SJ. Sharkey

Esoteric, entering, ebony eyes
Your gaze a mute whisper into my amorous stare from which the tangible cruelty of your desires is clear, is turgid…
Fine, fragile, fashioned fingers
Your touch an inadvertent brush against my amatory skin which curdles at the dejection of your stroke that is refutal, is bleak…
...

When The World Ends,
Collect your things and come meet me,
And we’ll watch the stars disappear.
Too bad for them that no-one else is here, but our love has kept us alive.
...

I forgot what it feels like to be normal; but what is normal?
Trying to stay awake and remember my name?
I never thought I could miss someone half as much as I miss you,
And I’m the one that’s gone
...

As I struggle through the rubble
I hear their cries of pain
I see flashes of our time together
And wish for some again
...

By day the bat is cousin to the mouse
He likes the attic of an ageing house
His fingers make a hat about his head
His pulse beat is so slow we think him dead
...

The dark grey sky covers the roof tops like an overcast blanket
No more starlit night, no more light
Rain falls and turns dirt tracks to mud
Life-forces sink slowly into the dense black earth
...

Whatever you do, don’t stop
It starts as a feeling
A misty rumble in lower levels
It gathers speed to ascend uncontrollably
...

Pull back the sleeve
And reveal the weakened tissue
Pages of scarring shine white against tan
Separated from heart but not from head
...

I’ll climb inside
Your eyes will be blind to their stare
Your ears will be deaf to their charm
Your mouth will be mute to their invitation
...

A cold stab jolts me into existence
The rumpus swells to reach through me
Where it was once painfully stationary
It is now tormentingly mobile
...

Through the winter my heart grew cold
Since feeling it break I didn’t feel at all bold
The clouds hovered over me and blocked any light
The ground rose above me so I couldn’t take flight
...

Falling six feet under and no tears that I cry make me feel alright
I don’t have the strength to fight
I’ll bite my tongue so my mouth fills up with blood
‘Cause you said you’d keep that promise but I knew you never would
...

That I should have such love in my life and in my heart
And yet i look elsewhere
I am drawn to another, and another, for that which is un-named
Or if it is I dare not write it, as I would unwittingly sign the deed to my illegitimate adultery of mind
...

Feelings become confused, blurred
Like the faces of a worn photograph
The separation seems cruel and I long for affection
For an end to torturous second glances
...

You thought October's forecast would hold you down forever
But you stomped through fallen leaves in the shape of broken hearts
And the smells of the free blind your love with sparkling sirens
And you touch the hidden landscapes with lies of every colour
...

And you are in my thoughts
With my life on the line
Crying
Save me
...

Simon and Garfunkel lie in “the sound of silence”.
Mrs Robinson cracks no whip; she left with The Graduate.
They don’t hear it. They don’t feel it. They lie.
I hear it.
...

No childhood crone,
Or neighbour known.
Still a familiarity in her
Made me shake and shiver.
...

Coffee and gum, type-type-typing
Pen and paper, impatient toe-tapping
Run of the mill, one among many
Leader of the pack, in a pound for a penny
...

From a poet's lips lies crept
I, unaware of secrets kept
For my one love I've truly wept;
He knows not the pain of ellipsis,
...