Portraits in Letter

Blog

  • Wither in the shallow

    Empty eyes stare into the horizon

    Old photographs flash like still-life memories

    Why did no-one ever tell us counting seasons is a luxury

    That sometimes they all melt together into a single moment

    Past present and future, in a single cold stare

    How did flowers once grow on this dry ground?

    Things at their end look like the end is all they have ever known

    How so dramatically beauty withers

    Empty eyes staring into the grim horizon

    Dreams of the beholder and those of the beheld

    Choked to nothing from staying in the shallow…

  • Next to me

    Sun is a friend, I know her quite well

    But it’s the moon who comes to sit with me in the abyss

    Who waits to meet my gaze, even when I look away

    She says ‘tell me everything’ and when I am done

    She says ‘I was there, I have memories too’

    ‘…Of merry go rounds and fires and fires

    And stones thrown on glass and cracking and cracking

    And moments of bliss, and rising and rising

    Tears of fear and falling and falling…’

    ‘Tell me the truth’ I ask her at last

    ‘Does the fire consume, does the glass break?

    Does the rise fall…does the dream end?’

    She meets my gaze and says to me

    ‘ In dreams we are the truest we can ever be’

    I say ‘When I wake up,where do I go?’

    ‘Here next to me’ she whispers to me…

    ‘Here next to me, I’ll be as broken as you,

    And you, like me, will always rise.’

  • Youthful dreams

    When the glory of youth begins to fade 

    And time threatens to take its toll

    When distances wear me out 

    And I just want to stay put and remember

    Sing back to me the dreams I used to dream

    Sing them back to me…

  • Friendship

    I want to live out the lazy days again

    Walking down the street on a Wednesday afternoon

    In flip flops

    Passing through your house, before you had a gate

    Knocking on the door, in case you were home

    You coming out, still with your head wrap on your braids

    Taking out the garden chairs, placing them by the river

    Which runs through your yard before it makes a waterfall

    Opening a bottle of wine, then anticipating the evening’s chill

    Quickly making a fire, then anticipating we will get hungry

    Putting meat on the fire, just before the wine runs out

    Me rushing back to my house, to get a few more bottles

    At some point, we have the world at our feet…

    The stars and the moon, jealously staring at us

    A soft river flowing in front of us

    A warm fire making tender meat for us

    Wine, perhaps cheap, but wine all the same

    And oh God, laugher, laughter, at the foolishness of the world!

  • Mother made a home

    The memories of our old home, they are vague to me now

    But I remember what this place used to look like

    Wild fertile ground, charming and unlivable

    And you, with your rough feminine hands

    You sowed every seed, shaped every tree

    You built every room, painted every wall

    You mended the cracks 

    Bent the sticks and glued the stones 

    You made something of every single nothing

    Until alas,

    Home to creatures that fly, and creatures that crawl

    And those that walk upright when they need to lay down

    You are one with nature and nature is art

    You mother, are art

    And you made us a home

    To me, a paradise to rest my tired mind

    Let me come home and rest in your arms.

  • Places to scream

    Last night I dreamt myself in the woods

    Surrounded by hills and fog, at the break of dusk

    What descended upon me was not fear of the wild

    Nor the need to know where on earth I was

    My first thought was, ‘ here’s a place where I can finally scream’

    I started with a timid half screech

    Then found the courage to go louder, freer

    With every attempt, I Iet go deeper

    Screaming louder as I raced myself into that wild woodland

    When I woke up, everything felt different, 

    and I knew

    I’ve run out of places to scream

    Of courage to run

    Of freedom to be

    Perhaps it’s time I started anew. 

    …Happy new year!

  • Song-writing by the fire

    Remember the last winter night we spent by the fire…

    This time was different from the times before

    This time we’d each become comfortable with our native languages

    Yours was music, mine was poetry

    Finally we were compatible

    Remember how we exchanged a secret glance

    When a third person asked what we loved about writing? 

    How did we respond to that again?

    You said…

    “It’s the only thing that engulfs me without having anything to do with love

    Just something I have to do if I want to breathe deeply

    And if I don’t do it…well then I can’t breathe.”

    I said…

    “I was never good at drawing even though I always wanted to

    But also the things I need to draw, I don’t know their shapes

    Like, what is the shape of passion when it burns love down to ashes

    This is the only way I know how to draw that.”

    You said…

    “Sometimes I search for words in all the languages I know

    And they don’t come to me except as a song.”

    I said…

    “My heart is a hoarder

    This is how I declutter it, this is how I restore order.”

    When he left the fireplace and we were alone again

    I gave you the lyrics and you wrote the melody

    Finally we were compatible.

  • Fire, wind and water

    Fire!

    I remember how the fire started

    Slowly awakening every sense in its way

    Lighting up a whole city

    Have you ever seen a city rage before?

    The heat, the heat, there was nothing like it.

    Wind!

    But nature is a tough thing to bear

    Perfect harmony can bring perfect chaos

    I remember the force of the wind that came

    Spreading the fire beyond the walls of the city

    Put it out! Put it out! Logic kept crying

    I don’t know why, but I wanted it to burn

    I feared the darkness and cold more than the heat and the light. 

    Water!

    The rain wouldn’t have it and it started to pour

    I’ll never forget how quickly it went cold

    Blackness and ashes on a smokey horizon

    In that cold darkness, I found the city gate

    I took one more look at the bareness before me

    Then turned my back and walked away

    Even though I had lost a whole city

    I’d always choose to fly away and inherit the sky. 

  • 3 a.m.

    The intimate emptiness of 3 a.m.

    Brings effortless clarity to my soul

    When the whole world has given in to sleep

    The moon moves closer and leans in

    Whispers secrets that remain in the depths of night

    I meet her halfway between wakefulness and sleep

    That space we dwell in when we are drunk in love

  • The woods are not still

    We retreat to the woods to find serenity

    I wonder sometimes how the woods see us

    Perhaps we are like visitors who have come on a bad day

    When its inhabitants all have too much to do

    Birds packing up to migrate to elsewhere;

    Leaves falling down to make blankets for those beneath;

    Caterpillars feeding fast before they hibernate;

    Squirrels rushing home before it gets dark;

    And we sitting there amidst the red gold and green;

    Unaware of how hectic this ‘still’ place can be.