I travelled a poem
Of parallels lines 
Tied together by sleepers and overgrown thicket
eyes panning the platform for abandoned
flattened pennies.
I recalled a sincere if sometimes mawkish girl from my childhood.
She had bore a hole through her copper circle
and wore it as her third place in the
coin crush Olympics.
Seeing it reminded me of lip plates and rings
worn by tribal women.
I traveled this poem
It began by crossing an un-blunted bridge
and cleaving my most tangled particulates.
I rationed them out to anything
that could carry them away from
my intended direction.
Solitary and nocturnal.
There are a pair of cats
Who meet here each night;
Each sitting opposite in direction
to the other
Never touching
One rung
then two
I think of how we poured ourselves
Into bed
Our intended direction, our bodies
clinging to the edge
with nothing to connect our drowsy space.
I traveled this poem
And these parallel lines
and could see
the thicket is now weary from being green
While the penny now weary from being copper.

I digressed

Knowing enough to wander

Knowing nothing

Watching my own fingers

Stretch to reach

Only the choicest

And simultaneously curl

to clench

so tightly I cut myself

little jagged lines

my palms were my book

my story un-pretty

poison berries.

I surrendered my name

Because I saw my power

Even my cycles were fierce

“Suck in the air

You are wild now”

Says my blood

I am goblin

Covered in hoar-frost

words by malai carrara 2013
photo credit to miika jarvinen

He flaunts

In curious delight

Standing water

Triggers the primal urge

to breach

ditches, culverts and duck ponds

The weather is perfect

Still, cool and dampish

The rank of moor mud

Is his own perfume

A silver coat palls not his scars and lumps

Inconsequential to his kind

Nigh an entirely white muzzle

with aflamed expression

as he ricochet into

an infinity of tall prairie

Tracking, searching,

A hound conquering

Mandibles clutching

the trophy remains

a small mammal

Pine cones

A slice of pizza

A used condom

Gratifying as it is unpleasant

Spoils as it is spoiled

always emerging victorious.

At one time ...

I wished it could be me

Sitting next to you

Tasting the sugar on pastry

still flakey from the oven

or walking on cobbled ambiguity

in tempo enough with gods

while sipping a wine

of living and loving sweetly

Tell me a tale 
He tells me what he wants me to hear
It is in the same voice
spelling the same words.
With my fingers
on wet glass I trace
hollows.
Our mouths are awkward
but for a moment
He was almost honest.

words © malai carrara

If you will help me watch for eye-glow

I will drive to the boardwalks

I didn’t mind the milkrun.

As long as the Pioneer was pounding Talk Dirty to Me

the broken centreline trail was rendered

Rhythmical

Passing the Viking meant we were nearly there.

To the lake we went, every weekend.

July gave us only seven hours of dark

At 5:30, as the stars fell away and the clouds of reverie pass

red eyed vireos broke into song.

There were some things you just didn’t learn in the city

Like when it was safe to cross a frozen lake or river

when eddies kept the ice thin.

That the eyes of moose never reflected light

that black flies are a scourge to wild horses

that there were wild horses.

I learned to make a bonfire with enough smoke to keep skeeters away.

This is where my first love taught me to ride a dirt bike

And where I learned to crash

Safely.

Sandy Hook is the panacea to timeclocks  

Time takes a seat in a hammok

wearing a bikini top and gripping an icy beverage

and the only home invader is the racoon plundering through the shed.

I saw a young girl with fish flies in her hair

She speaks to fairies I thought

The magpie flew away with my chips

It’s always time for a swim.

malai carrara © 2013

Inspired by a poem by Zwicky I read tonight.

Let’s suppose the story started along a deep purple vein
which has been tied off.
And the impassable transition creates a hollow.
which soon fills with people
who each make different sounds and
who still sound the same.

Their noise leads you to the centre of a neutral room
where a new jacquard linen coats a table
which was dappled in carbon sketches
dog eared books and cashews only a few hours earlier.

You sway your body into a pace
of wisp-ers and sham-wisdoms
while the sun desperately
tries to shine into your unsettling.

You wonder why your arms don’t work
and tell yourself (and others) it is because your
new workout was gruelling.
It is more likely because all
effort went into baking sweets
and disinfecting the walls
for houseguests you don’t really like.

This pattern of talking for the sake of talking
repeats itself until you eventually listen.
what is it that you have to say?

words © malai 2013
photography copyright © Nausher Banaji
all rights retained by photographer. www.Nausher.com