Poems that pine for

As a child, I was always drawn to children with older siblings.

It felt like a ‘2 for 1’ deal.

You got the friend your own age, but you also got the worldliness their older sibling(s) had bestowed upon them. Often, this acted as solid frame for my own wandering waif of misplaced nostalgia. The vague memories I had of time periods say, like the late 70s, would become much clearer when in the company of these kids because they had been schooled in the era by means of sibling repetition.

One friend used to tell me, for example, how her brother would ring her up and pretend he was ‘Buzby’.

I loved that story because whenever she told it, my distant, fuzzy fondness for the cartoon, yellow bird was brought immediately to life as she gave it meaning and context.

At every family reunion funeral, without fail, my older cousins recall the time they persuaded me to take all my clothes off and climb into the horse trough. I remember none of this. Yet somehow, it has become embedded as family folklore I’ve absorbed, to the point I sometimes mistakenly adopt the memory as my own real one.

These poems are about the glaze we baste our past (and futures) in and the carcasses we pick at. The various ways memories emerge.

‘Pining’ is an interesting concept to me, the idea of dying of a broken heart seems to me a very bleak yet romantic death.

‘Hankering’ is another word I feel affinity with, it’s a more positive word just meaning a strong want or desire, yet so often is used in reference to something the person knows already. People hanker after tastes they miss, for example. ‘Hanker’ also leads me to think of handkerchiefs and how people would knot them to remind themselves of something.

‘Longing’ is another word I enjoy, the measurement aspect instantly revealing the size of the feeling. In ‘Take This Longing’ by Leonard Cohen, both mental and physical images combine to convey the ache of need as a hungry whole.

Of course, it goes without saying these poems are a tad depressing. I’ve accepted most of my poems are. Still, I remind myself it’s not all I am, is it? It’s just how that side of me tends to out itself.

I will give the meanings of the poems at the end. Photos my own.

Pressed Flowers

Our book of flowers fell open

Once more I was acquainted

With the crimson trounce of poppies

After innocence of daisies

Buttercups wheeled stories

Felt their pail of smile pour on me

Had to close the memories quickly

Like a country lady’s diary

Asked myself why gold must leave us

Have its shine and weight deceive

Why some blooms are tombs we bury

Why some hurried tombs unsealed

Into old fields, I went walking

Checked my dress and found rogue grasses

How I felt your presence gently

Cause some traffic never passes

People hang as wardrobed seasons

Nettle reasons sting as sore

Sometimes, petals clinging most

Time’s hands cared little for

On the surface you’ve forgotten

Seems you graze on us less often

But I knew you as a first dew

And that Spring has never left you

Octobering

Octobering is sobering

The plunging fall of Fall

September wept remembering

A summer’s golden mile

Spent my Venus spring time spelling

Potions made for Mars

Cauldron full of storytelling

Caution cast to stars

Half light outs the moon hare

Hiding in the hallowed fog

Stirs my shroud of foil to leave

Await December dogs

November last on Autumn list

The tumbledown now done

Winter canters in from mist

Assembling end to come

Pining

Word I need is ‘pining’

When your body aches for someone

When your throat, a valve, is closing

Then your eyes mist up as windows

.

Sometimes, a person’s with you

But they’re not the one you’re missing

Breathing, present, a spectator

Lost in films you cannot enter

Mouth betrays a feeling

Errant smile leaves loosened lips

Muscles move at sepia jokes

Then jolt…..it’s just a memory

Bolts from the blue or screws that tighten?

Wrenching ‘was’ and pinning ‘mights’

Out on the moor night after night

As flags are flown, you clasp your kite

How you clamber life, a zombie

Masking in your flesh and bone

Expressions spill confessions

But we ride ghost trains alone

.

Self-harm soul is gold dust mining

Bittersweet, intent on finding

Relic pearls that mock as wisdom

Fossil words you failed to give them

Jewel chats in arms of urns

Negotiating hosting genies

Rusted lungs of silence screaming

Landlords with no right to be there

Set the scene and l’ll come running

Love a chance to rake the coals

Dissect every happy outcome

Butcher long gone cold post-mortems

Hoodlums, bedlam, bedrooms, boredom

Car crashes? Let’s watch the reruns

Re-dig graves with pointed shovels

Nine lives worth of body doubles

.

Architects that dreamt of rubble

Wars that knocked and meant no trouble

Wells that couldn’t come together

Fickle trickles, never rivers

Screeching plates, they keep on spinning

Piles of laundry, cook the dinner

The gracious losing patience

As they’re jealous of a space you visit

Forgive me if I seem to be

Away with fairies you can’t see

My body snared by drifting trance

A shifting raw that makes no sense

Nostalgia called for one more dance

And I felt compelled to pine

Pressed Flowers

Pressed Flowers is about first love. The daisies representing the purity followed by the passion of red (poppies) and then the gold (love). ‘Petals that cling the most times hands care little for’ is acknowledging that some brief encounters stay in the heart more than a long relationship. Love does not recognise human ideas of measurement, it loves what it loves. The last part is the knowing that you may also someone’s first love. They will never forget you either.

Octobering

Was having a ‘smell the coffee’ day and that first line popped in my head. The idea of being in a daze then one day going ‘Woah!’. Then started thinking of the (popular, over used, I know!) idea of the seasons of life, youth as Spring etc. The line about Venus and potions made for Mars is about self image and in youth seeing oneself as ‘for’ the opposite sex, purposely cultivating attraction. I liked the idea of the older female as a hare both hidden by leaves (her wise woman qualities) but gradually becoming exposed to death (dogs). Moon (intuition) because she is now more self aware. I liked the sounds of winter and canter together, and also the image because people always say time speeds up as you age.

I like the photo because that telegraph pole always reminds me of a May pole as I pass it. When you pass it in Autumn and winter, that image takes on a dark, mocking tone.

Pining

Sometimes I smile to myself about something or a tell tale look comes over my face, and someone will pipe up “what are YOU thinking about?”. Often, you just don’t want to say because it’s your own little trip down memory lane/to fantasy island. Sometimes happy, other times not. I began thinking about the physical responses that so often accompany memories, how they give you away.

Structurally, I had fun writing this one, deliberately choosing couplets that both twinned or skipped a line, enjoying the gentle off key it created rather than a seamless ribbon rhythm. I did a similar thing with some of the words: ‘pining’, ‘pinning’.

“Bolts from the blue or screws that tighten” is a reference to how memories work, they can come to you instantly, or accompany you constantly like a prison guard, getting harder to bear. ‘Landlords with no right to be there’ is about those kind of people who think they own you.

Thank you for reading. Hope you found something relatable in there.