My Changing Life

Yamaha Compact Compo City Core (1983)

And I met Vengeance on my path to nirvana.

She rested blindfolded between bone dry conifers.

Dried foliage like fire bricks cementing her spine .

Pines like thorns tearing through her charred abdomen.

She told me, there were some fires that burnt forever.

Burns that ran so deep that pain ceased to exist.

There were some of us that chased peace.

There were some of us that chased numbness.

I asked her which she chased.

I showed up with an armful of potted plant for you and our friends to care for – A housewarming gift! Perhaps I should’ve brought a bottle of Bordeaux, instead. Perhaps I shouldn’t have come.

But I couldn’t help wondering what your new life looked like.

If only to inform future dreams.

The beads of light 

Which sheperd the hopeful

From the velvet night. 

Dew from a spring morning

Quenching a tree's leaf.

Hearts in song or in throes

No matter where the world goes

Anchor remains beacon

Words escape my grip

Attempts to render justice

Like a painter with a canvas

That is simply too blank,

For your beauty is beyond

Vocabulary.

© Vincent Poirier

she needs a knight

in shining armour

real life says

she he needs a hero

I think of you at night, and when hearses drive by Their trembling vibrato cracking over the uneven pavement Like the wavering voice of a gloomy love song I see you in those mournful processions People marching with memories round their necks A hanging noose dragging like an unheld leash Oh I think of you Your absence filling my head Like the lungs of the drowned fill with water

Don’t tell me I’m too young to get it Like the words I’m speaking are just braids of sounds Devoid of meaning Of course, they’ll never be enough to make you stay Nothing I could try would keep the feeling from going sour The loss from setting in But even if you walk, it’s not over Listen, won’t you It’s not over till I say it is And my mouth is stitched closed As in those grinding dreams where I lose all my teeth I can’t say I won’t say I choke on these same words It’s not over

Oh love, oh lover It was good once, it was pure Till I asked for too much Till I went and ruined it all with my monstrous hunger You’re right that I’m too young Just a kid who demands and takes but never gives Only pitiful tokens Noodle necklaces and cardboard flowers Finger paintings, where my touch still clings to your skin My heart on a platter Those poor childish offerings

I’m orphaned without you Orphaned and unhinged But even if you’re gone, it’s not over Listen, I beg of you It’s not over even as I’m on my knees Even as I’m half a person Small enough to fit in your shadow Perhaps you’re right Perhaps I’m too young I could cry and embrace your legs Cry like children do, When they still believe that tears Can turn on the light and make people come back

But perhaps I’m too old Perhaps I’m too tired And I can no longer rest my head on you In the curve of your shoulder Oh love, you should have come over

I dove into that smile

tender violence,personified,

beyond all belief

Her heart I held...awhile

In times long since passed

the corner of her sunshine grin

where all we knew lived and died

Love did spring anew

and hold us safe

they’ve found water on the moon, glistening from her shadowy pools.

they’ve found her floating, dewy in the nightsky.

her fingers of icicles where the sun never-once touched her.

her siren call, crying softly into the void for us.

statuesque her silhouette - of poetry, tears and moondust.

Matins

In the ghost world the

ghost girl dances her

ghost whirls enlacing me in

veils so seductive I

sometimes pray the

dawn won’t come.

Lauds

But dawn does come with the

prayer my feet will

find the floor and that the

floor will bear my weight so I

will not start the day

flat on my face.

Prime

If there is a God it is coffee-coloured,

coffee-flavoured, dark-roasted,

perking like heavy breathing, its

consort sizzling in the pan, the

toaster popping its prize with a

sigh like a prayer.

Tierce

In the mad rush of the studio I

see something, take my chance,

get the set rebuilt and

knowing it will take time

slip out to light my

prayer to creativity.

Sext

Shall I make this poem a pun on Sex? But

lunch is when I have a moment to

lust over those who, at work,

I respect, would never dishonour, but

at quiet times imagine

undressed, themselves lustful.

None

Mid-afternoon is a sigh—no, a

yawn into the vast face of the work we’ve

chiselled all day into something we

pray is vaguely human, vaguely

real, vaguely worth all that

spent time to achieve.

Vespers

Outside the lamps are lit just as we

switch ours off and head away home

praying all is well with those

work has cut us off from, lit

phone-screens in the car-park evidence of

love, concern and care.

Compline

Fed and watered—ok, wined!—I

wend my way to my hotel, call home,

check the news, reply to emails,

clean myself, resign myself to bed

praying the ghost girl will still be