the girl in the bead shop ...

the girl in the bead shop... the girl in the bead shop follows me through each room of the ancient house where no one lives now the rooms abandoned and replaced by displays of beaded art jewellery so brilliant it should astound my eyes but i am fascinated more by the fixed stare of her innocent eyes watching me so carefully as if at any moment i would perform some miracle or at the very least some magic trick exploding with a flourish from my white fingertips Copyright © Kennedy James, 2010. All rights reserved.

i heard a voice

i heard a voice in the restlessness of sleep i heard a voice and mistook it for yours it was whispering in my ear that love was just a silly game that people play in the cosmos of seduction and i guess i smiled over the brim of my coffee cup when just the next morning i heard you mutter something indistinct or something i simply did not hear because i was fascinated by the deep red pencil outline of your full lips Copyright © Kennedy James, 2010. All rights reserved.

the forsaken

the forsaken the bloodhounds moan and snarl the searchlights cut ragged rips in the fabric of night and somewhere behind all this chaos i hear your voice calling my name as you wind your way through the forest and the underbrush through the swamp past the rocky ridges and through every word i have ever written all in the hope of finding me i can hear you coming i can hear the hoof beats of the horses and the cursing of the men you have hired to find me in this jumble of thoughts and even when the trail goes cold you remain undaunted and whisper to your closest companion that you must find me find me here or find me there dead or alive it does not matter along the way in the villages and the towns people have said to you "Let it go ... he is lost and gone" and i suppose you grimace with disdain never giving up the search until after all the years of searching and through all the minutes of hoping you still feel alone and abandoned believing that what was once so complete i could and would complete again Copyright © Kennedy James, 2010. All rights reserved.

a lament for middle c

a lament for middle c you once sat at the piano and played soft melodies and i listened carefully to your fingers pressing your love into my life even as i realised that the piano was badly out of tune when we were young and green and ran wild we travelled across the country on a journey to nowhere because you said you had not been there before and i remember wondering if nowhere was the very place i hoped i was leaving for the longest time we hung our dreams across the nights like stars pegged to a clothes line and when those dreams dried to crisp disappointments and there was nothing left to do we married and made accidental babies Copyright © Kennedy James, 2010. All rights reserved.

they sweep by ...

they sweep by ... they sweep by in the wind like swirls of dusty pollen catching hold in the earth along seashores and prairie roads in the crags of grey rock and by collapsed fence posts it is a miracle that they survive to grow and a mystery how soon they are gone these future flowers with oh so small hands holding dreams like wooden spoons in empty tin bowls Copyright © Kennedy James, 2010. All rights reserved.

i am the rain

i am the rain i am the rain falling from the darkest tower of clouds and washing over you here beneath the canopy of the groaning bed where you lie in wet-waiting your arms pulling me to you in a hard and fierce downpour under an umbrella of soft sheets until my body dissolves and floods the riverbank creases of your flesh with the fertile silt of my love in the calm afterwards the deluge of the watery desire in your eyes is transformed and trickles into salty streaks etched across your face as your thoughts float back over the torrential failings of your turbulent past recalling lovers found and lovers lost through so many desperate years the years of dry thunderstorms scratching through the fog of your life clawing through the standstill soot with crooked fingernails of lightning that illuminated your dusty world for the briefest moment with bright flashes of expectation only to disappear forever without leaving behind a single drop of hope until the shadows veil your eyes with sleep when morning stirs and blends the eastern horizon into a potion of cascading colours overflowing the coffee cup brim of the world you watch the hot summer sun rising through the scattering clouds watch it steam across the asphalt fields and in the warming light your face softens when you turn to ask in fearful disbelief why why you should trust me when i promise you that i will remain or even if that is what i truly mean when i so boldly say to you that i am the rain Copyright © Kennedy James, 2010. All rights reserved.

bring me ...

bring me ... bring me wild flowers sprinkle them over my body the way you used to litter them across open prairie fields when i had the eyes of a child bring me the warm spray of a sea coast let it wash over my cheeks and dissolve away the mask of sorrow and regret that i have worn for far too long bring me a carpet of dried leaves let me hear it crunch under my feet and even when i walk down the silent concrete streets of murder and fear let its sound guide me home bring me an icy mountain let it rise in front of me in the fury of a storm to teach me how small my place is here when i climb the rickety ladder of pride and believe i am more than i am Copyright © Kennedy James, 2010. All rights reserved.

outside in

outside in outside the children are pirouettes of sunlight swirling in a ballet of imprecise leaps squealing in the slippery game of tag under the drizzle of a summer sprinkler and this spontaneous joy is just enough just enough to show that life unfolds all there is from the inside out outside she sits beside him on a park bench and unwraps the waxed paper from all their years together to offer him half a sandwich he needs no more and this shared moment is just enough just enough to show that life unfolds all there is from the inside out inside i hear you dreaming then waking alone and your girlish giggle chides me for being apart so far from your arms but when i return to you in the rumpled bed each whispered kiss is just enough just enough to show that love enfolds all there is from the outside in Copyright © Kennedy James, 2010. All rights reserved.

A Prairie Life

A Prairie Life Lucille Guðnason sat beside me in the back of Jimmy Walker's roadster as we whirled through the dips and curves of a prairie life. She squealed with excitement as she plucked the petals from a daisy and threw one after another out the side window. "She loves me," she shrieked with exaggerated pleasure in a falsetto voice. Then she would toss another petal out the window, and in her deepest voice, add, "She loves me not." I watched her with young, blue eyes, as if I were waiting for the verdict. She caught the depth of my gaze, and a dark veil fell like a shadow over her face. "Quit," she whispered to me in a soft reprimand. "We're going. I'm not talking about it anymore." I dropped my eyes and stared into to my lap. I felt small in her presence. Then, with a forced giggle, she threw her head back and bucked her hips upwards, as the car roared over a hill and soared into flight. When the front tires crashed to the swollen asphalt, Lucille lurched forward and moaned as her nose flattened against the back of the front seat. A trickle of blood found its way down her chin and smeared her white blouse. She pulled a knot of tissues from her bag and held it tightly against her nose, turning it over once or twice until the bleeding stopped. I tried to help her settle back into the seat, but she pushed me away. "Damn it to hell," she growled, "I'm fine. Just leave me alone." I wanted to turn away, turn away and look out across the fields of wheat that rippled in shades of harvest gold all the way to the horizon. I couldn't, and instead, I picked her daisy up from the floor and cradled it in my hands in front of her. There were only four or five petals remaining, and I tied to calculate the odds of Lucille's love for me, but she snatched it away and threw the flower into the bright sunlight. "I never loved you," she whispered, "and I never will." I looked away, then back into her eyes. "You're crying," I said softly. "Don't be sad." "I'm not," she hissed back to me. "I'm angry." "At me?" "Yes, at you, at me, at all of this." "It'll be all right, you know," I said without truly believing my words. "It's just a small thing, and then it will be done." "It's not a small thing. Small to you, maybe, but not small to me." "We decided," I began. "No," she groaned. "We didn't decide. You decided. You wanted this, not me." "There was no other way." "Not in your mind. Not in your selfish muddle of a mind. All you see is what's best for you." "That's not true," I said quietly. Lucille's eyes lit up in a rage. "It is true," she blurted. "The only one who matters is you. Can't you see? I'm not doing this for me. I'm doing this for you." I sat back and said nothing. We had reached the town line, and the roadster slowed as Jimmy turned down a side street and up a long hill. A white clapboard house loomed above us, and then in an instant, we had pulled into the gravel drive and stopped by a side door. Afterwards, Lucille sat on a stone bench, some distance from the house, near where an old tire was tied by a rotting green rope to an ancient oak tree. It swung and twisted, ever so slightly, in the evening breeze. Lucille was smoking cigarettes and watching the sun set, a bright yellow glow surrounded by eerie white clouds slowly turning grey. I watched her for a few minutes, considered calling to her, but didn't. Instead, I leaned against the car by Jimmy, kicked at the gravel, and wondered aloud, "How long you think she'll sit there? I gotta get back before dark." Copyright © Kennedy James, 2010. All rights reserved.

all the scars that you carry

all the scars that you carry from all the years of your life are tender again soft, painful lines across your body that you offer your lover and, yes, i guess you can feel the soothing warmth of his touch that seems to steal your loneliness and desperation away you stagger into romance with an undying hope that every new champion will be your last that this incarnation will be the final hero of honesty the man who steps from the sorrow of his own desperate life and brings you salvation in an unselfish commitment to all that is you i offer no excuses for being incomplete for failing to listen to your every wish and warning i simply could not offer any more than i did and so i accept my place in your history the target of your disappointment an ominous shadow that encumbers your life confirming, i suppose, what you feared most that love changes and passes and does not conquer time that despite all your dreaming or hopeful disregard i let you down unconditionally and sent you to another i wish i could be closer to you hold you in my arms and protect you from every hurricane of emotion but you have taken other shelter where you wait and pray that this uncertain storm of passion will somehow be transformed into a rainbow of promise that you have painted for all the world to see and now no matter what i say no matter what i do this new scar remains and i am only sad not for what is lost but for the simple fact that you may only remember the experience of our love and never have guessed its meaning Copyright © Kennedy James, 2009. All rights reserved.

avalanche ...

under the hurt the ice forms somewhere near the heart and the feelings that were once so fiery grow cold and sour it's the end of love again and still there's no sense to it no sense to the way falling in love seems so easy and wonderful while falling out of love takes on such a monstrous unravelling as the world breaks up into puzzle pieces around you and buries you in an avalanche of confusion and cold snow when the crest of love collapses it's never any one person's fault when two are willing to scale great heights over uncharted rocky crags and icy precipices they always risk the slip of faith and the crash of hope until too often the story they struggle to write gets lost in a sudden and endless descent its final chapters left to be the unwritten empty lines of what no one can ever know some say love is fleeting but that's not really so love binds us together for a lifetime in memory if nothing else and over time the beautiful moments burn up and out of the ice and the thought of the one who was once wrapped in the anger of loss is transfigured like a fractured beam of sunlight through a dangling crystal seeking a way from dark to day bringing with it a special sense of everlasting grace like the one you caught in a gasp the night you let me go Copyright © Kennedy James, 2009. All rights reserved.

waterfall ...

i am writing to you from the dark rooms of my helplessness where i sleep between dreams in the same beaten bed pushed up against the dull window where i lie in the twisted moonlight to watch my heartache bleed black like a river that runs off into the night only to return in the morning just before dawn i have danced naked in the midnight flames of desperate fires felt the heat of your betrayal wash over me like an apocalyptic storm but how was i to know you would prefer solitude to my soft kisses pooling into blue depths under the trickling waterfall of my passion the stars fall from the sky on nights like this and though i catch every one with my seared and ragged hands though i throw each bright jewel back into the night sky i cannot do what i thought i could i cannot write the failing and final chapter of a love lost i hear your voice in the cracks of dawn's light the whispers and sighs that stream across the pale sheets and i remember how you made shadow puppets on the opposite wall and said to me that life was like that just one blink of an eye and everything that was so real and full of wonder is gone not just for the moment but for forever Copyright © Kennedy James, 2009. All rights reserved.

i am the shoreline ...

i am the shoreline ... i am the shoreline the crags of rocks and piles of flotsam running past the harbour town where you live where on so many past Sundays you would wander into my world and dip your tiny feet in tidal pools while sea crabs scrambled on stilts from under your path i left you messages then love letters written in shell fragments and seaweed but you never caught on to the script that tumbled in the white wash and you would leave for church under a broad yellow hat that glowed like the sun you would never say much except for the one time when you turned to the sea and called out what sounded like my name but i guess i can't be sure your small voice seemed so vacant in the roar of the north-easterly winds and no one heard but me of course that was long ago just a month before you married Peter Adamson and had the twins Sophie and Michelle before the years and years passed by years when you stopped coming down to the shore and gave up watching the ebb and flow of algae and fry that slipped and skipped along the beach amidst the heart stones and bright spots of sea glass half buried in the sand and just as i had resigned myself to your permanent absence suddenly you have returned as unexpectedly as you left your red coat like a flare on a dull winter's morning your auburn hair now streaked with grey and tossed back over your shoulders your eyes bright as if you were looking for something you lost so many years before and i can't help but wonder if now you have remembered and have returned at long last looking for me Copyright © Kennedy James, 2010. All rights reserved.