POETRY by Daniela Tamman

Getting Fixed

You take my breath away
With all the things
You never say.


What am I doing, you asked me.
I’m fixing something you broke.


Im ripping myself apart with a needle
And thread, while you have your smoke.


I’m trying to bring us back
To where we used to be
Before I fucked us up
I fucked us up for me.

But as I try to stop the cracks
To clear the debris away
You’ve stuck your finger through its heart
And refuse to let it fade.
You’re holding open the big black hole
That’s shredding us  down to bits
You wont forgive me, you wont forget it
You wont let me fix this rip.

The pattern 

The pattern I am just a one stitch
A one – stitch at – a – time
And there is just a one itch,
A one – itch and – Im fine.
But with you the weave goes on
Goes on and surely frays
Now here we are such tiny threads,
So surely parting ways.








Somewhere to stay 

I feel unglued, unglued by you
I am barely left, a bit
Nothing is attached to me
And nothing is left to split
Here I am in my hotel
My hotel of seven stars
Nothing is the matter yet
And Nothing travels far.
Here I am, quite alone
I have my hotel key
But when I tried the lock, this home
It dislocated me.
So I travelled far as well,
And tried to find my path
But instead I did find you
But you were just like glass.
When we fell, we shattered true
We shattered when we fell
But I’m left, and so are you
In pieces to peaceful to tell.









But I much prefer
When you make me sing
In the shower

Ways I use my voice

Sometimes you make me scream

Like a madwoman
At the top of my voice
I pull my hair
And I shriek

Others, I cry
Out your name

Winter

There’s something cold in winter
But its nothing
Of the wind.
Nothing of the icy breath of it
That chills me through my skin.

It is not the naked tree,
Shivering in spite
Billowing like a monstrous shape
And desperately clinging to the night.

Not the morning shards of grass
Blades as still as death
Frozen through the morning dew
And motionless as winter’s breath

Nor the robin disappeared,
From it’s tidy garden perch
The soundless morning over here
And fading paw prints of a hungry search.

It is not the bare and ragged space of gray,
Sparse with wispy clouds quite frail
Each like a bearded aging man,
As his moment grows unfairly pale

Not the muddy broken ground,
That has not a bud of life to burst
Not a pinch of colour left
Nothing but dead weeds fallen in the earth

Could it be the empty swing
That creaks and creaks in vain
Rusting oh so pitifully, in agony of rain
Cold wet drops that slither down
And harden at the heart
Nothing comes, and nothing goes
And yet what’s there just falls apart.




Both sides of the Window

Susie always looked to me
Just like a painted doll
Her glassy eyes, her rosebud smile
Each perfect curl placed just so.
And every day as I walked by,
I’d see her life play out -
I thought. She was contained inside
Her pretty little boxy house
With its pretty red painted tiled roof
And glass-paned window frames.
Not a smudge, no speck of dust
Could I see, peering through this window,
Tip-toed on the grass outside her home.

Her husband was a banker
She kissed him on the cheek each day
Exactly 8 o’clock
And when he came home again
Exactly 8 o’clock
Their love seemed so composed.
No up’s and downs, no fiery surges,
No passionate arguments.
Her children seemed well behaved.

Like clockwork she did the cleaning,
Took out the trash,
Did the ironing.
Her clothes were always clean and crisply pressed,
He always bought her a new dress
The same dress,
Just in a different colour.
She cooked every day,
And her table was laid
A-top its polka dot lace
Cute cupcakes, and bone china cups
Pies, quiche, and tarts
Golden roasts, stews, and more.
I could never quite catch the smell of it
It never quite passed the front door.

But after it was all done
Half way through the day
She seemed to look around, as if
She had somehow lost her way.
And with nothing left to do
And not enough to say
She took her seat beside the window
With a tea cup in her hand
And outwards she would stare.
Watching the world pass her by.
Sometimes, watching me too.
As if something distant had caught her eye
But much too far, and much too true.
And here, when the tea pot ran empty
She filled her cup with wine
And every drop that went down her throat
Seemed to well up in her eye.
But not a single tear she broke
And her wavering smile did not stray
But I almost saw each little crack spread
Across her face
As if to say
That something inside her chipped
Before she got up, and repeated it all again
Day after day after day.
But from the outside she seemed perfectly intact
Not unglued in any way
And this is the reason why, in fact
No body else could explain
Why poor Suzy fell apart,
To pieces; the abandoned china cup -
and a bullet that shattered her
Skull clean away.