camera

I capture immortality
in a flash and shutter
I, a small black box,
am not selective
I just size up what is before me
and show it faithfully
truthfully
I change as all things do
my ancestors caught time
a trait I inherited
and put in frame
they saw a world of color
but could only show it in black and white
after a flash and billow of smoke
thrown out in frustration
our style has changed
as much as the ones we capture
over time
a little preserved time
I am useful
and am proud the things I create
my children taken away from me
when they are developed
I feel a sadness
but that is all I'm for
I do have flaws
I turn my subjects to demons
with red eyes
what a skill to have
to catch time
or rather a time
I can catch the wind
it tosses the woman's hair
she takes out one of my children
a teenager of about fifteen
she smiles but not as she smiles
when I usually catch her
it is dimmer and her eyes strangely mist
I wish I could catch her now
but no one has asked
it is a shame
it may have been one of my best creations

© julie simonson 2009

the house

silence and loneliness
this house haunts me
and fills me with its empty rooms
and its cold air crawls under my skin
the furniture longs to be sat in
it is a living thing
breathing through the radiators
and its windows
tall eyes letting in light
with three almost Freudian
levels of consciousness
basement, main floor, and upstairs
yes, it has a personality
the chairs seem to shrink from me
the carpet creaks
it, too, tries to get away
and the doorknobs cower under my hands
alas I haunt this house
and fill its rooms with resounding silence

© julie simonson 2009

paper

I stare at you
and you stare back
at me
pupiless
but you have the whitest
sceleras I have ever seen
white but not a mirror
though you reflect everything
not sights but thoughts
mine
I put in you everything
I have seen and touched
and smelled
everything I have ever had
an opinion to
you wear them without bias
but change at a heartbeat
when I change mine
thin, white, and pupiless
aren't you an attractive thing
oh you are worthless
and I throw you away
and pick up your twin
or clone rather
and begin again
pray he fits my bidding well
or he shall lay next to you
and tell you all my imperfections
and you shall merely nod
you know them too
they are written on you

©julie simonson 2009

the lonely people

In a dark world of stars
there lives the wondrous planets
revolving about the sun
in such lovely patterns
weaving through lights and comets
and playing peek-a-boo
with each other and the stars
watching asteroids come and go
and stars die and form and pulse
such is the existence in the sky
such great spinning spheres
so a like and few in the universe
who smiles open mouthed with teeth of stars
what a lovely thing it is
around and around the immortal terrestrials and jovians go
seeing each other only a few times in many, many years
see and spin, see and spin
hardly to remember the last brief meeting
my how Pluto has grown cold and icy and small
shall Jupiter fall in love with Saturn in a short time of staring?
Shall Mars cross my orbit and say
“Earth was here” and pass sadly on?
Mars has no capacity to remember
or care about that blue-eyed planet
and Earth cares not that Mars is always a blush
they look, see and, at long last, turn away
and continue their idle, obsessive spin about the sun
their sun
their atmosphere, all their own
their orbit all their own
their seasons and storms all their own
so alone in all the stars and seas of dust
never stopping, no place to call home
just revolving happily, in a daze about the sun
a yellow ball, who also turns
life
oh all the lonely people

©julie simonson 2009

if i could but draw

If I could but draw you a picture of humanity
with delightful, majestic eyes, a little pained
and curly hair
and slightly flawed skin with wrinkles
(humanity is old, after all)
a fair, unreadable smile
and fangs
what wonderful white, sharp fangs

©julie simonson 2009

i am small; i do not cry

i am small
i do not cry
there has been time enough
to live
and to die
time enough
to make the web
you innocently come to
and I so innocently keep
not to trap
but to keep near
for I enjoy the conversations with
the gentle hum of your flaxen wings
and I embrace them
in silken threads
we hang there
with the silence
we wait awhile
I enjoy the stillness
it is not often one comes
to my corner of the world
well at least as often to get
my conversation
I am lonely after all
but I annoy easily
I wonder if your children
will meet mine
if we both live
to see the setting of the sun
our talk grows suddenly venomous
and the wing chatter
stutters and dies
there is time enough
for you and I
though yours is done
and I wait patiently on
for what I do not know
my tomorrows are all lined
up in a row
on one day I shall whither up
and die
that would not seem so bad
I am small
I do not cry
nor shall the world that bore me
and there will be justification
for you and I

©julie simonson 2009

but not today

but not today
says Dr Lector
the scenes replay in my head
I could quote them
the orchestra plays
the songs
and my mysteries
like why I do I always turn
when I hear footsteps
I suppose the answer is simply
wishing
my peripherals betray me