Written in the Wake of Calamity 3/4/10

Walking in slow motion
Moving through icy tunnels
Silent and spooked
without you, without
You
Who am I and what
do I do?
How do you explain
one half of a whole
but empty like nothing?


When the moon is shining
through the window
when the dawn is creeping
to my lids of glass
How can I roll over
and make you be here
smiling at me
comfortably
like a love letter?


When both of us
are stunned to silence
and pain is written
on the backs of our hands
to remind us
to warn Do Not Return
But our hearts return
we regress so easily
to simple forgiveness
that costs everything

(c) 2010 Tasha Chinnock

Keeping Awake

It seems a shame to sleep;
to waste all this lovely silence.
Hours and hours I have
all to myself,
while the blessings
and burdens of daylight
are tucked sweetly away
and the naked night,
Precious and peculiar,
stretches out like a sea of onyx.

It is not insomnia
but stubborn indulgence
that keeps my lamp ablaze.
I will have this time,
Though my eyes burn
and my shoulders ache.
By rights it is mine
And it will serve me
And I will use it up,
Filling it with silence of my own.

Hush, pillow, I'll get to you
when I'm ready.
Leave off, dreaming, wait your turn.
The quiet isn't finished yet.

(C) 2010 Tasha Chinnock

Lessen

Make me less of a woman

Less soft and more firm

Not so smothered in feeling

A rock undisturbed.

Free me from being a woman

Slave to moon and tide

Undo mood and desire

And all their lies.

Make me less female, girly

Needing a man’s caress

Thriving on word and gesture

Make me less.

Call me andric, ascetic

Eusocial as an arthropod

Wanting no affection

Pure as a god.

Take away curves and cravings

And love songs played in my head

Stop up my teary eyes

To be stoic instead.

Make me less of a woman

I hate to care so much

To want his arms to hold me

And feel his touch.

Make me less of a woman

And if you can’t then please

Give me someone man enough

For all my needs.

(c) 2010 Tasha Chinnock

Phantom

He is here
stalking around like a dark ghost
haunting my house
hovering my heart
I am bedeviled by his nondescript nearness.
I can just make him out
but there's no denying he's here.

In times past
a priest would come and rattle off prayers
as the dead rattle their bones
and exorcise the specters
that tormented women like me
Or some gaudy, draped clairvoyant
would roll back her eyes and try
to communicate with him.

Ha. Communicate
This ghost will have none of that
he is merely here, possessing
not at rest, but wanting nothing more
just to keep being here forever
appearing and dissipating
howling then surly
Driving off the living.

He walks by with a chill
his voice - an eerie sound
his touch - lifeless
his eyes - hollow.
We are spooked by his empty presence.