Linnet Phoenix is a poet based in Bristol in the South West of England. She has been writing poetry for years. She also enjoys riding her Icelandic horse in the countryside.

The Monkey Puzzle

The rainfall is softer this morning.
I don't know what that will mean.
That the clouds took pity a while,
that the dirty rubber mark sky lied.
 
The monkey puzzle stands resolved,
accepting of its alien abduction life.
Its height speaks of a secret history.
The tales it could tell ring deep.
 
I wonder how deep the rain shadows
fall from the witching hour dark peaks.
Do eagles dream of what ocean floor
might be, if they could fly under water?
 
And if I spoke to spell the words aloud, 
would my black boots be ruby slippers?
If this tornado carried me over the bow,
would you show me, how to find home?

Salted Caramel

I open up the dark dust-free covers
to find a crisp, snow white light sheet 
greeting me with your wily wise words.
Lying sly spread out, neatly
tied up in magic maiden metaphor.
 
I let my inner eye slide slowly over,
appraising and admiring across it all,
then tugging threads gently to undress.
The first stanza is now shorn shirtless, 
with muscles hard ripped of any rhyme. 
 
You carry me easily in rhythmic sound. 
I kiss words salty spoken with lips wet,
follow with trembling finger tipped line
along clavicle curve to cheek, rest down 
on a treasure chest, feeling for heartbeat.
 
Pump pulses in punctuated palpitations, 
rising uneven as lines undulate under
emotions growing entwined, grafted in
carnal comma breathless end stops.
A naked normality looks newly backlit.
 
Your sweat tastes of a salted caramel
bursting on tongue-tingling taste buds
to lose ourselves in ink formatted meld.
At the point of performing a volta, flipping
us over, we continue page curl cavorting. 
 
Inside the literary loquacious dream tide
this orally orgasmic overload, in written
code draws smoke like Audrey Hepburn
in Breakfast at Tiffany's. I lie backwards
pillows ploughed in pages now furrowed.

Wasting Time

He tells me I am queen of doing nothing.
I used to protest against the slippery slur.
 
But nowadays I lean back with a sun beam. 
It seems this garden in my mind is grand.
 
If procrastination tastes of vanilla cheese 
cake, then I am lazily licking that spoon.
 
The words will come if I tease just enough
so eyes slant shut, peripheral vision used.
 
I consider my imagination travel choices, 
swimming rivers to climb those mountains. 
 
But ever returning to this shady glade seat,
leaning in the faux silence of pen scratch.
 
This tree trunk is so comfortably gnarled 
as if long planted in the knowledge of us.
 
Sure as dusk falls, dawn rises in rotation. 
The world will keep on turning without us.