secret
i held you in my hand
like a russian doll
……………..excavating layer by layer
riding the curves
——-……..with my forefinger
the sac below my penis
……………………………………….aching heavy
bruises bending down my veins
your eyes ……………………..flirting with the tenderness
………………..of my throat
i have lived ……………………and you have lived
……………….but this is living
late october
the clocks go back tonight
…………….i’ll watch those hands
go round and round ‘till midnight comes
…………….take us all back to yesterday
with a simple twist
………………………….of plastic
there’ll be no knocks at my hunk of pine
no rattles at my venetian blinds
no tapping at the window panes
……………………….or vibrations on my phone again
……………………………………..and again and again
nothing but
the night and i …………………………..like old lovers
unfolding …….relapsing …….remoulding
the crescent midnight moon
enthroned
…………….high above the rain
craving
your eyes
open up before me
like doors
…………..to something possible
..
Paul Robert Mullen is a poet, musician and sociable loner from Liverpool, U.K. He has three published poetry collections: curse this blue raincoat (2017), testimony (2018), and 35 (2018). He has been widely published in magazine, journals and anthologies worldwide. Paul also enjoys paperbacks with broken spines, and all things minimalist.
Twitter: @mushyprm35
Magazines/E-zines/Journals/Anthologies published in:
Allegro, Anti-Heroin Chic, Barren Magazine, Bees Are Dead, Bending Genres, Black Bough Poetry, Blossom In Winter, Bonnie’s Crew, Borderlines, Cephalo Press, Cleaning Up Glitter, Constellate, Crossways, Decanto, Dodging The Rain, Dreamcatcher, Eunoia Review, Fevers of the Mind Poetry & Art Digest, Fire, Four X Four, Ghost City Press, Heron Clan, Last Exit, Light Through The Mist, Mojave Heart, Poetry Pacific, Panning For Poems, Pendora, Selcouth Station, Silk & Smoke, Streetcake, Sub-Rosa, The Canon’s Mouth, The Fictional Café, The Fiction Pool, The Foxglove Journal, The Interpreter’s House, The Journal, The Mark Literary Review, The Pangolin Review, Three Drops From A Cauldron, Turnpike Magazine, Words For The Wild, Wellington Street Review