He dreams I want to leave him
Roams through the night forest desolate
and I dream I’ve abandoned him
feel waxy pleasure of that sin
Its subsequent atonement
Next morning, both our faces mark the change
Mine with the guilty look of those
Who knowingly succumb to dreams
And his the speculative gaze
Of someone learning
Tag Archives: poem
POEM OF THE DAY: NOTHING BY JORGE CARRERA ANDRADE
NOTHING
BY JORGE CARRERA ANDRADE
In bookstores there are no books,
in books no words,
in words no essence:
there are only husks.
In museums and waiting rooms
are painted canvases and fetishes.
In the Academy there are only recordings
of the wildest dances.
In mouths there is only smoke,
in the eyes only distance.
There is a drum in each ear.
A Sahara yawns in the mind.
Nothing frees us from the desert.
Nothing saves us from the drum.
Painted books shed their pages,
becoming husks of Nothing.
CUTTING THE TIES
(PUBLISHED IN SEVENTH QUARRY, SUMMER ISSUE 2012)
Smelling the age you loved the most
With half of each other in your hands,
The ink is pushed along by empty fingers
Across a path to you and your eyes.
The grass is waiting with nothing in between
As you choose between left and right.
There is the phrase from a million mouths
Making myriad hopes.
I want to light up your face
But I would be smudging what has started to form.
DANCING IN THE SUN
(published in Roundyhouse, June 2012)
Barefoot on the blossom,
Each step gives you more.
The leaves join you in being drunk from the sun
And your options flow alongside you
As you pick away at the bark
And imagine her when she was young.
THE AMERICAN DREAM
Each light I turn off
I get closer to the smell.
I could never wake up again, I dream.
My teeth fall out at the side
And I spit them into your hand.
You carry me all the way across America
And I cry on your sleeve
and laugh.
‘I know what you mean’,
we say.
WALKING HOME
An alley of faces,
Hair that I cannot see past,
Hands going pale,
Hips on hips,
Sparks flying as teeth get chipped.
The feeling of bricks breaking nails
Will wriggle inside me until I starve it.
Blood tickles the back of my throat
As I arch my spine and reach out for a friend,
And the scratching on my shoulder
Doesn’t make a mark
As I stare at myself in the shower.
Lucy Rose Williams 