#liminal poetry

[mil-liminal]

I dreamed about you last night. You were laughing about something, head thrown back, straight nose, crooked teeth, the bruise on your sharp cheekbone faded to a greenish shadow, freckles catching the sunlight like a galaxy imprinted on your skin. the sunlight caught strands of your hair in blinding red, a halo of fire. there was no sound. I couldn't remember what your laugh sounded like anymore.

Hey listener, its me, midnight gas station employee here once again with my dark trees, endless road, and neon lights. the seconds tick by audibly on the analogue clock behind the register, they seem slow, like there's hours between them somehow. its witching hour and i'm haunted by memories and by real ghosts.

i think i've forgotten what my laugh sounds like too.

[trash-sidhe]

I took the pic last year on a trip back home

I forgot the t at the end of betwixt

[lost-ash-es]

reach the sunshine.

lost in the breeze

cascading through the seas

i fall into it again

don't know when it'll end

he picks me up and we go

down to the beautiful show

we take our seats as it begins

this heavenly show of lovely sin

and i try to say that it's not real

but he says that we made a deal

so i give him one sweet kiss

as i watch the show of utter bliss

he promises me it's alright

that there's no need to fight

so i relax into my cushioned seat

and i taste his kiss, it's so sweet

the show goes on and on

it continues until dawn

but he says "wait there's more"

and he pulls me through a little door

i follow him into this other world

with lights and dancers in a twirl

he says he hopes i feel at peace

and i assure him i feel at ease

but this world isn't like the show before

there's something different, there's something more

i try to leave but he takes my hand

he says "why do you go? isn't this grand?"

i say "it's nice but not as pretty

down here in this little city"

he says "well it is just a dream you know"

and i wake up in my bed and think "wow what a show"

-ash

[666att]

some people are born with tragedy in their blood..

[softytothecore]

[ratbits]

Two Poems About Sunsets

Two great poets use the liminal language of twilight to express transition, longing, passion, memory, and grief. Sunset Photo by Rose White//@AnkhRising8 Twilight is a time of transitions; no longer daytime, not quite night. Everyday objects go soft around the edges, taking on a mythic, magic edge as shadows lengthen, deepen. Songbirds seem to hold their breath, waiting for the first night…

[incognito-melancholia]

[and-corn]

[thoughtsafterdark]

Hospitals and Airports are the closest modernity can come to reaching the Divine

Have you noticed how some places seem immune to time and social conventions. Like airports, those monoliths of now. Harsh lights burning and souls criss-crossing, tongues melting together into a writhing throng of humanity, a steaming cesspit of consciousness. Steeped in camaraderie yet drenched in isolation. The electric blue arrivals sign glares with neon brightness at 3am, a beacon that signals the end of the road.

Here comes a family of 4 on their way home, crossing through automatic doors into the balmy drizzle of a British night, carrying their loot of straw hats and cheap pendants, tan lines and peeling red lobster skin. A girl no older than 5 limps after her parents and older brother. She lugs her bright pink unicorn behind her and hugs the hood of lilac pyjamas close, rubs the sleep out of her eyes whilst her mother shouts at her to hurry. Soon she’ll tuck herself into bed, in the attic of their ordinary red brick London row house, and she’ll watch the sun peak over the trees in the back garden for the first time in her life. It will become a core memory she will think fondly back on for years to come.

By the first class lounge they hurried past, a man in an impeccable suit (Sheep’s wool, the finest money can buy. The grey colour of the Thames on an early morning) paces back and forth restlessly, briefcase in hand, phone in another. Gold amber eyes like a hawk, close cropped black hair and neatly trimmed beard, square pocket matching the deep tan of his shoes (authentic leather). He is barking orders to someone in Arabic, closing deals, building empires. A bloodied napkin he used to stop a nosebleed earlier falls out of his pocket and winks up at the scaffolding exposed ceiling, high and arching like the dome of a cathedral. He’ll make the sale, then visit the airport bathroom again before hailing a cab to the closest 5 star. In the morning, the maid who took the job to send money to her ailing mother in the Philippines will find his cold stiff body and scream. She’ll call the police and be taken in for questioning. She never signed up for this.

At the hospital coffee shop – two streets and half a lifetime away - a 4th year med students sips on a cortado like her life depends on it. Caffeine surges through her veins, bracing her for the day ahead. Unbelievable how exhausting trying to take up as little space as possible can be. She hates the spiel, it’s the same every time. A new dawn, a new face, a new team. The introductions, the smiling, the grovelling, the headache. She’s 5ft flat with bright orange hair, aspirations for Neurosurgery and a bright pink notebook, so why would they take her seriously.

It’s 8:30, and she’s scheduled for 9am clinic, so she has time for a hurried breakfast today. (Eating any earlier makes her gag). Small mercies. The off-red stained scrubs she nicked from the theatre changing rooms cling to her like a second skin preparing to moult. She squirms in them, the comfort undeniable. They make her feel like she belongs. They make her feel like an imposter.

Her table – she comes here so often; she thinks of it as hers - sits right by large windows overlooking the main entrance and staircase. She sees it all from here, her quiet unassuming throne. The doctors and nurses, physios and pharmacists. Rushing rushing, running, stressing. Wishing, hoping, waiting, waiting, waiting. For the shift to end, for the time for bed. For this rotation to change, for the exam to pass. We’ll go on that holiday next month, next year. When money isn’t tight, when things are more settled.  Before they know it they’ve wished their lives away.

Their patients understand, all too well and all too late. The same father with the IV drip and the metal stand comes down here every morning to see his daughters. They run up to him, he holds them close and beams. But his grip is getting weaker, smile is getting thinner. He doesn’t answer when they ask when he’s coming home. It’s funny what we can’t hear when we’re too busy wearing stethoscopes. Next month she (I) will be stationed on the Psych ward. We’ll have to do it all again, but maybe they’ll hear me this time. Maybe it’ll get easier.

Between them all and among them, if you squint and unfocus your eyes during one of those ungodly hours at the Starbacks across from Boots and WHSmith, leaning against a grey white pillar you might see him.

He is the spectre that haunts airport lounges and waiting rooms alike, the handsome stranger with the black snapback and the beats headphones and the khaki shorts. The one who lives out of a rucksack and wears a travel pillow like a crown. With the kind eyes and crows feet, and honey chestnut curls. He is that boy from your high school everyone liked, with a kind word for everyone; the one with a charmers smile and the charisma to bullshit his way through anything. The one who – when pressed for future plans, would laugh and shake his head, looking down bashfully. “I just want to travel for now, see where it takes me. I want to see the world”, he’d say, eyes twinkling with the possibilities. On someone else, the words would likely merit a telling off, they’d be seen as the paper thin excuse to fuck around and get high. But he seemed so genuine, and his teeth were such a dazzling shade of brilliant white when he smiled, even the strictest careers advisers couldn’t resist.

He lives in those moments, the liminal fabric between worlds that’s so hard to put your finger on. Blink and you’ll miss him in the old alleys of Rome, the spark of his cigarette lighter blending amongst the city lights.

You’ll find him among the most remote hiking trails of the Peloponnese, laughing with local shepherds and German tourists alike, sitting on jutting rocky cliffs and admiring the blue Mediterranean below. If you really pay attention, you’ll see his staff isn’t like the others. Something suspiciously like a pair of snake slithers up and down. You could swear you heard them whispering just now, but when you look again it’s just a wooden stick.

He is the patron of us wanderers and travellers, those of us with movement in our blood and restlessness in our hearts. The ones who beget the will of changing winds and shifting tides. The ones who can’t allow themselves to sit still, lest the dust settle and the coffee get cold. The mortifying ordeal of being seen and known. Or the ones that carry a hearth with them, in the bottom of a suitcase, in the heart of a trailer. The ones who move and weave through the Earth not because they are running but because they are coming home. He dances and jokes with the kids amongst campfires, always welcome, always a pleasure. And if he helps them pick the odd lock, swearing solemnly to secrecy, who are we to judge.

His bronze skin smells of cinnamon and nutmeg, vanilla and cedar and a thousand other spices. He reeks of incense and market stalls, moles and freckles tell the story of trading routes and old silk roads, of cotton shawls from Alexandria and silk from Pekking. His fingers and eyes twinkle with the good-natured mischief of petty thieves and sleight-of-hand magicians, tricksters and circus performers. He picks apples from behind ears, presents jewel necklaces to his lovers.

She sees him now, amongst the patients. He helps an old lady up the steps, pulls a balloon out of his back pocket to the delight of a sick child. She locks eyes with him and they nod at one another She has been seen now, and known. Perhaps she’ll find him again one day, if either stop running.

[lostdeviantartcollages]

my heart ... my head

[s0larize]

[lavenderington]

005

Go listen to my new project 003 on all platforms

[yourbelgianthings]

travis mcelroy on mbmbam episode 109 / nighthawks by edward hopper / the view between villages by noah kahan / image from gregory crewdson’s beneath the roses series / the nostalgic feeling poem by atish home chowdhury / reflections of the past by shirley israel / hiraeth

[ppunisherr]

Census Designated (2023) - Jane Remover, Dir. Quadeca

[riverofinkofficial]

There are cages without doors. There are fences cutting endlessly into the sky with no dirt to dig underneath it.. There are trees without leaves in forests I have never seen! In the deepest oceans I am eaten by beasts with thousands of teeth and bears fish me out of water. I fly with Icarus and he falls and I remain. I fly with dragons and they burn me and I remain. I walk on coals and through swarms of hornets. And I remain. There are homes with no windows. There are hollow families and one of them walks through a glass door; I am full of shards between the spaces of my plastic vessel.

Now there is one place where no one can touch. Except for two. The one who remains and she who walks in the glass toward me. There Is only a window that I crawl through to run away from myself because I fear the death of something beyond me which has morphed into a form of myself and made a home inside my clasped hands.

Those are the hands that play the keys of a piano that may never reach anyone at all. One which the puppet master casts into shadows because what is played is honest and not bound by their strict lines. There are no right notes to play but those which are ugly and raw.

So I resort to rash verses, not always with grace and all a bit impulsive. I resort to myths and metaphors to define a reality which I only pretend to know. A reality which is fluid and changes with universes vast and eager to sneak up behind you. I resort to dreams of other places with myself and the Glasswalker. I dream of reality where I am a warrior against beasts which are, in actuality, shards of myself. And I relax when words tangle and jumble out of sense. I am joyfully embraced in the glass bitten hands that I hold gingerly and kiss. I feel best in places that change and move. 

These hands play silent violins in woken dreams watching some other dimension do the same and break into sound. These pink lips scream out in raw energy the songs of others which so delicately find words when mine are too messy to grasp. My best is the things that I feel even when it doesn’t make sense and becomes redundant but then again, some things should be said and repeated and said all over again for our own attention let alone someone else’s. That's the trick, right? To find something that makes you feel in the awkward stimulated version of life.

But we stay in caves with no light to follow. We leave our tracks for beasts to come tear us away. We wear a face without eyes and call it realistic. We find anyway to run away into other dimensions and pretend to be enjoying our own. Why? Why do you cover your already closed eyes? Don’t you know what’s out there? 

We chose to die. We didn’t have to.

[softytothecore]