AMETHYST AND EMERALDS

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

AMETHYST AND EMERALDS

By Philip Cairns

Copyright 2010 by Philip Cairns

I placed a hunk of amethyst inside my mouth.
I thought it could cure me of Tourette’s syndrome.
It felt cool and delicious,
Like orchids in a crimson crystal vase.

I’m in love with amethyst.
The deeper the purple, the better.
I buy it by the truck-load.
Brooches, rings, pendants, uncut chunks.

I long for a really good tumble in the hay.
Sweaty, passionate, messy, sweet.
Devouring my partner like a rich bar of dark chocolate.
Slurping, gobbling and rolling around.

Diamonds cascaded from the ceiling of my bachelor apartment, one magical night.
They dazzled and blinded me, as they fell to the floor.
I almost choked, there were so many.
I know they won’t accept them at the grocery store.

Tumbled semi-precious stones, every colour of the rainbow,
Sit inside 2 glass pyramids on my kitchen table.
My psychotic ex-lover might get coked up and smash them to bits.
Thank God I only see him once a year.

Art covers the walls of the actor’s tiny co-op.
Watercolours, coloured pencil drawings, acrylic paintings, photographs.
If he were rich, it would be works by Monet, Renoir, Dali.
No matter: it’s great to support Canadian artists.

Richard Burton loved to buy exquisite jewels for Elizabeth Taylor.
A king’s ransom for every stone imaginable.
Emeralds, rubies, citrine, jade.
Diamonds drip from her like a waterfall.

Most artists struggle and starve.
Working boring shit jobs, on Welfare, teaching.
Still, they churn out their magnificent art.
Nothing stands in their way: only the inner critic tearing things to shreds.

I’m an ass man.
I adore a hard bubble-butt.
Silky and smooth as a baby.
It’s like eating watermelon on a hot, stifling summer day.

If I commit suicide,
I might come back as a diseased baby in Africa,
Dying of malnutrition.
Better to stick around here and face the daily battle.

My beautiful piece of finely cut amethyst
Sits in a delicate, carved gold setting.
Wish I knew when or where the brooch was made.
My heart quickens every time I look at it.

As you get older, you get to know your doll frame body so well.
What it likes, doesn’t like.
What it needs, can live without.
If you could read my mind, you’d slap my face.

Bury me in a coffin full of chunks of raw amethyst.
Throw in some sapphires and quartz crystals.
Burn me on a funeral pyre in Varanasi.
Then scatter my ashes to the sea in Hawaii.