Notes from a Laundry

Words are my children: born of me and with similar
demands for attention and immediacy.
So, while I tune out a dryer’s determined rotations
under a flickering fluorescent light and pretend
to ignore the dry hack of the frumpy, eroded woman
at the end of the row of equally-tired machines,
my hands pat chaotic pockets for a pen.

Teaching new words to fly, my ink-stained fingers
pause to caress those already laid to paper - a
solitary Braille-tango to detect leaks and bumps:
imperfections that may dare to break the flow.
Outside, purring buses glide sulphurous Leviathan paths
through the rain-slicked streets, creating neon mosaics
in their wakes – each unique and with the life-span of a sigh.

Silent Rooms

There is a room occupied by a solitary
piano: locked, but full of the dark promise
of dreams yet unfulfilled.

There is a room whose walls are built
with words of the most delicious terror:
forbidden and powerful.

There is a room of cool light and white
wicker where the Mistral billows the
drapes in impossible dreams.

There is a room where owls watch over
silent girls, all dark bobs and Goth mascara,
who offer mystery through mystery.

There is a room where wolves, eyes aglow,
stand still as sentries in the moonlight,
and where the snow tastes of rage.

The Naming

With petrifying fascination
I watched you unfold.

The coy glances,
stolen touches and kisses
the sibilant tease
we both craved
until, with moonlit sweaty
whispers you called out my
name.

Later, with an ocean
and your shed skin
between
us, I called yours:
Jezebel.

Phillipolis

“Dandruff on velvet”
you proclaimed, trying
to get a reaction as we
lay giggling on the blanket
beneath the mesmerising
Karoo night.

Too mellow on cactus
distillations that would be
illegal in most countries,
I just laughed and suggested
it was your turn to feed the fire.

With my eyes closed,
I heard you crunch
gingerly
across sun-roasted stone chips
and felt the heat-flare
on my face as the log caught.

On hearing your purr I
opened my eyes to see you
stretching
towards that same velvet,
tousled hair and nipples
silhouetted by the blaze
of the kameeldoring.

I watched you for a full minute
before returning to invent new
constellations