A mixed bag of poems

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