We rip out phrases by their roots

Only to be met

With fistfuls of nothing

As the silence deepens.

We encompass the empty

And bleed into the barren,

Broken,

And devoid of beauty.

And when disembodied voices whisper,

"Only a little farther..."

We tread these polluted waters,

Bartering souls with wraiths

For inspiration and haste

If they would only move us

Beyond this god forsaken waste...

Defined by the mystery of blackness,

she can’t fill the holes emptied by others.

She wears open wounds as badges,

chewed by countless sharpened teeth.

She folds her body into broken segments,

her thoughts dissipating through marrow,

a passing shadow leaving no traces.

She strolls hand in hand with inner voice

telling her she wasn’t designed or defined

to borrow the wind or charge the air

of someone who she can never be.

Shaped by her past, she must forge

her own passage, seeking new joy

in reunion with unfolding sky of night.

"Write the book", she said (the character in my head)

"I've been waiting for ages to be on the pages while you waste away in bed"

But I don't even know your name

I can see you, and you haunt me

You stand on the porch of that awful home

Dirty, afraid, and alone

Willing to come away with me

Still I leave you for dead

I am water,

tap dancing on souls

with ethereal feet,

flowing through veins,

moody and reckless.

Permeating layers

of skinned stone,

plunging membranes

of crystal water.

Moving like silk

through rumpled sheets.

Slow and sweltry tenacity

increasing to throbbing,

fingers of water

urgently touching

dry, fiery river bed.

My flooding waters

can create or destroy,

every drop of me

is your life,

shimmering spirit

of hope.

Turbulence,

racing blindly

in thirsty gulps,

splashes of fine mist

swimming onward,

puddling on skins.

Vagabond drops

of water meandering

boldly to the sea.

Watch down the meadows here, of half a sight of 

slaughter, and stick down these rows furled lazy 

with the grass of fair days and stilted with colours 

of May. And see no horns, rooted like the children's 

graves, all turned a pallid colour. And bathe now in 

the sun of stilted memories gone to wind.

For no heads turn as sirens on the clock here, filled with 

madness of spinning rocks on the hour. Nor any men 

dressed as men without eyes, should we skinned heads 

have to suckle death from their guns. No: now these Trees 

had hanged the other way, turning from sights of sorted 

mass into waking graves, and to wash in perfumes hazy 

as the night sky, and rotten as anaemic lungs.

But watch down the meadows now, through fields of huts 

and silence‒ for the pasture of death looks nothing like

violence. Where, upon a ravaged place, a Lark lands as

an infant would, and tenderly drifts, faint into innocent 

shawls. But for what cause do these blind bullet heads sink

lower than flesh? and when the Sun next rises, all shall be

put to rest. 

i built a tower of cards

and there you go

knocking it down

with a single breath

knocking me with it

making me f

                    a

                      l

                        l

                               —fall for you

They say you control me, as I am the head, and You, the neck.

They say that through my stomach, You influence my heart... but the truth of your power actually lies beneath the navel of this boiling tea-bound bergamot orange.

It is only after the moment where the pressure is released...

that You,

are nothing to me.

I no longer need

You…

and You,

no longer control, me.

I can think clearly,

and I, am completely,

rational.

Awaken, and no longer blinded by nature's hypnosis,

I can now unpeel

You,

from your power.

It is solely within this ever-escaping ephemeral moment

where the monkey holds

an unloaded gun…

that I can see

You,

for whom You truly are - -

No strings attached.

Copyright © 1986-2017

Alan Salé

All Rights Reserved

contact: AASalehi@gmail.com

PoetryByAlan.com

tried to touch 

that heart of yours,

and learning

that my fingers 

are not slim 

enough to fit

the spaces

between

your rib cage. 

This ache in my bones

And this itch in my brain

Renders my skin crawling

With each broken refrain.

And I'm longing for a taste

Of the words you would free

So put pen to parchment, dearest

Because I'm ready to feed.

Let's talk about the things we don't say

The alchemy of you + me

Tomorrow adds another day

On the abacus of he and she

And bears the question

When did us stop being we?