Poetry by a.d.

      George Bremer CC




august

the smoke from your cigarette rises between us and christens
the barren night. down the sultry backstreets where we disappear,
my heels discarded, knees filthy like a schoolgirl’s. the uneven
rhythm of the pavement reveals the heart of the city & its buried longing. 

                                                                      this is the pulse of my addiction:
the way I always rush ahead despite craving your proximity, 
akin to how I am rushing headlong into this, us, whatever it is, with the clarity
that surely, if I shatter through your wall of glass some of it will cling to me. 
my nape, feverish, remembers the heat of your hand from moments before.

                                                                        there is darkness & there is distance.
the quivering streetlamps alight the shape of your stately head. 
we fill the night with your chosen music— there is solace in knowing
somebody before us has been swept in blue, has wept
at the prospect of parting. I recall the way your eyes trail on me when I’m dancing, 
a blur under oozing lights. rapacious & possessive, they refuse to leave me.

                                                                         we pass a dove with its chest split open. 
I recognize our kindred but decline to name it. here is the moonless night
with its thrusting heat. I keep beckoning you to press 
your desire into my wound.

                                                                         what is this thing that keeps us spinning? 
is it the weight of the invisible stars? is it their comfort?
there is nothing that binds me here but
an anchorage of nameless memories;

                                                                          like coming alive under veil
of darkness— your breath in my hair & my heart burning madly
in the confines of my kiss-swept throat.






a psalm, unsung
after Leonard Cohen

the immaculate silence almost drowns             the music
spinning in the baffled hall.      it’s the seventh
time & you’ve gone       too far
again— the worn threshold has been crossed clean & all
the sacred numbers      drawn,
only these scattered relics remain in lieu          of the holy tongue:

the silver thorns disguised on the marble tile,
the soiled shirt,                the rusting water gathered round your ankles
as you immerse yourself
in this biblical suffering,            awash
               in both beauty & tragedy,
bound                 in these trials & tribulations. 
there is no lord to please,         asking you
to sacrifice another piece of yourself—          it is only you
                                                             & your self-inflicted hunger.

samson,            shorn & defeated
lies bruised & bleeding
like a saint beneath
               the marble arch--
but here, the lover holds no blame:
the treacherous hand, incapable         of stilling, is your own.

              so she takes you,              blood & all,
as you both bask in this momentary relief of having survived
the flood            yet knowing that soon
there will come another,

& in the end all that remains is this prayer,
exhaled             from mouth to mouth--
               not cold             nor broken,
                              yet not quite holy,        either.

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a.d. is drawn to the sacred, the profane, the mysterious and the mythological, which provides inspiration for her work. She is an emerging bisexual poet and visual artist, and her poetry is published or forthcoming in Querencia Press, THINK, Ode to Dionysus, The Groke, Sublimation, PISSOIR, DOG TEETH, and elsewhere. Meanwhile, her visual art, mainly photography and self-portraiture, is or will be featured in Small World City, SCAB, RESURRECTION Mag, Welter, Hominum Journal, Antler Velvet and Bleating Thing. Tumblr & Twitter: @godstained
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