The hands of my pocket watch tick smoothly

Though, each tick is not without consequence

For You, Chronos, hath given evidence

Through browning leaves and loved ones lost wholly

Yes, the hands of my watch tick lethally

Why, Time, can you not practice lenience?

You know of many a man’s innocence

Life’s not a game, yet you play immorally

You watch as morning sun kisses cryptic night

As the young girl’s virtue fades away

Blown into northern winds, a wayward kite

Oh you hide no truth, as Time, you decay

Although Time, I know you to be humane

For I have heard the brief songs of summer rain

mulligan&macbride

Come, open your doors and sit with me

Scrub dry your memories

Let the walls wink and sparkle

Bleeding silver coral

You’re free

Cut the black ropes from your exquisite wrists and welcome to reality

Let your inky eyes swallow you whole

You are but only brilliant and beautiful

Tuck in your knees, mesh fold bend and roll; gritty carpet turns into lush green

Dream! Dream turquoise dreams

Don’t hesitate, come sit with me and bleed

Are you ready? Let’s wander

You have a lust for gold so go ahead and lick the silver

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

You check your words and fly with ease

You’re polite and kind, “yes sir, yes please”

Only a fool could fall into your labyrinth of deceits

A glowing haze of lavender and gold peels away, retreats

My hands are dry and like that they will stay

The moon and the stars are faithful until day

It’s in the pure and the genuine that I rest my conviction

Your sin is warm and your passion an addiction

Though your lips run dazed and your eyes bleed grey

You’re pink flesh sits raw, sunk in silky black, you’ve become the prey

The wicked ground parts, falls free from its walls, like a rose from its petals

Hold tight to your twinkling, twisting chains of metal

Go ahead; release your shackles of gold

But I cannot fantasize to be so bold

mulligan

The Peach Trees

The tree sits on top of a hill, a frosty hill where all the other trees have vanished from. This tree is thin, almost hollow; its branches graze the ground with broken fingertips.  Fruits weigh down these branches, but often fall before they can be picked.

            This tree is sick of the sun. The frost feels nice, it’s to feel nothing. The bark is numb, bit and poisoned from the cold. It was December when the other trees could no longer survive the ice. Their branches once cradled plump, ripe peaches. They glowed in early spring heat and their sweet juices had sizzled and burned on the palms of drunken southern girls.

            What was left was only space. Far, grey landscapes that ran right through the sky. This tree longed for it to be the simplest of space, but winter comes with distant whispers; murmurs that only fade with the stillness of night. Footsteps echo of what once was, the wooden swings that creaked under tough summer skin, the dirty auburn hair that frequently became lost in hazy blades of green. This was back when the tree’s fruit was new, untouched and the subject of pure curiosity. What would it taste like? And most importantly, was it ready to be tasted? Even the other trees would wonder, after all, they were new too.

            After a while the winds began to blow in from the North, gently reminding the trees of what was soon to be, where they were all inevitably heading. Leaves curved into themselves and the last few peaches began to fall, into the now smooth palms of the girls who would return home to clean husbands and powdered babies. By early autumn these trees would move onwards, past the dwelling hills onto what could only be described as the predictable future of bluebirds and clean cut grass.

The tree still sits on top of a hill. Morning comes and night descends and the whispers slowly falter.  Once again the tree lowers its branches; they dangle in sour peach carcases. What is so simple in the moonlight remains complicated come the dull grey beams of dawn.

mulligan