the neck as the hair is held back,
tell all with the step
of the body forward
in the circle of your space
wordlessly offered up.
but my movements are of silence,
though my thoughts are
quick piano hammers
that have rhythms for your presence,
letting the air weigh what you have said
for what it is made of,
and a new weight that i carry
of what my body tells me
but does not tell you.

full silence
it cannot be
quite so sweet
as it seems to me
when you hold my face in your hands
and look
and kiss,
place your thin arms
right around me
from behind
and tap against my stomach
the time of the music playing.
and just when
everything melts
upon your beautiful face
and i feel i will rip apart
if i do not press
the word love
against your cheek,
that is when you take my hand
to your lips
and remind me
of the full silence.

erased
i said something about your eyes
but it was not enough.
some beauty, some explosive,
your face gives and your eyes give more.
you, you in the dark or the light
in my arms or far.
the unrhyming different
sound that you are,
and when you are studious
at something else, and turned,
somehow you still give
and the stoop of your back
and the curl of your hair
and all that i would make mine
but for a word from you;
you do not mean to suggest adjectives
with your yes,
you do not mean this heat in my
shoulder blades.
you mean for me to wait,
and quietly,
as the beautiful line of your body
before a blank wall
makes that wall glow
and makes my ache
a gentle fixture right here
glad with the thought of it
being erased or not erased.

ashes
your doorway
and light through open windows
wordless music
a soft floor
and the back of your hair,
the side of your face,
a rain of letters at your hands
and i feel you before i feel the arms,
letting go of packages
and it is the subtlety of stopping time
shutting off everything else
no one else, nowhere else
if you let me touch you
and lay words all over the bed.
and this feeling is warm and always
but beside you it flickers higher
leaving white ashes on our sleeping faces
and sunlight in the window.

bright fish
the sweetness of the only sip
you can’t remember
the one your mind and mouth
let go of
tell me that you don’t mind
that you can only reach for
the low branches.
which loves
are the long sighs
as you lie listless
and obvious,
and which are the bright fish
that you fight for
and never catch.
you remind me that everything moves
always
like i hope
that while my body seems the same
forever,
and my thoughts,
they are whirring
secretly
beyond me.

Poèmes publiés par Anna-Lynne le 23 septembre 2009 sur son blog Parrotwood.

red
tall leaves in the morning
don't leave, it's not morning
and after all
a sailor absolves you
don't leave in the morning
kissed cheek, it's not morning
don't leave in the morning
paper doll
matchbox and all
and after all is done...
a sailor absolves you.

catch not break
once in the while
i'd like to catch, not break, what i hold
and once when you're close
i'd like to speak my beautiful thoughts
and then i can melt like i will.
when i took my kiss somewhere else
i broke -i know-
the natural order of things
and i know it doesn't go.

i could go back
did i just think it, no
did i just write it down
when did i lean in close enough
i'd be invisible
it'd be comfortable
if i'd still see and hear you.
i could go back to my old way
i could go back to the doorway
i see when the lights
and the air would touch
what for me
i think
would be too much.
did i just think it or
did i try saying more
did i put messages in my eyes
like bottles.
crawling back to my old way
i could go back to the doorway
the light hurts my eyes
and i get spent so
one day you'll say
"why didn't you say no."

face shape
it's the shape of your face
not the words you choose
i think that i cried
but i lied to you
said i need you right here
to see what i love
but when you disappear
it's still sharp enough.
lover, you know what i thought we'd be
the truth doesn't stop me at all
at all.
when my eyes turned all watery blue
it wasn't the moment we'd stepped into
my heart is a fixed as the walls around
this up is up always
never comes down.
lover, you know what i thought we'd be
lover, you know what i thought we'd be
the truth doesn't stop me at all
at all.

cattleya
this drink doesn't make me sleep
didn't think it would
the numbers on the clock are green
the rest of this is mud
we let off the heavy chains
but i'm not free
til you say this life is worse without me
you must say the right thing some time.
and you know that i'll wait up
as if though for my true love
and you know that i'll wait up.
one for getting through the dark
the hours that it stays
never saw the box before
our shoulders filled the space
we let off the heavy chains
but i'm not free
til you say this life is worse without me
you must say the right thing some time.
and you know that i'll wait up
as if though for my true love
and you know that i'll wait up
did your heart get cold right away.

before you are
lover, never tire of me
my hands, my eyes, my worrying
looking at you you're all that i need
if i could be that for you
you know i'd be.
i believe in something sweet
in spite of things you've told me
planted all the seeds i had
underneath a tree
turned all the sad songs right off
just as i heard them start
youre like the night
i feared it before i loved it, love.
we flinch like this
when touches are soft
too light, don't lie
you know they are
if you want constant and ready for war
i will be ready for it
before you are.
i've forgotten before you
in spite of things you've told me
i planted all the seeds i had
underneath a tree
blanketed before it did get dark
when the shadows were small
you're like the night
i feared it before i loved it, love
you're like the night i feared.

lula boat
what about the hours i spent
devising the tales i told
my fiction just to balance our
the way that your arms can pull.
if my love was a sailor
he'd use his boat for ill
to sail beyond the reach
of the one who loves him still.
what of the control it takes
to hold it behind my eyes
to stop the rushing water
when the river's too weak to try.
if my love was a sailor
he'd use his boat for ill
to sail beyond the reach
of the one who loves him still.

fainted twice
fainted twice
once like butterflies
and once like the ice.

the moon is high
i have your name written
under my palm
touches everything i touch
(i’m tired...)
i have your hand
watching over my skin
and when i’m asleep...
i’m over what you’re not in
it’s so old.
the sun is bright
but i’m inside
the moon is high
but i’m inside.
i have your name written
under my palm
touches everything i touch
i have your ink
pulsing under my skin
and into the night...

the same quiet
it’s the shape of your face
not the words you choose
i think that i cried
but i lied to you
said “i need you right here
to see what i love”
but when you disappear
it’s still sharp enough.
sand you do not stand in
in your right mind
face out to the rain
wait for bright lights
eyes closed but your hands out
and spun round
it all ends with the same quiet
and comedown.
when my eyes turned all watery blue
it wasn’t the moment
we’d stepped into
my heart is as fixed as the walls around
this up is up always
never comes down.
sand you do not stand in
in your right mind
face out to the rain
wait for bright lights
eyes closed but your hands out
and spun round
it all ends with the same quiet
and flight down.

bee
gentleness
is not how i have loved a thing
i’m sharp and sure.
if you need someone
who’s able to stand in ruins
saying “it’s all right”
someone you’ll never get cut on...
i am more like a knife.
it’s not my fault
i want to light it brighter
than the others might.
if you want love you can feel
you know it’s going to ache some times
anything else isn’t worth
living days
sleeping nights.

bring you
oh i waited
but time did not bring you to me
when you know what the piece is that you need...
what i spoke
was just words i wrote down first
was i careful
or did i just show you my worst
i’ve done that before.

sweetheart
you're so blank
like something that's never been
you're not showing
the ghost of anything
but if you'd not been mine
then how would i know
when you go to sleep
you bite down so your teeth make sounds
as you start to dream
and the names we give each other
just don't last
but the one who loves the most
gets to keep the past
right here

fill the nights with water
or something promising to fill
never mind the waiting
beautiful something bewitch will
shows how strong you are
when i'm trying and you're not
on you doesn't show
i would fall for that face again after all
stop telling my heart...
just stop tugging my heart

thousand
it's not supposed to feel right
and broken at the same time
a thousand lights that dance
out of my heart to you each time
what do you have to ask me
maybe then you don't feel
the thousand pins and needles
that i feel near you each time
it's just my mouth
it's just a word
and what is that
how does it hurt
how does it hurt
i'm not supposed to need what
i've never had to know it
a thousand thoughts that crawl
out of the dark to lie with me
i'm not supposed to say it
the way my head replays it
a thousand words and none of them
that i can say out loud
but out loud is how i feels
is what you hide
just as real
just as real

for you i'll play along
it's common as waking up
we'll blow it away
i'll give it up quietly
it's nothing
it's nothing yet it's all right

and we lean in
what if the sound of my voice
is the sound of your lover's voice
what if the back of my hand
feels so familiar we don't stop
don't stop... don't
and we lean in
how did you do that
it's strange how light catches on things
like there is nothing else
or say it's in my eyes
or it's my heart
well i can close them all
i won't look for the signs love
i won't look

my hands up
turning into something i can't cope
with not having
stop, stop it
could i put my hands up
and ask that you stop
do i need to be in love
i'm lost when it's just me
with only a hope to make
you happy enough to stay
return the words, the looks
i give you like they're falling out of me
seconds change
and at the end
your face is inerasable
true, i need to be in love
i'm lost when it's just me
with only a hope to make
you happy enough
do i need to be in love
what is there otherwise from loving
just takes a face
to make everything else erase
stop, stop it
could i put my hands up
and ask that you stop

low point
i've been scared
not like this
you lose things, i lost it
just please reach from somewhere
my heart is done
it's too scared
i've never wished this before now
if i said i did i take it all back
you have to go all the way
to know where it is
all the way down
you know what you'd stop for
when you're running from your worst fear
that you need it
now i'm fading
this is what i'd like to lay in
i've never wished this before now
now i know all the long steps down
this time my eyes close like this
i know my last thoughts
i know my last wish
to not be wishing
to not have broke this
to feel what i'm missing
somehow i broke it
i only know breaking
and what i want to lie in

no one
what would you say
if i said this year has been
only a dream that only we have been in
no one else can sense all the harm i've done
and it has always been our hands in a melded one
if there's a difference
then i don't know
between miles and a stone's throw
all that matters is what can mend us
you can be silent as you want to
no one can punish me like i do
what would you say
if i said i found the truth
we'll turn it around
i'll stay here and wait for you
if there's a difference
then i don't know
between miles and a stone's throw
all that matters is what can mend us

matching weight
tonight
we don't have a lot to go on
but that's not how it lives in my head
no, not at all
blind times
thought we were matching weight
we pulled
sometimes it was you and sometimes it was me
but where are we
you say "don't take it all so hard for now
there's so much space
and there will always be later for that"