Tomorrow

The future never comes, they say,
and that’s official, signed and dated.
Not so! Tomorrow comes today.

Young mothers watch their children play
among the graves to rules unstated.
The future never comes, we say,

and try to make each moment stay,
as if the next one should be hated.
In vain! Tomorrow comes today.

The past recedes and fades away;
now is the flame where all’s created;
the future never comes. I say

bring me two croissants on a tray,
with coffee undecaffeinated
and rich. Tomorrow comes today.

I’ve waited long enough, okay?
Twenty-five thousand days I’ve waited
The future never comes, you say.
I know tomorrow comes today.

James Turner, Jan 2013

When Life Doesn’t Go According To Plan

Life never does go according to plan,
not really, or not for long.
It leaks from pipes, it goes off the rails,
it explodes and falls out of the sky,
it trips you up, it steals an essential ingredient
from the soup, it runs out of petrol,
it fuses all the lights, it strikes twelve,
it rains, it sows dandelion seeds
in your lawn, it comes up against a brick wall,
it infects the stairs to your bedroom with dry rot,
it holes its bottom on a hidden reef. Plans
don’t sufficiently take human intertia into account.
Things take longer than you thought.
Things are over quicker than you thought.
Life is so much bigger and more complex
than you thought. Nothing is ever the same.
Things wear out. Things work-harden,
go brittle and snap. Things give way,
things get lost. You write things down
and forget to look at the piece of paper.
Pavements are slippery. And people
don’t like being told what to do.

          James Turner, January 2013

Back to Basics

Tenses Pretences

The poets sits at the table with a different voice
for once not staring blankly at the floor.

She found some leftover words
lurking about in her back pocket.

Four days ago she thought she’d run out of time.

She thought that all the time in the world would not be enough.
She desperately wanted to let you go,
but you had already made other plans.

Much like Hemingway, poets just sit and bleed,
but not this one,
this one would rather run out of time
than let life unfold.

She was all too familiar with her increasing obsession
with Divine intervention.
Even when her rhymes came in halves,
this particular poet had somewhat of a knack
for pretending… to be God after midnight.

Three days ago she had carefully considered
drowning her thoughts in a pond, á la Sylvia Plath,
but time had other plans.

Her head is tired this morning,
she is trying to tell you a story,
she wrote to you about love every day,
you had “a moment of weakness”
you had no kindness
and decided to not make any time,
some would say… “you might kill her with silence”.

And then time did what it does best,
time decided to surprise her…
when she expected it least,
as it usually happens.

She deeply fell for the words of another,
she found herself telling him most of her secret stories
with ease, without rehearsed pauses…

Like she would usually do, she would save the best for last,
or something along those lines.

Just look at her now, sat on a comfy chair at the back,
she has a different kind of smile on her face
inquisitive, tender, mysterious and of a different shape,
maybe all she needed was to find another writer…
In any case, it looks like she found him.

Her thoughts are lose, her mind is vague,
she hasn’t really had any sleep in about four days,
six years ago she would have embraced it
she would have decided to play at being Rimbaud,
but right now, none of it matters.

She is tired, her mind is lose, her thoughts are vague
her words are lost and short,
but he was worth staying up through the night for
and waking up with him by her side.

Just look at her with a different kind of smile.

Oriana Ascanio, January 16th 2013

If Life doesn’t go according to plan

The agent of chaos was at it again.

Drawing a deep breath, pulling the string in his bow,

A sharp arrow was let off into the distance.

Shooting down the chariot of time,

And the Plan, a true plan of Life.

As the arrow lodged itself tightly in the frame of the wheel,

Jammed into this state of perpetual lock,

Halting time and the rider of great mystical power.

Life it seemed came to a standstill,

The rider losing control of his stead.

This was an incurable block to his plan,

A life that was halted in its steps.

 It was a belief in this parallel world of magic and mysticism,

The controllers of life had spoken.

The plan they concocted in the depths of a magical swirling pot of a dark dense magical liquid was failing.

Chaos, was the undertaker, and the agent of the elders.

Drawn into action, to change the wheels of time.

Stop it in the beginning and turn it around, as

A new plan was being developed,

A new plan that would bring peace to the true land,

A new plan that would swallow all uncertainty

A new plan,

A grand plan.

If I Could Start All Over Again

If Life…

If life doesn’t go according to plan

Maybe you didn’t have one,

Maybe you didn’t need one,

Maybe there is no plan,

Divine or otherwise. 

Just an evolving chaos of possibilities

Bounded by the physical restrictions

Of this reality. 

Planning life

Is like reading from a script,

Or sheet music at the piano,

Real life

Is speaking from the heart,

Improvising a melody

Never heard before. 

The evolving harmony

Of the song of the world

A choir with no leader,

Stories unique 

That overlap

And depend upon each other. 

Tomorrow Comes Today

When the dark depression

Is filling my horizon,

Liquid poison filling my stomach and brain.

The sweats and hallucinations

Of delirium tremens 

Torturing demons inside.

When remote controlled birds

Are spying on me

And I can hear the voices

From the speakers in the walls.

The singing in the sound of traffic

Like ocean waves breaking on a concrete shore,

An accelerating choir aquaplaning.

When dawn is dusk

And all sense of time lost,

Tomorrow Comes Today. 

Si Egan

If I could start all over again

If I could start all over again,
I would wear the same dress with my worn out red shoes,
But this time round I’d make sure I wear much more lipstick.

If I could start all over again 
I would memorise the sound of the swallows as they mate,
I would only ever sing in French
and I would have extra garlic bread at every date.

If I could start all over again,
I would hold you tightly and never let you go,
I’d never stop writing,
I’d whisper into your left ear until I found hiding in there my inner voice.

If I could start all over again,
I’d fall in love with a different musician every day,
I’d face my irrational fear of banking earlier on in life,
I would invest in the stock market but I would never save.

If I could start all over again,
I’d wear my heart on my sleeve at every occasion,
I’d eat more blue cheese and more sweet and salt popcorn
and I would make whiskey my poison.

If I could start all over again,
I’d take more baths whilst wearing my socks,
I’d only call my possessive mother once a month,
I’d have a collection of moths,
I’d sit around on couch like a sloth
I’d put my political views forth,

My love would never be about force.

Your eyes would meet mine at the end of your book,
your touch would make me its slave
your voice would tenderly wake me in the middle of the night,
my nightmares would never be psychoanalysed.

The smell of your hair would always be found on the back of my neck
I’d make you eggs and bacon in bed every day,
I’d make the same mistakes all over again.
You wouldn’t find the time to forget my imperfections,
I’d constantly demand that you love me impure,
just like I am…

And today, I’d make a pause,
and I’d tell all the other writers,
that this is not how the story is going to end.

Oriana Ascanio, January 7th 2013

If life doesn’t go according to plan

Dear readers (and writers for I know some of you sometimes crop up in here looking at what we have been up to) I am posting a couple of poems from tonight. It is unusual for me to actually want to publish work quite so quickly, but I am actually proud of these because they are raw, and heartfelt and very much mine in a way I am happy to share with the world.

If life doesn’t go according to plan
it won’t matter anyhow.
I would have written you a thousand letters
and you won’t have replied back,
I would have cried you every night
until I drowned in my guilt,
I will have been found dead in my attic and you won’t know any different.

I would have let go off myself until I could eventually fit in my happy pants
I would have finally worn a pot over my head and admitted to being a kitchen pirate.
One day someone would have stopped comparing my cooking to a dictatorship,
I will have worn all of my seventy pairs of shoes.

I will have failed at learning to let you go,
I will have hung myself with a dirty sweater,
I will have found a living lobster and thrown her into the turtle tank,
Pamela would never forgive me.

I would have worn my tights like a hat,
and an empty seashell like an eye patch.

I would have read all of my books at least a thousand times,
I won’t have eaten nearly enough salad.

I’d like to think that I would have mastered my recipe for microwavable hollandaise
I will have learned to hate silence.

I would have fallen in and out of love with the sea a million times,
surely I would have paid my rent on time at least once.

I will have died a hundred deaths,
I would have always loved you on an empty stomach
I will have forgotten your name
I would have eaten fresh flowers for dinner one night

And then I will have come up with a different plan!

Oriana Ascanio, January 7th 2013