Versions of Solitaire The solitude we seek grows wild, between thorny words and amongst steep hills. It wears the promise of home on its sleeve and it never smiles. Loneliness is not as welcoming. It unfolds its claw where you would least expect it; you need not search for it. In warm and clean-smelling beds …
A Postcard for the City Dwellers
I was beginning to run out of interesting postcards to write on, so I decided to make a short trip into town and stock up! Now, I'd had my sights set for a while on several of those 100 postcards collections issued by Penguin, but especially on the one featuring gorgeous New Yorker covers. So …
A Postcard for the Coquettes
La Sorcière You can tell, of death or devils she has never thought much; the monstrous pregnancy of her coiffure defies the skinless crown. All claws and maggots, those half-men, but cloth and care, she, gold and perfume. It has been the zest of history to gossip about death and the maiden. But her womb …
Another Rushed Postcard
Anti-reflection In that shallow glass all my crude years reflected from twilight backwards: one age for putting up walls, one age for crumbling with them.
A Postcard for the Walkers
With due apologies for the bad quality photos. No access to a scanner today, I'm afraid. The Ramblers Blown starwards, heaving breath of life in our sails, thoughts unoccupied except by the certainty of youth - our expeditions always ended with a thirst for more. And in those days, the dust on the road was …
A Postcard for the Scholars
Hypnerotomachia Your wings shy away from me. They are eagle's wings, strengthened by the wind that shoulders them, their every feather sharp-edged, unloving. Your wings speak against the darkness of your eyes, the worry of your lips, the welcome of your arms. They will not have me. My wings, though not of me, yet borrow …
A Postcard for the Multilinguals
Just in time for National Poetry Day, I'm told. Japanese Poem hic, haec, hoc "what is it, teacher?" "a Japanese poem" はひふへほ "do not confuse は and ほ, ま is also similar" "and も too, sensei! we'll never get it right!" in broken syllables, we learned the spells "dative, ablative plural?" "his his his" "remember, …
A Postcard for All Things That Come in Threes
One for each dreamer. 🙂 "Eyes Shut" Haiku Lost in her slumber, she awaits no reckless prince to show her the way. * She cares not to look outside her frame in the tale, where the moral lies. * Her gaze falls beyond "happily ever after" - have you lost the thread?
A Postcard for the Gothic Lolitas
Belladonna The slight tremor at the corners of her lips plastered onto the wallpaper, the curve of her spine descending into the netherworld of my fears - but she, she was fearless, she moved with the earthlessness of dolls caught sleepwalking at midnight, in the sickened wake of children who get scolded for lying. She …
A Postcard to Old-fashioned Lovers
Today's poem is brought to you by "late nights in the library" and "way too many liquid excitants". 🙂 I suppose the effect I was going for was "translation of old love poem", but I'll leave it to you to tell me whether or not I managed to achieve it. (Also, apologies for the second …
Encyclopaedia Vanitatum 