Copyright 2008 Saddlestone Publishing Box 5 – 720 – 6thStreet,
New Westminster, BC
Canada V3L 3C5
TABLE OF CONTENTS
3. The Wrong People
4. The Empty Women
8. Like Talcum
9. Always Searching
10. At That Crucial Moment 11. At The Edges
12. Wonderland
15. Breaking And Beating
16. Dead Man In The Corner 17. Expectations Great And Small 18. Lies
20. Little Mouse Feet
21. Naked Leavings
22. Net Of Delusion
23. Perdition’s Prophecy
24. Pematurely Dead
27. Rambling
28. Semi Burned Out
30. Shorebound Stranger
31. Sleeping Awake
32. The Darkness Here
33.The Dream Vanished
34. The Remaining
35. Things Always Change
37. Toward The Truth
38. Vanquished
40. Water & Broken Glass
42. When I’m Lost
43. Voices
44. Through A Mirror Darkly 44. This Asylum
45. She Can’t Run. She Can’t Hide 46. The Rain Pounds
47. This Ever Prevalent Fog 49. Disintegration
Candice James
Rain streaking down the dusty window
Plays with the dirt in a paned wrestling match. Life peeps through this muddy menagerie. A snowy woman is walking hand in hand With a midnight man packing a child on his back. These are the wrong people.
They shouldn’t be in charge of these scissors They use to cut their way through
The wrong side of town.
The alleys and dumpsters, hiding from life,
Loom like scrap metal scars and broken robots.
Danger and death have become clandestine lovers Lurking stealthily in the shadows
Waiting for the wrong people
To scissor step their beleaguered bodies home.
The horizon is only slightly visible now.
The child on the midnight man’s back is softly sobbing. His tears are trying to build a better igloo for them to freeze in. The snowy woman caresses the child’s fevered forehead And presses her cold cracked lips to his burning cheek.
Is still falling through summer’s embrace.
The wrong people never do the right things. They never escape the frosty side of living. They were cursed at birth to walk the earth Searching for dead glory in a nowhere place. The snowy woman knows this.
The midnight man’s face shows this. The child’s eyes are dulled with fading hope.
The kiss of spring in winter
Has fallen through summer’s weakened embrace And the wrong people never even felt it’s touch.
Candice James
With all we love stripped from us, We are the empty women
Still hanging onto the invisible past,
As we glare through tears heavy
With icicles into the jagged future Of our past mistakes repeated.
Inside a gnawing nightmare,
Reminiscent of a hungry rat
Trying to digest the petrified bones Of yesterday’s silent kill, there is
An all pervasive cacophonic symphony Blasting profanity into our fragile sanity. This is the moment that has somehow Turned into an eternity of prisms
Spitting out prevaricated prisons
Laced with lost hope and broken dreams,
Grasping voraciously at the vestiges Of raw meat that still cling to the Bittersweet bones of this skeleton That has no key, has no door, we Peer through the windows of time Past, present and future with the Full knowledge that time does not pass. Trapped in this perpetual loop of yesterday, Spending all our todays and tomorrows, We calculate everything back to zero, Back to the beginning which is the end Of all the footsteps paced to reach it.
We come to the river not to cleanse our sin Or wash away the memories that haunt us. We come to the river to drown the emptiness We have become within the loop of now. Submerged in the icy cold, peering up
Through a shaft of sunlight that slices
The surface above us, life seems kinder, Brighter and possibly even beautiful
For those who walk on the water;
Not for we who now reside beneath reality. The world continues to spin without movement And the aimless hordes of people move onward,
Still hang onto the invisible past.
A hard icy finger infused with ink
Scrawls across the water color canvas
Of this dream’s sorrowful soured breath, Inscribing in blood red letters
The last rites to celebrate love’s brutal exit. Beneath the muted pounding of our heartbeats Rain is streaking old sundowns anew,
Birthing new colors too vivid to behold, Too painfully sharp, defying all description.
We have seen brutality, pain, tears and death. We have tasted life, love, empathy, pity, But pity us not for well we knew the path We chose so carelessly to embark upon Clad only in worn out, torn slippers.
Each cutting step exacerbates the soul. We listen for the wounds to a spirit
Ever so distant we can’t quite hear it.
A gentle whisper becomes a thunderous roar Crashing the shoreline of its long lost wish. Still we search the desolate dunes for a beacon Of light to dust the sand off Aladdin’s lamp. A rainbow has rusted itself to the sky’s eye Disallowing the coveted sleep it seeks, Disavowing the coveted peace we seek.
Still hang onto the invisible past.
This beach is strewn with broken shells
And decorated with fractured pebbles
Like a spirit dissected into a jigsaw puzzle Of pieces too worn and warped to fit
Anything resembling penance or reward. All things given are rendered undeserved In the schematics of this damaged humanity. Stars fall from the black velour mantle above Burning to cinders in the dark ashtray of night As if they never were, as we never are.
We are only noisy interference patterns that Imprint ourselves surreptitiously onto like patterns And then move onward against our will
Within the scope of our destined decisions. We are the wounded elegy of a starless universe Clinging to the black hole we’ve become, Searching for exits long ago extinct,
Inside this spiraling senseless destruction. We are the cause of nothing at all
That always is as it ceases to be,
Becoming everything that cannot matter In the antimatter of parallel atrocities.
We create innocuous realities and
Seed them with a criss-cross pattern
Of anonymous need that screams An abhorrent rage for personification. Primal urges are sacrosanct and hidden In a cavern closed like a paralyzed eyelid, Surveying only imagined sequences, feint Flickers on a façade of inherited iniquity,
Empty women cry out in desperation Hungering in the dark for a quicksilver touch Or a broken lingering caress that emulates life In it’s most secret burial or kindled cremation. We sigh like a bruised breeze lost beneath The glazed murky waters of our tidal tomb, Aching deep within for a whirlpool or current To carry us far, far away from this
Broken down desolate town of tears. Empty women, past the point of return Twisting inside a tattered cocoon of despair. These butterflies will never be born, never fly. This is the death that never was but always is. This is the moment we live in now
And now is forever as forever is always now Within our own happenstance happenings Of divine superfluous predestination. We stare infinity in her insidious eye
Still hang onto the invisible past
We are the invisible women. We are the forgotten dream. We are the primal scream.
With all we love stripped from us We are the empty women
Still hanging onto the invisible past.
Candice James
The muted sounds of life abound in this vacuum of snow Falling like talcum on the freshly showered sheets Of grass and cement that speckle the disappearing ground. It reminds me of the sparkling powdered dreams
I laid to rest on a broken blanket of premature sleep. They sway to and fro amidst their shallow burial ground Like half remembered forgotten flowers in the river of regret.
And all the while
The snow drifts down Like talcum.
Sometimes I almost swear I catch a glimpse of these dreams, Peeking feebly through this wet hazy surface of tears, Whenever a rebel pebble drops silently from my mind. It’s like an awakening coma painted on a helix canvas With one ripple perpetually collapsing and expanding Into something that is nothing becoming something.
The muted sounds of life, death, love and pain Thud in on tiger paws and claw at reality once again. My dreams and wishes have turned to powder forever
And all the while
The snow drifts down Like talcum.
Candice James
Autumn’s creeping into this lonely city And I want to stand in someone’s shadow. I want to stand in your shadow.
I need to hide in your shadow.
I long to live in your shadow
Taking up permanent residence
In a land sans tears.
I’m caught in the quiet of a cloud Heading sidelong into a mountain Of moments I may not be able to Calibrate or celebrate,
And all the while
I’m listening to the warmth
As it rolls in and rocks
The ancient suspension bridge That hangs by a thread in my mind.
The book of days lays open
On a dust riddled table of dreams. The pages turn in slow motion
And my eyes are bleeding from the many Jagged visions as they erupt from their Unsanctified shallow burial ground.
I’m always searching
For your outstretched hand,
For the safety of your smooth runway. I’m always searching for you.
Candice James
At that crucial moment last night,
It was like holding shiny stardust in the palms of my hands. It was like living in a million emotional frames
From the greatest movies ever to grace the silver screen. It was like coming home from the longest journey ever, The thirst finally over, the throat fully slaked,
The hunger abated, the spirit sated.
I felt the depth of the thrill just as deep As I felt the cut of the knife when you left The last time, the longest time, the most Terrifying time, the icy heartache you lent me Right up until that crucial moment last night, When you called the loan in and killed the cold.
The sheets rumpled and sighed under the weight Of our glistening bodies as we flowed onto The mattress like waves over a sandy beach. I crumbled and sighed as I slid into your arms Your mouth, your body and your soul.
It felt so surreal and yet it was the only real Life evidenced or witnessed since the day you left. It felt so irrevocably and quintessentially enigmatic.
Inherently and indelibly ever present in every cell That comprises the me I am, you run
Rampant; savagely, silently, soothingly
Through this heart you’re so much a part of, So thoroughly woven and deeply entrenched in. Freedom is a word I lost when your love found me Long before it misplaced me and forsake me. At that crucial moment then, and at that Crucial moment last night, I came full circle Back to you and finally found myself,
AT THE EDGES
Candice James
I’m at the edges of my sanity And the fences are crumbling.
Most times words cannot describe
This surrealistic aching deep in the soul. Facial expressions feign attempts to honor it But fail miserably with each grimace and frown.
The things we do for love.
The grievous errors we commit in the name of it. Oh the heartaches we endure for the sake of it.
Every street is an avenue
Every freeway is a boulevard.
I’ve been walking forever without you. I’ve been searching forever for you. Everything old is new again
And everything new is worn out.
This erosion of the spirit is serious. There is no moonlight in my world; No easy listening melodies anymore, Just the harsh cymbal crash of reality.
I’m in the middle of a heartache. I can’t seem to steer my way out of it.
The wheel is cracked and my compass is broken And I know I’ll never make it home now.
The things we do for love.
The grievous errors we commit in the name of it. Oh the heartaches we endure for the sake of it.
WONDERLAND
Candice James
Skipping smooth stones over the waters In my mind, rippling in a neverending Cascade of splashing sequential surrender. I’ve tried many times, unsuccessfully, To climb inside these stones and
Disappear forever into the dark resting Place on the sandy bottom of oblivion, A gathering place for things unrequired.
I’m trying to construct a requiem
For something that resembled victory But ended up being only a rite of passage At an anonymous funeral no one attended.
Decisions wound me like a shark bite Sequestered in a rotting courtroom Chewing through the meaning of Things that became only half manifest Or faded too quickly from my horizon. There are places in my life I wish I Had never travelled to, never seen. There are people in my life I wish I’d never laid eyes on, never met. There have been too many rivers, Too many instances left undone, Too few unborn and unchastised Drifting fragile dreams, carelessly Dropped and smashed on a teardrop.
Living on the razor’s edge has become Far more dangerous than I remember It to be in my younger years. Fear has Crept in on little Pekinese paws and Startled the scream perched upon my lips.
Tripping on unlaced running shoes
Makes tap dancing an impossibility.
Look, over there, at the svelte ballerina Pirouetting daintily in her steel toed boots. Changing the mood and tone of the Opera Preening and gleaning with much effort To somehow save the poxed performance. She serendipitously digresses into aggression At the eloquence of a clichéd phrase, The simple drop of a black top hat,
The silent rending of a white satin glove.
People tend to gravitate toward that Which makes the most sense to them. They eagerly clasp the hand of familiarity With a firm grip and gentle reminder. They are pleased with what they see When they see their reflection in other eyes.
I am demagnetized by these mendacities And pulled relentlessly to the mysterious, Quite pregnant and delirious with the hope That I may come face to face with myself On one of my many one-sided journeys Through this wonderland I call oblivion.
This wonderland is not for sale. It’s mine. I love to peek into it and fall through it And scream within its porcelain walls Of thought and nightmare, prison cells, Beauty and death, love, lust and hate. Imagination runs amok in a jungle of Wet water waves that soothe and cool, And warm the coldest night ever born In the darkened corner of my spirit.
Dark, darker, darkest knight who chills Frosts and freezes my blackest darkest night With such a heavy caress it makes my Heart bleed dark matter bullets that fall Noiselessly through to the other side Of me. The side of me I’ve never met. The side of me that scares me to death.
This is Wonderland. This is me Stripped down past the core of me Until I’m not me anymore.
Until I’m you.
This is wonderland. It’s run down, Dilapidated, but I only happen in Wonderland, ameliorating wonderland. Wonderland is closing down
For repairs until further notice.
So am I.
Candice James
You said you don’t want us to be bad friends But there is no caring where you say it lives. There is no respect where you say it breathes. There are no dreams inside this nightmare I inherited from the fallout of your life.
It was your will so dare not say it wasn’t. Dare not lie yet again to hide the lies You spewed forth so easily at the outset.
Although your capacity to understand it
May be too limited, I will try to tell you
About heartache; continuous, relentless heartache.
The beating resuscitates it from impending death But somehow another little part dies each time Inside this petrification of the soul and spirit; This special destiny you designed for only me.
You have no love. You have no compassion. You have no shame You have no soul.Wishing, dreaming, hoping, praying, These fruitless demons eat up my essence With a ravenous, insatiable appetite.
I was the one who set the table with love.
I prepared the feast and invited you to dine with me. You left the table sated, warm and comforted. I rose from this feast starving with heartbreak. The days pass. It never gets easier.
How can I be your friend
When you only break my heart.
I realize now, you always will.
DEAD MAN IN THE CORNER
Candice James
“Whaddya think about that”?
She said to the dead man in the corner. He didn’t even try to voice an opinion. Not even an eyelid fluttered.
The room hung in silence.
She picked up a glass and hurled it Against the dirt streaked wall.
It smashed in slow motion.
She waved her fingers and the
Shards of glass restructured
Themselves back into the recognizable Vessel they had been just moments ago.
“Is this not the story of life”?
She said to the dead man in the corner. No answer. The silence was defeaning.
She sauntered over to the desk And pulled out a revolver.
She walked over to the dead man In the corner, raised the revolver And shot him.
He stood up slowly and embraced her. As he kissed her and the curtain fell, The angels sang, God smiled
And the universe applauded.
Candice James
Expectations, this side of heaven or hell, Torture the young, damage the middle aged And haunt the elderly like a reaper.
Great expectations, aahhh, these are Something only the brave heart would Chase or a fool would choose to embrace. I am yesterday’s fool, brimmed with a Past shackled to my battered, brave heart.
Small expectations, no matter how tiny, Are still capable of tremendous fallout. They harbor fear, anxiety, jealousy,
Anger, hatred, and murder without ceremony. When an unceremonious choke hold is Seeking approval and distinction in a
Tawdry boxing ring of worn out wrestlers It’s time to roll up the soiled mat and
Throw out the baby with the bath water.
Who can stand up and say truthfully “ I who love you so dearly have no Expectations whatsoever from you.” Who can stand up and say truthfully “ I am totally satisfied in every way To accept whatever time and love You decide to give to me at any time; At no time; Sometimes; Never; Ever.”
Who can stand up and say truthfully “My love is so great, faithful and
Long suffering that I will never leave you, Not for any reason. I will endure.”
Expectations, great and small, This is the stuff of nightmares.
LIES
Candice James Copyright 2009
We traveled further from our sleep. We sojourned too long in the deep. We thought we’d found something to keep But a lie poisoned the flower we so carefully Picked; watered; tended lovingly; killed.
Murder in disguise flanked by tender lies Crept inside the edge of love’s embrace And pushed the first frightened teardrop Over the unprotected edge of the dream Into the rivers that burgeoned, streamed down The faces we once recognized; faces that Reflected each other’s agony and ecstasy Before they became too wet and all the Beautiful colors ran together into a
Abstract, desolate, grey, rainy landscape. Water color paintings left out in the rain
That bear no resemblance to what they once were.
Lies, more poisonous than deadly snake bites, More painful than a thousand tarantula stings, Turn the sweet emotion of love into sour milk. Unthinkable becomes done and it’s undone. Undrinkable causes a constant craving of thirst As the heart dies in a wicked web of burning lies.
There are no oasis’ to be found on this Deserted plain of tarnished triumph
That once held the promise of pristine victory. There are no white lines or highway signs In the darkened sky above that blankets us. Torn asunder, we became the crippled vow of A star dusted dream that lost its way.
I am handcrafting a basket of linen and tears To house and carry all my heartaches in.
I will climb that bright green crane across the street Amost touching the pale blue sky it’s reaching for. I will hook my handcrafted basket atop it with care And kiss each teardrop and heartache goodbye Before I let go of these lies forever.
Candice James
It squeaks in on little mouse feet,
On tiptoes, through the splintered
Glass littering the landscape of my mind. It threatens to bleed on my sanity,
So I destroy it with an elastic anguished Emotion I borrowed from a tiger I cornered.
As I furtively survey this littered landscape I spy a canoe over on the gleaming grassy bank. I know I should paddle upstream in it
But the current seems too swift now.
In the distance I think I can hear
The whisper from a waterfall I once
Danced with in a silent midnight dream.
I thought I caught a glimpse of you
Drifting and drowning near the rocks
So I ran to the canoe, jumped in, trying to Get to you; Rescue you; Save you.
There was a look of desperation in your eyes That I had never seen before as you reached Out, arms flailing, gasping for life.
I stretched out the scarred, birch paddle while Trying to steady the canoe as it labored, Rocked and rolled to the river’s thunder. You lunged for the paddle and pulled me Into the raging undertow with you
So you wouldn’t have to die alone.
Now we sleep the endless sleep inside Each other’s dreams and trade all our Secrets until we become the secret.
It squeaks out on little mouse feet. No longer a threat. Sanity is dead. The last vision to pass before my eyes The cornered tiger, crouching, springs.
NAKED LEAVINGSCandice James
Love is like virginity.
When it’s gone it’s gone,
Almost like it never was;
No lingering traces of tenderness Lurking in the corners of the heart; No unrehearsed sweet nothings Perched upon the lips; wings clipped. Only a foggy dank cemetery
Littered with weathered tombstones.
Lust is like fire.
When it’s burned out it’s burned out, Almost like it never flamed;
No more fever of the soul
Racing through the mind at breakneck speed; No more aching in the heart
To touch the flesh of another;
No more desire to become lost
Inside the dreams of the beloved.
Only an empty unattended fireplace
Strewn with ice cold ashes from yesterday.
Heartbreak is like a fatal wound. When it arrives it is always by surprise. It’s something you don’t see coming; Always cloaked in deception
Hiding under the skin of a lie;
Always armed with a sharp razor
To make the heart bleed more profusely; Never a flesh wound that heals quickly But a semi murder that leaves an open wound.
Through invisible emotions and naked leavings.
NET OF DELUSION
Candice James
I gave my head a shake,
Cleared out the cobwebs
And looked back in forlorn dismay On the littered landscape of my life; Filled with emotion; Filled with strife. Harmony was the ever elusive butterfly I tried so desperately to catch
With my torn and ripped net of delusion. Always a caterpillar in the punch
Never quite able to cocoon on its own. So many legs and yet such a slow walker. So many stories and such a low talker.
Ah well, the language of Tutankhamen Is not lost only on the lost souls of drink. It’s lost on the druggies and addicts Who try to construct pyramids out of Grainy gauze and broken toothpicks.
Some eyes have a blank, hollow stare. Some eyes have danger reined in loosely. Some eyes have no hope whatsoever, But once in awhile you gaze into eyes That permeate the darkness and lay open Secrets that have been hidden too long. These are the eyes that guide angels
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