Many mountains, seas, women, and dollars made
But for you only was each moment played
As an aged wine flask, your decrepit skin cracks
As flaccid muscles bend your creaking back
Hard hammer toes hamper your stiff walking style
Toilet king, bilious bombard of bile
Fog obscures your mind, only to rise again
Wishing for many things which might have been
Stung as by tzetse flies you cannot forget
Fantasies won’t revive corpses of regret
Too late, with dreams drooling down your hoary chin
Awaken to the state you are now in -
A dream without legs, with all hope beyond reach -
A jellyfish sunbathing on a beach.
Was that a creaking limb?
I look up at a large oak soldier
Noticing an enormous squirrel nest for the first time
It is two feet wide, about fifty feet up on a large branch
A raven pushes off another branch
I hear the creaking limb sound a second time
Realizing it is his wings flapping against the air
wind whistles through roof
even the floorboards speak
pots and pans join in
The moon hardly pierces the winter clouds.
Afar, a solitary wolf howls.
The girl sits on the Glum-Glade swing.
The pain of her claws growing
and the frost made her wince.
Still one rocking and
she will become
the raven
ready
to
fly
and spread
the seeds of
malediction.
Cursed are those who have
discovered her secret.
It is dangerous to spy
on a sorceress in the woods.
Afar, a solitary wolf dies.
And the moon weeps behind the frigid fog.
My house has got arthritis,
it is seventy years old,
and symptoms become noticeable
when the weather's turning cold.
The kitchen door starts moaning
as I go in and out,
the roof timbers are groaning
when the central heating cuts out.
Window frames sigh
just like I
when getting out of bed,
the hinges creak as if to speak
of staying closed instead.
The skeleton of my bed frame
which every night I dream on,
calls out when I turn over, asking
if I'll rub some cream on.
With all of its infirmities
as far as I can see,
it may cry out and whinge and moan
but not as much as me.
My body is a liquid
that keeps your glass half full
I'm merely there to fill the gap
between episodes of a screenplayed life
the need for symmetry
is overdrawing a story
were us could be presumptive
like you said
those expectations were my mirroring
so your repulsion stepped out to the scene
now we're sitting each in his corner
shrunken
as the vertical thoughts aim the heart harder
like a drone
released with purpose
absolved of liability
from the shelves of my soul
you're removing belonging titles
stacking your books
while happiness in this head is playing a tennis match
in front of an empty grandstand
I'm not standing
you've lent my nature disrupting the statics
I stand no more
I'm floating between this viscous heart
and knowledge that for me you're nefarious
preparing your clean exit
I'll sweep hidden agenda letters
which were adjusting to all of my lightheartednesses
you've turned the light off
and my heart became raspy
as you kept introducing roles in this performance
curtain is lowered
I'm bringing us to the end
small and selfish.
When someone I know dies
they own the awe.
I sit and wait
not knowing what to do.
my self
shrinks,
smaller and
alone with tiny
arguments, in a miniature
model of my real life.
Creaking beams
Who waits in the shadow of these creaking beams?
Waits between the pillars and rafters’
Waits unbeknownst and overblown
Without the sense to come in from the cold
Isolated in darkness, eyes can not see
Nor recall the moments conceived,
But who will heed those creaking beams?
While waiting to come in from the cold
Only we shall ponder the creaking beams
Trapped under the pillars and rafters,
Trapped in the shadow of movement and time
Waiting to come in from the cold
The sky was dark,
The thunder rolled.
I was alone, and in my bed,
When the floor started creaking.
It started slow and soft,
Barely able to be heard.
Then it became louder and closer, and so I wondered
“Why is the floor creaking?”
“What, or who, could it be?”
And “Oh, what should I do?”
These thoughts and more ran through my head,
As I heard the floor creaking.
Then all of a sudden I felt my heart stop,
Too afraid to continue.
I felt my life slipping away,
And still the floor was creaking.
The obituary read “death by heart attack”
The funeral was the next day.
But it wasn’t simply from natural causes,
But because the floor was creaking.
furnature being
a thing i'm lacking
i keep my eyes open
for what ever i might need
and one day
my eyes did find
a chair with four legs
a very nice find
i loaded it on the
back of the car
truth be told it
was'nt very far
i got the chair home
and took it into the kitchen
the table was fine
except a chair was missin
i sat the chair down
and sat in it at once
it made a little creak
but that was no fuss
day after day
i sat in the chair
then one day
i thought i heard
the chair speak
a day or two passed
and i thought i heard it again
i tried to pay attention
and listen again and again
i got up and sat down
i got up and sat down
several times
and as i was
listening to the creak
i heard the chair creaking
the creak "you stink"
(An entry for the "Chair " contest)
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