Happy Birthday To Me

I open the old photo albums
expecting to see
the grotesque mirages
of myself
that I have become accustomed to
imagining

staring out at me
from every frame

but the girl
blowing out last century's
birthday candles
is today
not burdened
by those habitually fabricated
kilos,
imperfections,
monsters

these are not images
made blurry
by adolescent self hating insecurity

but crisp, clear
outlines of a girl

a pretty, pouting, posing girl

with poor posture
and badly fitting clothes

waiting for someone to tell her
she was thin enough
she was good enough

when she should have been able
to look in the mirror and see it
for herself.













can you count the candles on the cake? I can't. I think I'm 15 or 16 here. photographer unknown.

Home.

The TV in the corner
is older than I am

and the dusty cane chairs in the yard
aren't sat on by anyone
except the neighborhood cats
who fight over this
unoccupied territory.

a siren in the distance
sets off the dingoes
and the doctor moves through the trees
dancing with the hibiscus flowers
that hang lazily over the back fence.

It's hot
inside, and out
and the air is thick with lethargy,
there's nothing to do, anyway
except take in the sounds of my childhood
and breathe in the smells of
home.

The Balancing Act

I'm sleeping
precariously,

bed
stacked
on top
of
bed,

which has the sweet whiff of
fairytale about it,
don't you think?

In actual fact
it smells much worse

(on account of the shoes
piled up underneath?
Or the lurking odours
that couldn't be sucked up
even if I could be bothered
breaking out the vacuum cleaner?)

I should throw them away,
these pieces of a
past life
the wooden slats
that supported
someone else's dreams,

or give them away
for another to assemble,
lie on top of

I should do so much
with these hidden things

instead of piling them high
one on top of the other
out of sight beneath me
leaving me
teetering

a sleeping
circus act,
balancing
preposterously

night after night

bed
stacked
on top
of
bed

in danger of waking violently
and falling
down,
down,
down.

Memories Of Leonard Cohen

I ask her how it was
seeing the man
whose voice narrates
the silent post coital scenes
in that old film of memories
I play
from time to time

And she unfolds
the magic of the evening
as if taking something precious
from delicate wrapping
placing it
gently
in front of me

I am as fine boned
as this fragile memory
any swift movement
or cutting phrase
could crush me
as I want her words
put pull warily away
from each exquisite detail.

I remember.

We were ugly,
but we had his music.

Time after time
he would arrive
with honest words,
whilst we would lie
naked
our heavy breathing
accompaniment
to every track.

Now,
no less ugly
but more polished
I'm here on the shelf
with my dusty memories

I still have the music
but without them,
the lovers of my past,

it doesn't sound the same
anymore.

when I shared this with her, she shared this with me, so I'm sharing it with you. we all have our Leonard Cohen memories, sung, in stanzas or unspoken. The one below is Emmy the Great's. It's pretty great.




p.s if you don't have a Leonard Cohen memory, go out and get one.