Hers was a chameleon soul Flitting with the moons ebbs and whims A freewheeling compass That led her dancing in riddles A blur of soft kisses on the shoreline And kaleidoscope lights in her mirror A million smiles shattered on the landscape And split between them Each claiming he knew her Each an affinity with
And so she smiled that smile. The one he thinks is real Cherry red and bitten inside A bitter stone lodged in her throat Swallowing hard keeps the bees down Churning like molten amber in her belly And swarming loudly in her chest Beneath her heart if such a thing Gulping down his medicine A
And his hand on my pallid forehead A dead fish hand on pure stained ice I cannot see his face but I imagine it might be expressionless yet kind. The father, the guardian, the reaper He will take me from here. I shivered, teeth rattling and hairs raised The taste metallic, a tiny drop of
I don’t remember how I came to be here Myriads of ocean rainbows painting my neck and the warm around me tight as his embrace A halo of hope and love and around and there I don’t recall my feet on the sand or the first brush of blue But I’m one. Standing still in
Something’s broken in your ocean, a strike-slip fault, a tiny motion A space that shifts to cause commotion, a fault line in our intersection Something’s fractured and I can’t mend it, a surface tear, I can’t repair We slid past ourselves again, a rocky grind of phrase on phrase Something’s shifted and I jolted, a
Take me down in the turquoise sea Where blue crabs scuttle and silver fish flee Lead me down below the waves And let’s go seeking mermaids Bring me to our silent place Where haunting echoes kiss my face Take me into kaleidoscope lights And let’s go seeking mermaids Place a white shell inside my palm
Letters is the latest full moon inspired poem from Charli. And there it was. Some letters are just more valuable Trace the gold outline, the smooth curves C like sea or cat she stumbled Clumsy fingers grasping at the sound A silvery kiss or a sharp scratch That leaves a jagged imprint on your skin
The sun bleached ghost clothes shifted in the late summer zephyr Gathered on rails, a shabby huddle of refugees, limp and hopeless Dusty cobbles burning through summer sandals etching like parchment The Arabic symbols inscribed forever on her soles, seeping into her skin Freckled shoulders weighed heavy under the oppressive sky A deepening burden that
Once it was spring and the butterflies in her mind Fluttered and drank the honey nector Danced as each second passed, her footprints hurried on the golden streets A courtyard snow globe of blossom and the boy waiting. Once it was spring and a thousand blissful days belonged Of plane tickets and trinkets and notes
Black. I let it take me. No skipping carefree from the oily sea that seeps into the dry cracks of my bones, putrid warm. Its diamond crests scooped and closed in that sculpted box Saved and safe, my happy place Our laughter trapped inside, a grotesque musical box for the insane. The scent of seawater
