Something about this time of year but all I can seem to write at the moment is poems. I go inward, chastise myself for not being able to write anything more ‘out there’.
I feel myself digesting and reflecting, which is really in the spirit of the season as we approach winter. If you are similar, take heart that is the natural response to this, the time of oncoming hibernation.
Your bloom will return.
I called this “mixed bag of poems” because it covers a few different moods and various things I’ve been contemplating.
The knife of night
The knife of night
Hacks at my plight
With steel teeth of sharp
She oils silence into cries
To tune her violent harp
We’re given plates
Then watch and wait
As fate doles out our test
But spoons that ladle pools of June
Push forward with my best
Falling in love
Flames leap as freed spells. Competing gold and ruby arms pulling me under, deep down into his heat.
Fusion.
Embryonic Venetian glass melds into new shapes……Christmas decoration fawns that meet first snow with jewel eyes, their weak legs buckling to snapping barley sugar sticks. They’ll triumph back then bend as ribbons tend to gifts with velvet ‘o’s on bowing lips, before curving to form vases……smooth, translucent, statuesque, ripe to house bloom and nest all our summers.
To be smashed and made molten again and again…..breaking, at one, breaking, at one, breaking, at one…...scotch bonnet beads of rain, that bleed from pleading clouds, rolling like sweat down the manes of galloping beach horses, their hooves riding through my belly as they’re driven by the pull of moon.
The scrapbook of the world in a day - luminous, blazing, franked - pregnant paper-cuts of salted lime - posted just for me….all in real, real time.
We don’t deliver there
I’d wanted weekend newspapers
Back when we first moved in
The snap of Sunday letter box
Fresh ink upon my skin
.
Seemed such a grown up thing to do
Have the world pushed through our door
Tilting cups of filter coffee
Slippered feet on real stone floor
.
I went down to the newsagent
Told him where we were
The answer came back loud and clear
“We don’t deliver there”
.
Remember all the tester pots?
The stripes upon the wall
Licks of dreams scrawled thick as cream
In daubed Farrow and Ball
.
Our bedroom new, some duck egg blue
I bought a chandelier
Marvelled at the cut glass drops
Suspended crystal tears
.
I scattered beaded cushions
Staggered plumped up pillows
Laced strings of fairy lights in ‘warm’
Arranged floor vases of willow
.
Laura Ashley bedding
Ornate mirror, fluffy rug
Stems of scented summer stock
Propped in a vintage country jug
.
I thought I’d got it right
We wore time casual as denim
Conversation, music, books
Our home, a slice of heaven
.
But later in the year
Would come that awful Christmas Day
Told me there was someone else
You didn’t love me in *that way*
.
I peered at my giving body
You said you loved me ‘like a sister’
The salt of truth bled into sweet
A raw December blister
.
You insisted nothing happened
Said you didn’t want to go
But what you said stuck in my head
More than you’ll ever know
.
We carried on, we had a son
Chucked more twigs on to the nest
But something changes once you’ve seen
Yourself as second best
.
The eaves they grieved for love’s lost leaves
Never did get an easy chair
A simple phrase that plays and plays
“We don’t deliver there”
Sour Cherry Breakfast
Dawn erodes our tender cliffs
And so, arrives the day
Last remnants of our cherry scraps
A fleeting feast that cannot stay
I notice nice and ice in words
Hill tops of your crumbs
Rolled as peas to plates that tease
My awkward etiquette, all thumbs
Your coy and secret movie
Taunts with unplayed scenes
A flickered light shines way too bright
To ever leave my screen
My North, demanding answers
The South of me craves heat
The middle ground is bland and round
Your orbit incomplete
But every eve the angels weave me
Wings so we can fly
Returning home for cherry breakfast
Sour tears of truth stinging my eyes.
I should be over you
I should be over you
I know
.
Babies have been born
Kids cut first teeth
Old folk have died alone in chairs
Lain undiscovered for days…..
Yet here I am,
Hopeful as last vultures pick a skeleton
.
I tell myself……
Of all the coffees that have grown luke warm
Been swilled around dry mouths
Swallowed and pissed out
Flushed to sewers
That toddlers have dragged sprouts around ice rink plates with screeching forks
Ducks fed, prayers said.
.
Novels have been prised open, stiff as virgin legs, obstinate as oysters
Pages are parted, later discarded
Drunks have been ousted from threadbare dralon chairs
Seen glitter in green pears fruited from smashed bottle glass
Slurred sweethearts’ names in chaining rasp
Then begged for cigarettes to keep that tiny spark alive.
.
Christmas cards have been written in metallic gel pens
Dots and loops that smiling eyes translate as love
The bar is low
Handwriting seems such an effort these days
Wrestling squiggles, my ‘i’ stems bat balls to a future down the straight line
Crossing ‘t’s’ always feels
Like latching gates on snowy tracks
All to be displayed
As beds are made and bills paid
Games played.
.
Heating switched on,
Salad swapped for soup
Facebook tells of
Elves on shelves
First day back,
Who wore it best
Cleaning hacks
Soap opera plots,
Run out of salt
Stick washing going
Pour a glass
.
Houses sold and wars have waged,
Prime ministers gone, inflation surged
A Queen has died, a new King made
New year sales, Black Friday deals
In waiting rooms, patients watched fish in tanks
To calm their thoughts and fill their blank
But I was never empty
Because my brain buzzed FULL, FULL, FULL of you
Alarm clock ringing LOUD, LOUD
The constant face in every crowd
Poems penned
.
And this shit serves to trim my ends
My days, my nights, my long weekends
As marabou on some tacky cape
But it’s not life
There’s no escape.
Child
If I ever tire of you
Let me recount your tiny form
When as new lamb you settled best
On mother meadow fields of warm.
.
Remind me of your piper voice
That ferried purpose to my ear
Of how I’d gaze upon your chest
To watch its rise and fall appear
.
I’d scout your hair for glints of red
And mine the copper in your eyes
Clasp tiny hand…..most precious key
Invent you silly lullabies
.
Be patient as I gather strength
I know I often need a rest
Our grass has grown, your first fleece shorn
I promise I will give my best
Cool, I can pass on my email to Seraphina and she can pass onto you, I can then send you first draft next week.
Put wrong link on last message, this is direct link
https://soundcloud.com/canyonlands1/gra