for my children

Replaced war ravaged lands with urban opportunity

But what the so-called community ensured was a lifetime of scorn

My treasures fight on their own for the right to belong

Short words

Elegantly floating with disregard

Solemnity in loss is a man’s best reward

For striking fervor into the heart of one

Whose utmost care departed, victoriously numb

Long words are words with the same meaning

As those that are short

Concise, elegant, no surrealism to vex their audiences

With blindly plucked chords

With stretched phrases all we do is fill pages

Without them we feel as though not all has been explained

If only more people knew

What the tiniest of words could do