Love Sick

I’m walking through streets that are dead
Walking, walking with you in my head
My feet are so tired, my brain is so wired
And the clouds are weeping

-Bob Dylan

Edges

Edges, Borders, Boundaries, Brinks and Limits have appeared like a team of trolls on their separate horizons. Short creatures with long shadows, patrolling the Blurry End. Gentle half-moons have gathered under their eyes and they are as old as Ammu was when she died. Thirty-one.

Not old.
Not young.
But a viable die-able age.

-(Excerpt) The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy.

His hair is the colour

of the golden rays of sunrise
and his eyes
have just the same effect on me
but I’m ugly

- Ways to Waste Time, Boozie Jinglés

I’m in the sky when I’m on the floor

I’m in the sky when I’m on the floor
The world a mess and you’re my only cure
There isn’t time for me to act mature
The only words I know are “more” “more” and “more”

- (Excerpt) Eau D’Bedroom Dancing, Le Tigre

I love you as a hawk loves air

I love you as a hawk loves air,
Or a sailor loves the sea,
Or as a strong wave seeks the sand,
But ah! do you love me?

– (excerpt) I love you, Nicholas Gordon

Why are you sucking up so much?

“Why are you sucking up so much?” I asked Amanda.
“It’s how you find stuff out” she said.

- (Excerpt) The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood.

They came in search of… what, exactly?

They came in search of… what, exactly? Nothing of use. If they had possessed any wisdom, the inutility of their journeying would have been obvious to them. Travel was pointless. It removed you from the place in which you had a meaning, and to which you gave meaning in return by dedicating your life to it, and it spirited you away into fairylands where you were and looked, frankly absurd.

- (Excerpt) The Enchantress of Florence, Salman Rushdie.

Tear in your hand

I don’t believe you’re leaving
’cause me and Charles Manson like the same ice cream
I think it’s that girl
And I think they’re pieces of me you’ve never seen
Maybe she’s just pieces of me you’ve never seen

All the world is all I am
The black of the blackest ocean
And that tear in your hand

- (Excerpt) Tear in your hand, Tori Amos

Something was done and she ran from a town

A Play of the Word

Something was done and she ran from a town
and I’m glad it was done or she wouldn’t have come,
but she wouldn’t have gone and she’s long gone now,
so I’m wondering why and remembering how.

Her hair was the various colours of leaves
in the fall in a heap as we watched her asleep
and we stood there like words with the ink still wet,
as reminders of something she’d likely forget,

or read in the morning and scrunch in a ball.

Her eyes were so wide that they had a seaside
and a faraway sail in one eye then the other
till I envied my brother and I’ve not got a brother.

Her mouth had this shape that it made and you can’t,
we tried it all week and our lower lips ached
as we pointed this out and she didn’t know how
she was doing it. I’m sort of doing it now.

Her hands were so delicate delicate things
were careful with them and the length of her arm
was an hour when I saw it at rest on a sill
with a twig in its hand that’s in my hand still.

Her body was everything nobody knew
and discussed in the dark till it wasn’t that dark
but her feet were so callused they made it clear
We two will be getting her out of here.

…

- (Excerpt) Hide Now, Glyn Maxwell.

I can tell you’re a serious person

I can tell you’re a serious person
And I know from the way you talk
That what goes on inside your head
Is pure as the whitest chalk.

It’s nice to meet serious people
And hear them explain their views:
Your concern for the rights of women
Is especially welcome news.

I’m sure you’d never exploit one;
I expect you’d rather be dead;
I’m thoroughly convinced of it -
Now can we go to bed?

- (Excerpt) From June to December, Wendy Cope.