If I Were A Girl

I am the darkness to her light
She is the passion to my plight
She is my wind, she is my rain
I am her drought and her disdain

I am her doubt and mortal sin
She is the holy light within
She is an air, a halo bright
I am her plague and curse and blight

I am the anger to her joy
She is the female to my boy
She is perfume and she is soap
I am her cause of dying hope

I am the awesome contradict
She is the truth, she is perfect
She is the answer and the name
I am her spot, her stench, her stain

I am the vacuum to her breath
She is animating death
She is animal and woman
I am nothing, I am a man

November 2009 Derek Wilson

Avalokiteśvara

All these things in my hands
Look at all these things in my hands
I am seated, contemplated
With my many, many things
But then what matter are these things
And what matters but this moment?
So shall I part my fingers and turn my palms
And all these things shall slip and fall to the earth and shatter
And what do they matter?
They are but memories
Dust now scattered
Would I cry for their worthless fragments?
Should my eyes shed precious tears
For their broken bits now swept away?

But what if you then give yourself to me
And I want to receive you in these empty hands
And feel the sensation of your touch rippling
Through five thousand finger tips?
If I could take you, could I keep you in my hands
Making sure you don’t shatter
Or would they turn again and would you too slip though?
Would I break you?

And look, so many eyes
My many, many eyes
Would even one of them even cry?

November 2009 Derek Wilson

Medicate

Making frames that have no contents
Framing claims without a context
Replacing reason with reflex
Substitute sub-standard subtext

Or

Faking fame that has no pretense
Making claims without a pretext
Substitute reason for reflex
Submitting/Sustaining sub-standard subtext

Taking aim without a target
Taming flames with (gilded argent)
Transforming into pathogen
(Tresspassing, a secret agent)

(Replacing the words in brackets)

No

Splintering fragments
Absorbed, distracted
Making fake names
For the glittering facets

October 2009 Derek Wilson

Sunset Into SFO

Bittersweet life lived
Tantalising tapestry
Wanders down
Corrupted streets
Under sweat-breaking sun
Through sweep-scorching
Wind tunnels

He askes for change
Scratches sores on his face
Sounding like that actor
From that movie
On that flight

What to give
But trinkets
Broken particles
Sub-fractions
Of hours of toil?
Toil? “Toil”.
But a smile?
Smile back
Leave instructions
“Have a good night”
And
“Take care”

“God bless you, man”
He brays
Sounding like that actor
From that movie
On that flight

July 2009 Derek Wilson

Sunset Into CLT

She will dance a drunken bit
You will folie, take a sit
She will tell for you her name
You will laugh quite much at it
You will laugh and say the same
You will say, but more tacit
She will speak but more a whit
She will leave you as you came
She will pirouette, exit

You will feel like a Ma/onet
In a slightly crooked frame

July 2009 Derek Wilson

Crystal by Delboy by Nathan

A friend of mine on the other side of the world turned my poem into a song. It reminds me of many things from my life, but of most interest is that it eerily sounds like something that “she”, from the poem, would have liked to hear, and she would have been particularly impressed by the process that formed it. Unfortunately, she did swim away a while ago, but the fact that I reckon she’d like it, I think means that when we depart, we leave a bit behind. I feel a sense of peace that she is remembered and in some way has contributed to an artistic collaboration.

You can hear the song here at:

House On Red Corner

Crystal

She stood on the sand
On the edge of a great ocean
And wondered, if she floated or swam
Would it carry her away
And find for her a place she could believe in
And breathe in, a sacred land?
As her tears hit the grains pulverised
That hold the memory of billions of lives
And silently make no judgement
Content to let us pass by
A fleeting blink in their gritty eye

2005 Derek Wilson

Rattle

As I go to sleep tonight
My thoughts dance wild
And I rattle off cliché
Sleep on it
Sleep on it
But my brain
Likes the rattle dance
So I tell myself
Dream on it
Dream on it
And it almost works
I will toss and turn
But I have to say
Do dream, though
Dream it big
Dream on big

May 2009 Derek Wilson

This Day To Die

It would seem to be
A most ludicrous thing
To die in spring
To die while singing
The theme to a
Romantic comedy film
As your hand is pressed
Firmly close to her breast
And her strong musky scent
Rides the heat of her fume
To jam up each lung
And explode the space
Between her beauty
And you

May 2009 Derek Wilson

I Fell Down

Hiding my head in the sand
Slamming my fist into the palm of my hand
Bouncing off walls and floors
Opening windows and slamming doors
Running, yelling all the night long
Pulling in noise, calling it song
Fallen from heaven to earth
Suspended between my death and my birth

2004 Derek Wilson