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    Purple Haze
    Purple Haze
    Purple Haze
    Ebook137 pages42 minutes

    Purple Haze

    By Candice James

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Purple Haze purports to describe "nondescript days" but that's just a poetic haze that subtly brings the reader to this poetry's real clarity, which is its ability to pose questions. These poems situate the "I/You" of the lyric's spoken voice in a passionate, sometimes erotic, interrogation of imagination and feeling that is looking for answers. The echo is palpable while Candice James sings "'Scuze me" while I write these poems.
    – Fred Wa, Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate 2011-2013 and Officer of The Order of Canada

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLibros Libertad
    Release dateJun 20, 2014
    ISBN9781926763316
    Purple Haze

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      Book preview

      Purple Haze - Candice James

      Stone Soul

      Your heart is too brittle for loving.

      Your teachers were too drunk with wine

      To lead you to wisdom…

      Your jazz riddled song,

      A suspended chord,

      Abandoned before it began.

      You never heard

      The taste of my hunger

      Or hungered for my taste.

      You touched me with second hand fire

      But still I lingered and languished

      In the left over embers

      And savoured the burning.

      Strangers in all ways but one,

      I wash over you in passionate waves

      And soak you in my hunger

      With a tension that bends desire

      From grace into fury.

      I fall through myself

      Into your loose embrace

      Hoping for a soft landing;

      But your heart is too brittle for loving.

      I lay wounded amongst your scars

      Trapped in the stone of your soul.

      Angular Circles

      The days pass by in angles and circles,

      Jagged edges and smooth trails

      As I travel to somewhere,

      Losing this,

      Misplacing that,

      On the way to tomorrow.

      Highways, roads, pathways

      Leading toward,

      Leading away,

      Travelling blind

      Through back alleys of disguises

      In a shape shifting landscape

      Of microcosmic errors.

      I journey on

      Through diminishing years

      Recalling smiles and tears,

      Days of roller skates wagons and bicycles

      Riding full circle back to myself

      On the broken wheels of yesterday.

      In this moment of grooved silence,

      My indulgences and iniquities rise up

      In shredded flags of unconditional surrender:

      Mistakes,

      Roads not taken,

      Memories I never made

      Still haunt me.

      I wander the angular circles of my mind

      In a never-ending maze.

      Sometimes I see you there,

      And I smile through a tear.

      Nights and Moons

      My feet pressed nights and moons

      Into passionate poems,

      Whispered through the lips

      Of a hard edged star

      That shone your kiss into my face,

      Slapped my ink into words,

      Glued my page to that moment.

      Mesmerized and speechless

      To the twenty-seventh degree of fascination

      Your arms encircled me

      And pressed nights and moons from the sky

      Against my heart,

      Against my breath,

      Against my death.

      Moments…

      There were moments like these

      Disguised as blessings

      Before we ripped off their masks

      And laid their bare bones

      On the sacrificial blaze of doubt.

      Our hearts grew cold.

      Years dissolved into days,

      The days into seconds.

      The moments burnt out.

      And now,

      My feet press nights and moons

      Into stone cold poems:

      Bittersweet like lemon frost;

      Stinging like deep forest needles;

      The flavour and texture of tears.

      Signature

      On the road to Hope,

      I gaze through the passenger window.

      Trees pass by

      Ink blots, blurs of green,

      Smeared against the sky’s  gray blouse.

      Unframed paintings of moving still life.

      Monet dreams dreaming

      Ushering an early dusk

      Into nature’s  low lying, fog-encrusted theatre.

      I sit,

      Someplace between my signature

      And a half-written page.

      The waning fog

      Flows into the hard-edged corner

      Of a wayward star.

      I watch the world dim

      In slow motion fade out,

      As I sign my name

      To  another  day…

      Passed away.

      Phasing

      Hint of aftershave

      Laced with scent of sweat,

      Lusty mornings,

      Torrid nights,

      Our bodies waxing full

      Beneath a waning moon.

      The afternoons crawl in

      On caterpillar feet,

      Holding twilight at bay.

      The mid-day sun

      Melts the shine off this dream,

      Slides across an organdy sky,

      Creeps into the fading horizon.

      The day dissolves.

      Inside the knives of night

      We ready ourselves

      To carve a new legacy

      Onto the mirrored dark.

      With blended flame

      Of musk and lavender

      We stir the embers to perfection.

      Sated by our sensuous repast,

      Our bodies wane

      Beneath a moon waxing full.

      A Small Destruction

      We sat, as usual,

      Chilled

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