So how did our paths meet?
Did I track you through the needle-green forest?
Perhaps.
Or did you follow my footprints along the dried earth
between the long grasses
across the river
in the dark?
I do not know or don’t remember.
But the lines of flame that come to an arrowhead
that meet and stop and flare and entwine
the lines of flame point to a destiny
where we have now arrived.
I wake up cold, no blankets, and my heart’s a tip.
You’ve moved out,
leaving handcuffs,
lost happiness
and burns on the carpet.
You booked in to my heart for a short weekend visit
but then put up posters
and turned radiators high.
You said not to worry,
lots of places to go and people to see,
but then you dragged in an evergreen aluminium tree
and put a selfie from Venice on the top.
So what is there left?
Your fingerprints and footprints on the gentle pink paintwork,
your footprints and fingerprints on the remnants of rugs.
I look around
and call around
but my heart’s chambers echo.
You’ve moved out,
leaving handcuffs,
lost happiness
and burns on the carpet.
My ears are dull.
They do not hear the single threads
you hear in the harmony.
You say that love has many voices –
love is many voices –
braided, sometimes tangled,
voices tied in rope together.
My eyes are dull.
They do not see the single colours
you see in the rainbow.
You say that love has many colours –
love is many colours –
winding, sometimes twisted,
colours kaleidoscoped together.
I hear the chorus, not the voices,
until your voice stands out from others.
I see the rainbow, not the colours,
but without your colour there is no rainbow.
My heart is full.
It feels the endless ribbons
of colour, of voice,
that hold our hearts together.
If you would
sing for me
I would
willingly
steer my heart onto the rocks
Jan is home on a Saturday night. Again.
The doorbell rings. He had thought it might.
Open? Or not to open?
The audience he imagines and his hard-beating heart tell him to open.
So he does.
Life changes for the pale-blue better.
Or
Jan is home on a Saturday night. Again.
The doorbell rings. He had thought it might.
Open? Or not to open?
The audience he imagines and his hard-beating heart tell him to open.
But he doesn’t. He waits.
The doorbell rings again. He had thought it might.
Open? Or not to open?
Half the audience he imagines say yes, the others no. His heart beats hard.
The doorbell does not ring again.
Life changes for the pale-blue.
Or
Jan is home on a Saturday night. Again.
The doorbell rings. He had thought it might.
Open? Or not to open?
The audience he imagines and his hard-beating heart tell him to open.
But his head cautions him to wait.
To wait again.
And wonder why he had waited before. His heart beats.
The doorbell rings again. He had known it would.
Open? Or not to open?
Now the audience he imagines is silent, confused, though his heart still beats hard.
The audience he imagines leans forward, willing him to do one thing or another.
So he does what they want.
Life changes.
Linh stood straight, face forward, and stared at the flag. The golden star sparkled, reflected in her dark eyes. She was beautiful. I tried to keep her face in my gaze but the Colonel was watching us. My eyes could not flicker or shift from the flag. I loved her but she loved the party, she loved the flag, she loved our country. I had tried to find the words but she was not ready for love with a person, or a person like me. I could not compete with her love for a people, for a country under attack.
Years later I heard that after leaving the camp she had crossed the border with a team of comrades. They caused the enemy such great losses that the invaders sent in the fire bombers. I heard that Linh was caught out in the open, away from the tunnels, and her body was never found.
Now I sit drinking iced coffee in a café in a city in my country, in a country at peace, in a country where the invaders were thrown out when I was still young. Now I sit here in a café in a street named after Linh, my Linh, though she was never mine, and I think of the young girl with the stars in her eyes, with the love of her people in her eyes.
Published on http://visualverse.org/submissions/love-in-her-eyes/
In the fall I fell for you.
In the fall you caught me.
In the fall I fell for you.
In my fall you caught me, you taught me, you held me, you plastered wounds I had thought incurable.
In the fall I fell for you.
I will never fall again.
He waited for her. She arrived, beautiful. But not so beautiful as the look in his eyes when he saw her.
If you were like my football team
I’d wave my scarf all round your ground.
I’d toot my vuvuzuela
till the neighbours came around.
I’d wait for you forever
like Bobby Greyfriars his bone
and the words you know I’d long to hear?
Now you’re coming home.
Yesterday
Peacefully
In bed
Surrounded by his lovers.
A party
In celebration
On the Festival’s last day.
Wear colourful
And smile.
simonsalento 