M.K. Lee's Blog: Telling Tales, page 19

The Sea

Crash and crest and crash and crest, and so it goes on. Waves, lapping at the beach and tasting samples of the sand that it needs to feast on. Stripping it away in thick salted licks leaving seaweeds and periwinkles in its place. The Sea takes only what needs to be taken, then replenishing with offerings that cannot replace but can enhance what life is already there. Shards of shells glisten and twinkle in the sunlight as canny-eyed seagulls swoop down to feed on what is left behind. Crash a...

No Pardon

There is darkness snared around your heart.
I think I left it there when I led you astray, to sin.
I ask not for pardon, nor the chance to restart,
I cannot return to a place where I did not begin…

Read the rest in Shades of Me 

Shades Of Me

A short collection of poetry based loosely around the theme of colour.

Idiot

Two mousemats, a pendrive, a pack of those individually wrapped screenwipes Phil always forgets he has in the back of a drawer. None of these he’s really needed, though are the reasonable excuses Phil has come up with to go into the shop.

The first mousemat was genuine, soaked when his cat Arthur sent his coffee flying. The sweet smile and crinkly-eyed teasing of the shop assistant Lucas behind the counter is why he keeps coming back.

“You know, you could just ask for my number,” Luc...

Bigger Life

I wield my mop like I’m preparing an ice sheet for a granite curling stone.
Melting the ice with curling broom tipped fire, to carve the stone a path home.
My lime green washroom brush scours tracks in the shower floor dirt;
I pretend I’m digging dinosaurs, Greek pottery, Celtic axes made of chert.
The pink rubber gloves that come up to my elbows provide protection
From isotopes, nuclear fusion reactor cores, mass spectrometer radiation.
In short, I dream a bigger life, instead of one that swallows me...

Stars

They say that the stars twinkling in the inky canopy overhead are dead to us. So hot that they shimmer. So out of reach that we can hold out our hands to them, finding nothing but air ticking our palms when we pull them back. They say, stars are much like aspirations. Bright, shiny dreams that will forever be unattainable, and long gone before we can capture them. Well what do they know? We are stars. We are our dreams. We are our own aspirations. We are inspiration, and we will light the wa...

I Am You, And You Are Me

The crackle of the record player with every spin of the disc hissing in the background, the muted orange lighting that bathes skin with a night time glow. Socked toes, catching on the tug of the cream carpet pile with every turn, the brush of cotton beneath fingertips, the feel of fingers spread low around a waist.

Soft hair from a bent head brushing over an already bare shoulder. Shirt buttons against skin with every exhale. Breath, calm, steadier than the heart thudding beneath bare che...

Almanac

It’s not that I’m giving up.
But when you change the goalposts
And have nothing left to say anymore,
The thought that I have most
Is resignation.
I’ve predicted that this day would come,
Like I’m a self-inflicting almanac
That foresaw one day, you’d be done.
I guess I kind of hoped
This meant more than silent retreat,
But it’s okay. I accept it wasn’t. That I’m not.
I won’t force what isn’t there to defeat.
I have grown cold with acceptance that
There’s no longer any interest here for you.
So this is where I ...

Gone

How is Oliver supposed to function now he’s gone?

The world is still there, but everything is different, like the air around him is waiting for Dean’s return. The clack of Oliver’s coffee cup against the kitchen counter rings far louder than it needs to, like it wants to draw Dean’s attention, evoke the teasing voice that used to follow about him being heavy-handed. The space in the shower cubicle now seems cavernous, pressing back in wait for Dean to step in behind him slipping his arms ...

The Forest

Bark and branch and trunk and twig and leaf and phloem. Trees are more than these component parts, as are we. Skin and synapse and cell and cilia and membrane and muscle; the sum of us. And we as people become communities, societies, civilisations. Yet we are not trees. We do not flourish if we are not forests. We do not grow taller by blocking out the light of others. We do not suffocate neighbours with our roots. And yet we do. Weeding out what is different, then fighting with ourselves fo...

Not Strong

I am not strong.
I seek out comfort in dark places,
Shrink back from looks on disdainful faces,
Because someone else wasn’t strong.

I am not strong.
I seek out rejection
In falsified affection,
Doing right by going so very wrong.

Well, fuck you.
For all those who’ve abused my trust
Dismissed my fears, provoked tears of rust,
You heard might right. Fuck you.

Don’t ever test my strength again.

© M K Lee

Shades Of Me

A short collection of poetry based loosely around the theme of colou...