The Rite

Her face aglow,
she performs her rite
gracefully, like the snow
in the silver lunar light;
deathly hair, startling eyes,
soul-enhancing
white night purity, necromancing-
nude porcelain skin,
beauty within
whispers of sin;
knowledge sought after
flirting with disaster
secrets held in astral shells
uttered in diffuse spells
the occult- her only master.

Velvet Glove

An iron hand
in a velvet glove,
soft veils over roots
unwavering- your core,
honey-mouthed- your discourse,
your silence.

Within,
there is the hibernating
alpha-serpent,
awaiting resurrections-
you bathe in the light of
her uttered incantations.

You spot the red flags
of the dark triad,
you never wave white flags,
for there’s no fire in your soul-
not the red type that burns,
and destroys the self, no,
only blue flames that glow,
soothe, and create the selves.

What about the heart-
underneath the layers- is it
iron laced with velvet or
all velvet beneath armour;
What about the flesh?
the snow melting under the skin
until it gleams?

The Engulfing

Spiralling,
A beckoning sign.
I’ve been teetering on a thin line

The catalyst-
Something as simple
as a knife twist,
disguised.

A reframing of purity-
turned glacial.
A false sense of security,
dissipating.

Withdrawing, inward
submersion.
It’s coming, one step forward-
the possession
the engulfing
It’s on.

The switch has been turned.
The demon has been summoned
I sense the first intimations of life,
feel its claw without being touched,
almost taste its void, hushed.
She picks up and licks the knife
it turns into a magic wand in her hand
the open wound morphs into a black hole
I can no longer lick it to exorcise my self
She is free to bleed into me, she’s in control
The last protective layer is pulled off, violently.

After a battle spree
progressing morbidly, artfully
I summon the will
to lull the beast to sleep
before I get silent and still
I’m in it really deep
yet once again manage to make it all seep
out of me as I get ready to take another leap.

Wayward Girl

You step out of the darkness
into the light,
then into the darkness again
carrying sapphire light within you-
your inner compass, your greatest strength
Carefree, out of the corner of your eye
you see shadows shy away from your
disarming nature;
you are an unlikely saviour
awakened in serendipity-
you give them freedom to either
spend their existence haunting
or let your light guide them and peel
the darkness without pain
Unencumbered by shadows,
you embrace them whilst
your mind renews itself,
white magic, healing witch, infinite soul
You walk towards locked doors
and pass through them effortlessly
the key is your charming,
revitalising smirk,
wayward girl,
your obstinate nature makes sure
your dreams live on
and turn into phantoms haunting
new, greater dreams.

Face to Face

Face to face:
eyes locked,
staring into each other;
seeing your reflection
in the dark lake of her iris.
Hand on hand,
praying together-
not like those bible verses preach-
no, praying to the abyss,
hoping it won’t swallow you whole;
understanding at first the irony
and then the futility
of your act.
The abyss has wet black lips,
kissing you to compensate
for chewing pieces of your soul
and spitting them out
because they were bittersweet.
Now they are soaked, slippery,
no longer sticking either in or to the puzzle,
which is why you don’t make sense
except in the silver,
face to face,
where your soul is pure, whole,
and wholly unleashed.

Siren’s Prayer

In my dream
I was a siren, dwelling
in a pool of blood
filled with corpses
of preys
awaiting
their starved predator;
Musical, aquatic Scheherazade-
unwilling witness, captive,
or cold-blooded accomplice
with a gnawing change of heart-
so not so cold-blooded after all?
Moon-intoxicated, I sensed
your presence from afar,
running, teeth-clenching-
anxiety rising,
clinging
to the last tidal dream,
I wonder – who am I
supposed to
hypnotise:
the new live prey,
the ghosts of the dead,
or you?
Reluctant to find out,
I sing my melody, inwardly
to drown out the sound
of your blood feast.

November

The vanishing words,
the vanishing images,
the shedding
of selves like autumn leaves;
of withered lives on wrinkled paper,
dust off the treasure chest
in the desert, next to a snake
regenerating its skin
polished,
your porcelain appearance melting into
the undefined
does the new verse annihilate
or build you?
perhaps it is the fading portrait
either that, or the smile in between
either that, or the infinite encounters
with the ineffable

You write, you cross out
another identity and over to
another vision.

Wither

I gather tokens of death
in appearance fragile-
with thorns hidden
underneath.

A hand reaches out…
Blood lingers
on thin skin.

Petals burn,
Smoke intoxicates:
you breathe it in.

Funeral words carved
in marble skin-
paralysed,
you listen blindly
as they inhale life.

Awaiting

Butterflies spiralled in silver –
petals sleeping on the floor
Eternally moved, I quiver-
Tenderly pressed against the door.

Evocation

There was nothing left
except her orange blossom scent
in the air,
her skin cells
on the conspiring blanket,
the energy he was feeding off
and her seraphic aspirations,
elegantly penned
in a forlorn diary
before her concept
of the world expanded into
postmodern depths and
her self-concept became
a liberating fluidity
of thoughts and impulses.
She’d been through a lot of
symbolic suicides before
deciding to resort to
serial homicide.
She loved herself, yet
with every touch
there was a numbness-
perhaps in her multiple deaths
she was seeking
life,
perhaps in her metaphorical murders
she was seeking an escape from
pseudo-life.

Catatonic state

I feel your ashes
like quicksand
I’m sucked into
so I’m standing still
trying to enjoy the view.

Status Quo

The universal shift of focus
from being to seeming
permeates our age of confusion.

Rite of Passage

the texture of hell can seep through a broken mind,
but its lingering echoes will leave a mark
looking ahead, I see parks filled with disease,
a small, kaleidoscopic winter coat wrapped around
a phantasmal presence that screams:
I am Home-
I am a haunted home
where it rains.

her hand reaches out to
wipe the morning dew
off a snowdrop lost
in the glittering white-
a mystical anachronism

I look at her with a half-smile;
as if sensing it, she turns around,
mirroring me-
meanwhile,
the world is disintegrating
in secrecy

an ethereal cage descends to envelop us;
a moment cannot define an entire existence
unless it echoes
its beginning and its end
our fate and lips are sealed
it’s more than a folie à deux
bred in liminality

a pact between blue hedonism
and dazzling dissimulation
clears the way forward-
some voices may forever
be confined within
yet the dreams ascend.

Sakura Season

The world was sick – physically, mentally,
we were part of the minority left uncontaminated.
My calcified shell unravelled
down by the river
among sentient trees,
shimmering shrines,
underneath celestial splendour,
next to your magnetic presence;
Bonded by the common revulsion at
destructive forces, we were here for the art
of letting go, unburdening the heart,
re-emerging from ourselves,
this arcane ritual, this sacred moment,
this hallowed place-
I let it permeate me with light.
Enraptured by hanami,
I shed my outer skin
and drank in the beauty of the instant
until I was intoxicated;
I let myself feel instead of thinking
because life was safe here-
I felt tingles that were going to reverberate
throughout decades.
For the first time, I believed in something
other than myself:
you, the radiance of the moment,
the glimpse of eternity
in a landscape filled with
reminders of mortality.
I had witnessed too many shared delusions
to fall for them,
but this wasn’t a fall
it felt like ascending,
like a slice of life that’s borrowed from heaven-
a strange view coming from a secular soul.
Your wisdom was gonna stick to me
and I would wear it like armour
in times of hardship;
I could tell you shared what you believed in
and felt religiously-
you exuded your truth
through all your pores
and it resonated with the murmur
of my soul,
of the river, of the petals,
now every time I find myself
at the crossroads, this mantra
is loud and clear in the midst of chaos
“Look, we are what we believe
and nothing else truly matters
except that your heart is invested
in the right thing. See how that light
travels across the river?”
I will always see the light.

Snowdrop Girl

Snowdrop girl,
I can feel your presence
in the first whispers of spring;
I can hear your breath
in the windy corners of life-
it’s my favourite lullaby,
it makes me cold sometimes-
you could be cold sometimes,
in a scintillating way that
I never wished to oppose
or even dare to question-
my fear was not of
your reaction,
but the possibility of
your contamination
on some elemental level
Beneath many layers of
innocence and frivolity
and even more layers of
impenetrability and frostiness
I know what lies, I know
the substance, the kindness,
the taboo dreams,
the sweet desires-
and that makes me smile
you opened up to me
in the still wintry light in
a moment of rare vulnerability
I am thankful to have been
entrusted with.
The world may have seen
your masks, but who else
has recognised the rarely-resurfacing,
pearl-like gleam
in your eyes?
I have and I enveloped it in
my spirit shell
where it shall shimmer forever,
even after our farewell.

Freesia Girl

I am intoxicated
with the saccharine mystery
in your warm gaze,
your sylph-like appearance-
a misty dream haunting
idyllic paths
inexorably, I find myself
in the same spot
under the tree archway
as much as I try to escape
how sweet-
sickeningly sweet-
my suffering,
the uncanny feeling of being
hypnotised to return,
to haunt and be haunted
I feel masochistic urges
to re-enact scenes of
long-lost pleasures
of the senses
delicately,
then vigorously
wistfully all along
You never wither,
I decay in the scent
of nostalgia.

 
Reliquaire

J’ai une vaste collection de jolis cadavres dans le placard;
Je les pêche en pagayant à travers les eaux
les plus profondes de la vie;
Je les nourris des morceaux de mon cerveau de loin,
pour dépouiller leurs os du pouvoir.
Ce rare reliquaire reste
immergé dans l’inconscient
intact, distant, aliéné à travers
des états compartimentés et dissociatifs;
toute âme qui réussit en quelque sorte
à trouver une lumière et ouvrir un tiroir
se retrouve dans un état squelettique
encapsulé dans le même placard,
avec des fleurs parfumées qui en sortent,
du brouillard et des miroirs tout autour-
visualisez-la.

Unfiltered

Clinical,
surreal emptiness.
Chocolate-scented wood.
Smell of new and
non-alcoholic intoxication.
Life as art for art’s sake.

Neon light flickers as you blink
infected by dizziness.

No longer tone-deaf to the harmonies
of your own soul,
you don’t shrink for someone else to grow.

An invisible corpse in the plastic bag
winks at you from the corner-
madness, it grows
in sanity.

Lifeless but intense:
you don’t pray for another,
you prey for yourself.

Of the senses

Nostalgia persists
soft as velvet,
sad as lace,
sweet and intoxicating
as your scent sliding down my spine.

The Fragrant City

Through the alleys,
scents of old seasons
scatter in the urban rain.
Guided by our roots,
the long-withered dreams of being
seem to be reborn from pain.

Extensions

Extensions of me
are ramifying under
your skin.
Does it hurt when
I unravel your bloody
nightmares?

Echoes

A silhouette merging with the unknown-
all that is left is your breath in the cold air
as you exhale in slow motion
I speak in shadows
you respond with spectres of light,
haunting every word-
making sense of it all;
I choose to live in the now,
but if you whisper in my ear
I will take decades to figure out
why you chose to disappear
that day
when I ran down the hallway-
gargoyles staring from above-
for a second I thought I could hear
another set of footsteps
under a different weight
even after I accepted your longing
for the netherworld.
The statues were grotesque,
threatening, demon-like in thunder and lightning,
and still, I hoped that hallway would never end
just so I could hear the sounds again and again
and convince myself they weren’t merely
echoes of my footsteps into the unknown.

Her Rebirth

Haunted by Ophelia’s phantom,
enraptured by vernal murmurs,
she succumbs to dreaminess
lost in the stream
of consciousness
carried away by Woolf’s whispers
and echoes of myth from
a scent of white Narcissus
fluid nostalgia in full bloom-
she remembers her touch
before the plunge;
the sacred memory shatters
underwater-
her pale skin resurfaces-
she is beaming;
her alter ego withers
underwater
Nature witnesses
an act of self-love.

Bloody Act

Two bodies wrapped in an embrace
in a tomb of glitter and frost-
the blood lingers while they kiss,
then it pours gently down the legs
of the cradle surrounded by mist.

The lake of tears reflects the moon of sorrow-
trembling, fluid, unpredictable;
their red eyes locked, unblinking,
while eternity replaces the morrow.

November Light

Dark November, darling November,
my birth month, a glorified time
of contradictions,
of re-emergence from dreams,
wearing adornments
and smiles of
miss “seen it all, heard it all”
Scorpio depth,
shrewd intuition,
and inner power-
It’s nature and nurture
even when the nurturing is done
in a glass castle
it is said that art is life intensified,
heightened experience
is this what it was, an artistic process?
all-consuming, delving deeply into
my life force, the closest I’ve ever got
to a spiritual experience,
however demonic,
in all its ambiguity and uncertainty-
was it but a psyche glitch?
is that what it takes, a cognitive distortion,
to erode the pillars holding up
a self-concept, a world,
in a most magical way-
heaven knows no human could do it-
aren’t most, if not all spiritual beliefs
a coping mechanism against
cosmic futility?
Here I am, inevitably returning
to the eternal question
that injects everything I do and feel;
Surrendering to Phoenix wisdom-
with my Eagle’s eyes,
fresh perspectives materialising
from the flames of the opposites
inner chaos leads to stillness
leads to outward ascension
from a special hell-
the tension of the opposites
within;
oblivion is laced with sweetness
it’s a universal truth: life is escapism,
just like wearing a tiara on your birthday
to forget about the flow of time
Although shifting from limbo
to a personal dystopian hellscape
and then into whatever followed
(labels have become frivolous)
has made me revere time,
realise I’ve had a coddled existence
for the most part
You can’t write words revealing
you are convinced of
your innate grandeur anymore,
without being deemed narcissistic
A good night kiss bearing all
the gentleness and sacredness
of a celestial being
should be a tell-tale sign
that it’s not pathological
but it’s hard to understand
a moment of uncanny ecstasy,
an awakening, how deeply moved
a sceptic can be, on a soul level.
Pour your life source into me
and lift me up
I am trying to be authentic
but I am not estranged from
the light and darkness of ego
something tells me ego
has shaped you in my mind, too
Whether external forces were at play
or you are just a part of me,
I have to say
thank you and
no, thank you.

A smile among ruins

All dead things are
resurrected by
the phantom smile-
you conjure it
when the world collapses:
that lovely,
foreign yet familiar
equivocal smile
your mind translates into
life and pure hope
stays engraved in your memory;
through mirroring,
you borrow it
and unknowingly pass it on
to someone else-
that is the sweet beauty
of connection.
–

Alternative ending:
that is the bittersweet beauty
of apparent connection.

May Queen

I shut my eyes and let her caress me
with her veils, scents, and many voices
that touch me in moonlight-tinted spaces;
a mother figure, playful yet collected-
forgiving minor sins, sighs, disguises,
the slight disturbances of
extinguished raptures,
in a glimpse of purity,
in my unknown gestures of kindness –
towards myself and others – she saw
a potential for lightness
She rewards the sweetness
of the gaze with an aura of safety
She crowns me May Queen
whilst I bury my past
and penchant for remoteness
in a crimson house
overrun with honeysuckle vines.

Nausea

When the whole world is drenched
in performative glue,
you feel everything’s tainted
still, you want your mind re-painted
so you can try to pursue
the myth that it’s all about perspective:
treat it like a tool or an ordeal, right?
it doesn’t always hold up,
especially at night
when you try to untwine
your hair and your spine
when one insight
can incite a riot inside
and you are so tired-
you know the tiredness I’m speaking of-
that of piercing through the sickly sweet
glue that ties people together
when they should be apart
unwittingly toxic,
such entanglement ensures
a removal from any ounce of
authenticity
your pathological detachment
from genuineness
is the source of my nausea.

Sculpting a hybrid scene

I always had a reverence for those fluid mythological mirrors –
the cosmic girl, her words made flesh, the self-‘othering’,
the bickering between the new and the almost-forgotten
for the “I’m sorry…
…you feel
threatened by my presence
and bewildered by my absence”
The message – once uncannily cryptic, embedding itself
in the adamant lucidity of the conspicuous,
now – in your face, yet unreliable somehow
the meta-awareness messes with the reintegrated
unhinged –
it could be self-gaslighting
or absolute transparency
Regardless, please satisfy my desires
and you shall be forgiven rather than forbidden
I never expect you to decode the world:
your assumptions,
like your assessments of character,
are sometimes reflections of what lies within you, my dear.

The Ark

I dream of emerald grass,
sapphire waves,
idle legs shimmering on marble,
crystalline laughter
I miss this-
Do I miss myself-
this self?
let’s enjoy it while it lasts
before the tide of darkness floods
our frail world
I want a fresh view:
we unfold – the tides unfold
we walk on water
we get to the ark-
how do we lift the anchor?
it’s so heavy, heavy, reflecting
the heaviness of the hearts
the veil over the ark protects
the sanctuary, meanwhile
our dreams function as fuel
to get us there
What about the iceberg?
beware of the iceberg,
the way it shines, the way
the part submerged in the dark
knows more than you and I
combined
ever will,
it’s a point of reference
shrouded in an aura of mystery
which seems to whisper:
abandon all hope
before you penetrate the mind
obliterate preconceptions
sometimes we are water,
sometimes we are stone.

Purgatory

I feel
I love
and then I hate
my fire and my demons,
just before I see your celestial smile,
you icy devil
bringing me back to life,
to an illusion of life
which I knowingly accept as truth.
My complicity – dispersed in time
until it is forgotten
The world – no longer in black and white
it burns
I am only ashes.

Afterlife

I taste the blood of dehydrated lips,
admire the inadequately plucked eyebrows
above vapid black circles surrounded by
red on translucent white.
Dark hair, itchy like rope
against my neck,
frozen hands trembling,
features particularly thin:
I forgot how to live,
yet I laugh at my own sin.

Your Faith

I never confessed this but
your faith helped keep me
anchored in myself
whenever the currents started
hitting from all sides.
I just wanted to thank you
for still existing in my mind.

Identity

Fragrant relics of the heart
crown you as the faerie queen over
the land of forgotten whims
with a rose delicately smothered in your hands
and pearls hanging from your pale thin neck
A down-to-earth Snow White is what I see in you
when all that matters is how you see yourself.

Elevation

When the past smells like dust,
its enchantment is upon you no more –
The future glows in sight
on the island of apples
where you dwell feasting upon eternity
and upon everything born out of a lavish ground.
everything – corporeal and incorporeal gathers up
and you find yourself among nymphs, dryads, witches,
heroes, mad men of both virtues and vices,
unearthly fruits and singing crystals,
air and waters sprinkled with glitter,
and a crystalline laughter travelling with the wind.

Memories of Snowdrops

The burning snowdrop-scented incense
smells like childhood dreams
It smells like us
in a cornfield
or in our garden
laughing and uncaring
just before I went on the hill
with my kite
laughing,
uncaring.

Pulse

You lay on the river shore
Half awake and spellbound
by the water flowing
rhythmically,
echoing the flow of blood,
mirroring the flow of time.
Illusions bewitch
your mind and body
into acting strangely-
The past creeps up and there you are:
Standing still in the infinite white space
of children unborn.

You and I

I miss the scent
of your whispering skin
at night
when you tell me
you love
how I can be both
you and
myself
in my head.

A Glance

Caught in between worlds and narratives designed
from mercurial substances laced with unfathomable fears,
no longer bothering to convey their intersections
in a way that integrates with the normal brooding whole,
still skipping diseased words that hold too much power,
in hope of discouraging the old forces from slipping in
like a cataclysmic surge disturbing the ebb and flow of being,
and because I have a history, yet I don’t like inhibitions
that render the core watered-down with lifeless inscriptions.
Anyway, the morning found me sipping the lingering trance of
dewy dreams of an all too familiar setting, concealed for years,
interwoven with unfettered thoughts fluttering like harpies
and kind ravens towards, above, and beyond worlds.
Later, I consumed a piece of media that bothered me,
tapping into a growing discomfort at every variation of evil,
but there’s always a quick fix for that, and I know myself –
fortunately I can un-see, un-hear such things – a talent of mine,
born out of necessity, of self-preservation;
well, it’s because sometimes images used to get stuck
and replayed over and over again,
but that’s classified information I don’t want to unlock;
if nothing else, similar instances are usually eclipsed
by the life-devouring shadows
of much more significant worries-
this is why I don’t mind dwelling on the edge of chaos
as long as I find my definition of peace in it:
every new element propels me further, making sure
I don’t get sucked into the vortex of one.
Listen, it’s tiring to be driven by the many-eyed wings
that pierce through subtleties and silvery surfaces,
to spot pattern discrepancies as easily as one blinks,
whilst the narrative blossoms like a beautiful acacia tree,
but this was not an invitation.
In fact, sometimes, my desires are very simple-
it should be obvious by now, and
whether I’m fine or not is irrelevant-
I want faith, freedom, and to be left to exist
between the tree and the river.

Heavenly Aspirations

I want to purify my body and soul
to reach my version of
blasphemous heaven.
I want to summon the stillness
of the dormant light within
to exorcise all feelings
provoking inner conflicts.
To become an empty vessel
for a moment,
penetrated by light
no longer dormant,
now shining so bright.
Such cravings are born out of
a darkness
with the power to enslave
any spirit
and yet, I am its conqueror
I have tamed it and moulded it
into something beautiful,
fulfilling, ever-growing, and hopefully,
ever-lasting.
Once you taste this version of
inner freedom, untainted,
it’s the only nurturing addiction,
the most welcome overindulgence,
the most heavenly sin.

As below, so above

This place is a crypt and, while you’re all waiting
to go on a long journey,
you admire the countless tiles
bearing the scars of the bodies in front of them-
their motionless, diffuse shadows
never making you wonder what they hide
for, as you see their faces, you can tell
you’re all made of the same substance
and that’s all that seems to matter down there,
on the Underground platform.
No mystery in your flesh and bones,
no light at the end of the tunnel,
no heaven to dream of inside the collective tomb,
you are in this together.

Polarising

You were polarising
in so many ways,
your vibe confused the hell out of me
and the ambivalence made me
uncomfortable;
I met you at a time when
I didn’t know the best things in life
are somewhat polarising,
they tend to be transformative,
with their stimulating powers
I liked transparency, I still do,
but you had authenticity,
your polarising effect was
not a play, not intentional and
definitely not ill-intentioned
it was pure and unfiltered and yet,
despite your genuine madness,
a friendship couldn’t survive
Now it’s far too late,
And, albeit more mature than back then and
still sticking to openly blissful patterns,
I’m also tinged with jadedness
in the human relations sector.

Addiction

My shadow on your wall, crumbling
as you wake up from the shivers
entering you like poison-
slowly, from your mouth
passing through your stomach and
limbs in silence,
then back to the skull
By the moon, my black hair
is cast behind you,
Your illness now caught in my spider web.

(c) Diana Marin, Selected Poems, 2014-2023