Timeless

How do I turn this off?

Driving in the dark

With a lump in my throat… again

Your smile in my mind… again

Your face like coming home

To myself

To wholeness

To that parallel life I discarded

That haunts my heart.

Will I ever be home?

There’s always someone else…

There’s no one else

Only you

The one I seek urgently in sleep

In crowded buildings,

Pushing through throngs,

Scanning each face

For the precious one that brings me home,

Quickly, before it’s too late -

Before you’re gone

Without knowing I was there.

But I’m not there;

I’m here, in the wrong universe

Where walking hand in hand with you

Is my sweetest hopeless wish,

Here in my car, in the dark,

With a lumpy throat,

And I can’t turn it off.

Longing

Air thick, dense, palpable
You close, solid, real...
Starving, I gulp in breaths of you;
It's not enough.
I draw you to me, tight,
Press your radiating warmth hard against me;
It's not enough.

Then, releasing me from me,
I dissolve into you:
Moulding, melding, breath for breath
Absorbing, joining, cell for cell -
Love osmosis-
Until I am no longer me
But we...
And it's enough.

-Skye Nightingale 2009

The Pink Room

The pink room
dusky with nightfall
decorated with descending dreams,
smooth pink conch shells,
Mr & Mrs Mouse in fancy felt garb on the mantel

She lies, overshadowed by a giant
wardrobe of hated school clothes,
the Second Coming's callous delay,
the What Will Happen Now?

Quiet breaths on her pillow
limbs frozen; sleep feigned
heart thumping
waiting
still.

The bedside bends
weighed down with memories
of Silly Postman stories,
toss the cap, nonsense sing-song rhymes
and jump me up just ONE more time,
Please, please!

A hand on her back; it has begun.
reality slips in gliding retreat through misty meadows
to dance away across glistening blue oceans,
While she lies like seaweed
in the land where silly postmen
put their packages in your hand
and try to open your letterbox,
saying doesn't that feel nice? instead of
oh dear, silly me, I've lost my letters again
as they drive over bumps in the bedspread

RON!
The Voice of Reason from downstairs
sears through silly-postman-land
insistent and inexorable
dragging reality, unceremoniously jolting and spinning,
back to its rightful position in the universe

A quick goodnight kiss; the bed rights itself
She's left alone with
black wardrobe shadows,
no Second Coming,
and empty pink shells.


~ by Skye, July 2006

Gone Too Soon - A Poem For Gran

I guess you could say I'm handling it.

I still laugh, sometimes loudly,
Sometimes in a fit of giggles.

I still gaze up at the stars on clear nights
And marvel at the expansive universe.

I still snuggle with my kitties,
Adoring their silky coats and vibrating purrs.

I still eat my favorite chocolate, closing my eyes
So as to fully absorb the creamy sweetness.

But even so...

I still expect to find your letter in my mailbox,
The envelope covered in your near-illegible scrawl.

To see your closed hand resting on the breakfast table
As you eat your "scrumpy" cereal with banana slices.

To smell your Mushroom Roast and your Date Slices,
Your bathroom soap and your Yardley Roses spray.

To hear you saying, "I'm just going to have me tea,"
And, "Righty-o, then, Love."

And I can still see you in my mind's eye,
Waving from your driveway,
On tiptoe, arm raised high over your head,
As I drove away for ever.
And I know that you loved me.
And I know that, had you left me
In ten, twenty, or a hundred years' time,
You would still have been gone too soon.


-Skye Nightingale, 2006

Moving On

I see you, from behind my glass prison---
Real as you've ever been,
Standing, smiling, on the station platform,
But you don't see me;
Only a reflection on the train window
In the afternoon drizzle.

I try to absorb each detail,
To capture the solidity of the sight of you,
To retain the sweetness of your essence
In these final moments,
Knowing all the while my effort's futility,
Yet staging once again my frantic fight.

Please…
please let it be different this time…

The train lurches.
I reach for you, urgency tightening my chest.
In my vision, my hand transcends the window…
But reality is pain;
My hand hits glass,
Scattering the trickling raindrops on the pane
That are my tears.

Then, like an apparition,
You fade from my sight.
In desperation,
I reach with my soul and grasp you,
Clasp you to me
As you dissolve, immaterial, through my mind’s arms...

The train moves on,
Leaving everything behind.
Peace comes only in forgetting,
And all that stays is emptiness.


-Skye Nightingale, 2002