He cleared his throat politely. Then he coughed a little longer and louder than normal. At that they turned to face him. He fainted
My shadow is my closest friend
My shadow is my closest friend;
she understands me.
In the darkness of the darkest night
I light a candle to see her close again.
Office people (1)
To look at him, you wouldn’t know. Thinning hair on an over-large, unusually flattened skull, a greyed shirt and pullover habit, rigorously black socks, none of these gave a clue to the howl at the centre of his existence. He had such a horror of emptiness, always avoiding the void, he would colour in all the zeros in any document he saw. Colleagues learned to accommodate him, made sure as many spreadsheet figures as possible were rounded up. He said he would have liked to have been an accountant but there were too many nothings in finance. People smiled gently.
It’s back then
Cool sun, sky ice light blue. Commuters puff out their personal clouds and frown knowingly. “It’s back then. Aye, here’s winter again.”
My talented pal Ross @bigblether drew the illustration below.
Living with a poet
The nets on the quayside are not the wiles with which I charmed you. They’re nets. They’re not the fisherfolk’s dreamcatchers that took our ambition. They’re nets.
The dinghy bobbing on the incoming tide is not your spirit that soared when you first saw me at the party. It’s a boat. It’s not our hopes and dreams before the love tide turned. It’s a boat.
The gulls that swoop down on the flecks of foam are not poembirds. They’re gulls. They are not lyric snatchers from the frothing deep. They’re gulls.
My heart is not – my heart is not a cartoonish pink, arrow-pierced. It’s my heart. It’s not, I’m afraid, any words that you may say. It’s my heart. And yes, it’s broken, but it will mend.
Light arrives
Light arrives, no matter the distance.
Love remains, no matter the time.
Come then and I will rub your back
Come then and I will rub your back and chest with menthol oil. The tingle will help you forget your lungs; the tickling scent will make me sneeze. “Not you too?” you’ll say and we’ll laugh and you will cough. When the racking stops, you’ll rub my head with menthol oil. The tingle will help me forget the headache; the tickling scent will not affect you.
Then, oilily, we’ll make sick-people love and gasp and splutter and wheeze. Soon perhaps we’ll flop in sweat and grin and gasp and feel the sheet hot, sweat-damp, beneath us.
A shower? The hottest water is cold needles on our reddened skin and then one of us feels faint so we towel each other carefully and catch each other’s eye and agree in silence to go to bed, this time eyes closed, and sleep.
We walk away from our past
We walk away from our past and memories pile up behind us, blocks and rocks and shards of bright stained glass. The rising-sun light lifts the colours of the memories and lays them flat in front of us, puddling and lakes and oceans toward the future horizon. We stride or stagger forward, ankle deep in colour.
Walking (circles)
As I walked to the office, my barber was washing his windows. Down the road the window cleaner was changing a tyre on his van. I jammed my hat down tight on my head in case the AA man came at me with scissors.
Apology (on a noticeboard)
You asked if you could share my sweetness. I was taken aback and slapped you. The look on your face as you walked away stays with me. If you see this sign and come back on Thursday, of course there will be honey. Of course. The sweetness that I have I will share with you and take away the bruising from your face….
simonsalento 