Ascending
Loving your scrutiny,
Agreeing with your
Calculated appraisal,
This conversation
Is a staged renovation
Of my crumbling insides.
You aspire towards Beauty
And frown at me,
As I linger at the antiques.
You’re busy nitpicking,
Sorting into piles
Of keep and discard
Till all I hold
Is my blue heart
I never could tell
Love and criticism apart,
But you’re no mechanic,
You say repair is tiresome
You’d rather create.
Loving those
Who only love
Parts of you,
Picking and choosing
Only works well
For test tubes,
You were a patchwork blanket
Of barbed wire
And merino wool
And all I wanted
Was to be encompassed
In all of you.
Descent
Damn you kid gloves
That I didn’t know I needed,
Your satin embrace
That I never conceived existed,
I had walked on broken shells
Till you showed me sand,
But the fishmongers sell gutted pain
For a pretty penny,
And your love is abalone caviar.
A pauper in tatters
Always revels in new clothes,
But your banquet has meant
I can no longer scavenge alone
For scraps of fat
Dripping in grey gravy,
My malnourished prisoners
Are starting to mutiny,
For where there is doubt
There is uncertainty.
Damn your kindness
Your outdated chivalry,
The way you remember
To make the bed
Not quite army style
But a clumsy attempt
At effervesce,
A move that makes you linger
In my loneliness.
There was once a kingdom
Of black and white
With dark silhouettes
And classical lines
Saffron swept across the sky
On a cold winter day
And all the townspeople wailed,
For monochrome,
Would never suffice again.
