Poems of January reflection

My head continues to be in a place of introspection this week. I think it’s because it’s the beginning of a new year.

January is so demanding. If she were a friend you’d surely tell her to ‘piss off’. She bounds in, full of good intention like an over exuberant dog, but you’ve soon had enough.

“Go on - fuck off to your basket, I’m sick of your bastard enthusiasm now.”

Why do we put pressure on ourselves to make changes at new year? Perhaps it’s when we consider the grand sum of the previous one. We become ‘life accountants’, don’t we? Stacking up the achievements and the let downs.

For me, the thing I am proudest of is that I managed to go to the hairdresser - well my son’s Turkish barber - as I’d not felt able to go since I was about 12. The best thing I did last year, was by far my hot air balloon trip.

I won’t bore or depress you with the deficit column.

So yeah, when I’m in that place of reflection, all I can ever write is poetry. It pours from me like water.

Bathe with me in both ice baths and steam. Enjoy the bubbles, the oils, the rose petals I scattered……then shiver as it all disappears down the plug hole.

(Not really, cause that would be weird and besides, I only have a shower)

The parcel

I acquired a heavy parcel

Somehow ended up at mine

Guess I happened to be home

And stupidly…….I signed

Now, the ever present present

Is an obstacle of sorts

Between that, the future and the past

I’ve no room for other thoughts

I skirt awkwardly around it

Bump into it and fall

Suppose one day I’ll get used to

Us being stuck here in the hall

I knew I was in love

.

I knew I was in love

When passing sunbeams blew me kisses

Splintered glass turned into gems

Each well awash with wishes

Shy smiles slid from me, butter soft

To land in laps of strangers

Their eyes grew warm as cinnamon

Every crone revealed an angel

I hang heart-leaps in galleries

So I remember how it felt

My summer will come round again

I wait for ice to melt.

13, 28, 44

.

“I’d rather be dead than have years of this.”

I said

Must have been 13, 28….. 44?

Those times I sat on the edge of that bay

Crabs in my hair, nets tugging at my hips

I threw those thoughts like fish to sea

They swam as eels, puffed out their lips

I watched grey rocks defy the rules

That said they were not meant to shift

One day you meet somebody and

They’ll tell you that their child is gone

Etched upon their ashen face

Baby, 19, 31

The guilt you feel about those times

You wished that you’d be here no more

For they know only ghost birthdays

13, 28, 44

Never Met

.

The brightest star I never met

Eclipsed my dimming mind

His eyes will not let me forget

The sun I failed to find

But people are such fickle things

They switch like traffic lights

As butterflies they spread their wings

Leave empty arms and nights

Feelings fade like lemonade

Losing fizz left in the garden

And what’s an unpicked rose to do,

Except to rot or harden.

The Onion

.

I went to peel an onion

Trailed the softness of its skin

Wrapped like parcel paper

Around the strength it housed within

Flecks of green reminded me

Of seasons it had known

The bed of beading, velvet soil

Where tender layers had grown

Curves hung inside like silver doors

Deadened brown twists sat on the top

Its pure white centre made me cry

And so I had to stop.

I fattened up my angel

.

I fattened up my angel

So much so, she couldn’t fly

Rounder than a tubby wren

Too heavy for light sky

Shovelled in the heaps of ‘no’

Force fed her “why bother?”

Seasoned with a pinch of woe

And guilt reserved for mothers

Sometimes the angel looks at me

As if to say “you bitch

How dare you thwart my every thought

And fail to satisfy my itch”

I tell her to be patient

That one day we’ll soar high

She pulls her best ‘whatever’ face

I feed her most, on lies