Cemetery Lips

 

Do you turn a locket

in your fingertips? Gold

gilding forged from

the fires of your heart,

creating beauty from

burnt offerings.

Do you draw unlived

memories on your lips,

whispering to life secrets?

Do you breathe

crematorium sunsets

and silent prayers

to not be forgotten?

 

Do you weep

rivers of agony,

deep depths

that people perceive

as shallow? Do you conceive

thoughts, birthing

worlds that still

feel hollow?

 

And do you walk them worlds alone,

wishing that someone special would call?

 

And is there a face missing

from the photograph,

eyes that should be staring back,

but your voice

left this solitary space

with its bags

heavily packed. So

those ears never heard you

whisper that love was theirs,

If they'd just unpack their hearts

and open their arms in care.

 

Then whisper to me.

 

Sketch your soul

in doodle hearts,

draw for me

floating unicorns,

in fairytales

of your own form.

The colours don't have to conform,

nor stay in the lines,

let them bleed if they need.

Whatever your heart leaves is fine.

 

And I'll place it upon my wall,

to remind me that my own

cemetery lips are not

always so alone. And I'll be here,

forever to call, when your own lips

are gravestone cold.

 

And if a fever of the mind

holds you tight

I will hold you tighter, through

the darkness of night. I'll mop away

the fire in your brow. I'll feed

a whole ocean of love,

a spoonful at a time. I'll shine

a light on fear and show its just

a shadow of a cuddly bear,

and play soft songs

until your heart

beats as strong as mine.

 

And I'll turn a locket

in my fingertips.

Your face placed

next to my heart

and my lips will live

as bright as sunshine

and I'll gift the light to

make you feel divine.

Through the trees

 

Through the trees,

that crowning archway of leaves -

a tendril window, a petrified

doorway through

which I can never leave. A kingdom

I can never claim as my own.

 

My knotted gnarly limbs locked in

statuesque reach,

my splintering branches

only stretch

upwards through

the green skylight eaves

toward the sunlight

that the cracks in

the sky weave into

a patterned blanket

of tranquillity.

 

But I'll never set foot

upon that lush green,

I'll never roll on those

hills so serene,

I can but only dream

of an open sea,

as only puddles have I seen.

For my eyes have

rolled for centuries,

yet never moved an inch.

 

Under my callused bark

I have ringed my storied lifetime,

the grief, the sadness,

and the lost prime of a seedling

growing free.

A timelapse of history,

a circular map of

yesterday, but tomorrow

is always too far away.

Not sketched into my soul,

not etched upon my skin,

like a heart left by two

young saplings huddled

from the cold.

 

My roots are

too embedded. Too tangled,

too tightly packed, my body

wrapped in moss, skin too

weathered to amount to much.

And the feathered wings

Have made my broken skin

their soil, the furry flowers are rolling

into furballs on untethered feet,

as they fleet excitedly around

my static bones,

and the orange blur of fuzzy swirls

ruffle the foliage of my

neighbourhood searching for nourishment,

and shelter from the world.

 

My friends are here, standing beside me -

a family tree of ancestry.

So, I just stare through the canopy

and think how happy I am to just be.

Map of memory

 

And the words sing in,

a swooning sweep, fluttering

love in shared sugar-sweet

soulful melody, spoonfuls of honey

poured deep into my heart,

sunshine in a memory, sweetness,

in syrupy sensuous serenity - safety

and solidarity. A leap of faith.

Could you love me?

 

Could the seas part,

letting us

dive into the sands

like a duvet of warmth,

sun-bleached by

the seasons of summer

that have fallen on this land

when we were in another,

where the only treasures

left to find

are littered in the minds

of each other.

Could you love me, be a lover?

A mind full of honey and

a heart that says only we.

 

And if I held out my palms,

where the lines form

old weathered branches,

and the leaves have

fallen to the soil beneath,

leaving us

trees limbs entwined,

memories in roots,

hearts in the clouds.

Our twiglike fingers

link the stories of our lives.

Would the lines of time talk

of futures together,

our roots gripping closer

as they form a knot of forevers,

not apart, no divided paths

but a walk beside

whatever the weather?

 

And if I

get to ask one question,

it would be this,

could you love me

and thus could I ask

thee for a kiss?

 

And if we plucked

the delicious fruit clean

off life's tree, devouring

it moorishly. Delirious in our heat.

Would we stand naked,

showing all the scars of memory,

free of the armour we bear, our skin bare

bar the tectonic faultlines, where the heart

has been cracked and broken, fracturing

into honeycomb crumbs on a carpet of stars.

Sweetness turned into

a breadcrumb trail to happiness

and I know I'd love them -

fingertips drawing on your back, a map

of where you have been.

So could you love me back?

 

And if these pathways

that cradle our lives, suddenly split

and the light cast out,

a brilliant bright dancefloor for

love starved feet.

Would your soul dance, and weave

to the sound the trees leave,

would you brush your fear to the ground

and seed the soil with blossoming hope.

And could you love me?

 

Then kiss me. And I'll say forever.