Glass

We used to feel like one,
A name spoken of two parts;
Him my dragon,
I his heroine.

But then another sound clouded us,
Broke the rhythm.
I used to waltz,
but now the beats aren’t even,
Him dancing from my grasp;
gasping that new name,
Doubled on the floor
by himself,
Our house become a theatre.

Truth’s a different kind of medicine.
I ask him if he’s had enough.
“No,” he groans, folded over and over
into that strange embrace,
mouthing his graceless catechisms.
“No,” again, he mutters, “never enough.”

And it is never enough,
As he becomes the hunger,
Too deep inside, where I can’t touch him
Through a pain of plain glass, thicker every day.

No, not enough,
I’ll never be enough.
I’m in a dry place, withering alone;
If I enter that embrace I’ll never find him,
and be lost myself.

Time tightens a spiral grip,
and I’m slipping, weary of the lonely ache,
until I think:
Only diseased limbs feel no pain.
Time for surgery.

The first two times I performed this, I got a hissed intake of breath from the audience at the last line - way beyond what I was expecting...!

This one’s been through a few iterations, but still remains a good “introductory” poem to people who don’t necessarily like poetry...

I Hope I’m (in) Clover

Some people are like the plants
the gardener never intended.
And I mean that in a
whole host of ways.

Like the bright-tongued
dandelion people.
Putting down roots deep in
Other people’s pastures
Networking on every breath of wind.

Bramble folk sprawl, broad-shouldered
Laughing sharply at attempts to move them
Shifting to block your way
At every turn.

Still others lurk on the borders
Pale and weak-looking,
No barbs or stings, just a quiet rustling...
And yet every day... There are more of them...

I knew a woman once like rosebay willowherb
Thriving on the sites of disasters
Softening sharp shrapnel edges
With a laugh like a flamboyant velvet splash.
Incongruous purple boa
Among the widow weeds.

 

This, like “Breath of the Soul”, was written for the live event surrounding the James Lee Byars exhibition (see that post for details).

Turning Point

And so the longest day of the year sped by
Lifted on the smiling backs of gulls
And tugged on by the breeze that graced us
There on our hill, watching the sky wheel overhead.

My flesh still warms to that sun’s caress
on your skin.
My smile still remembers your hand -
Heavy with the softness of you.

There was a kite
And the crash of surf below us.
There were distant shouts,
And the brief, wet nose of a questing dog.
There were the scents of crushed grass
And your hair - spun glass on the breeze
Reaching out.

I’ll swear we passed a lifetime there,
In that echoing day that rushed past us,
Taken on the tide of words spoken
And words silent.
And I’ll swear at the last your dandelion breath
Puffed the summer stars into the hushing sky.

The force that pricked them through it
Pushed me to my back
Where the earth gently gifted me the day’s heat
And I, awed, wept for it all
Two tiny tears I hid in hayfever.

We left before the night grew cold.
And you believed me.

The bedrock of my soul
Still gives back the heat of that day
I only have to close my eyes
And I’m half-blinded again by midsummer sunlight,
Lost in the place of the new colours
Seen obliquely by the sun through your eyes.

I cannot remember one word of that day.
Not even your name.
And so its treasure is secure.
High on its everlasting hillside.

This poem was one of a set commissioned for “Bardcore” to be written for the James Lee Byars exhibition in Milton Keynes Gallery as a result of being commissioned as part of Poetry Kapow to write and perform poetry for an open arts event at the Gallery run by Lost & Found. The piece that particularly caught me was “The Breath of the Soul” (a large, hand-carved sphere of white marble) and the direction of the piece developed, I’ve no doubt, as a result of a friend passing on.

The Breath of the Soul

The breath of the soul is flawed,
Scored with all the indentations that caressed,
That brought it here, that made it what it is.

The sigh that is stone rolls, as it must
Making tracks, as it goes, in the dust -
Black and white and, later, gold.

The essence of the stone is the groans heaved
In its weaving, the sweat poured,
The flesh and blood beaten against its surface,
The heart worn with each sharp stroke
Shaping the whole, bestowing grace,
Carving a face into this change of nature.

And when the last stroke is taken,
The stone rolls to the centre of the room
Where all turns on its axis for a while.
A sweet and bitter while.
Until time passes and dust falls,
Changing its shape again, softening its shadow.

For perfection is in the making
And when the breath stops...
The sigh is still.
And all that is left of the stone
Are the tracks that it made as it passed
through the dust of a world
Which keeps on turning.

I wrote this one on the fly on a disastrous day culminating in an “interesting” gig in Coventry. True story, all of it. Yeesh...

Tinpot Luck

It’s one of those days
Written out like fate
Can’t be anything but late
My only talent is to knock.
And drop.
And break.

My confidence unravelled
over every stumble,
Humble, braced, yet
unprepared,
lacking any grace
and out of luck.

And just to top it off,
The toilet’s out of paper.
Fuck.

’nuff said.

Written after attending the February “Raising The Awen” - the Love Special...!

in darkness

If you’re seeking guidance this month,
look up.
Venus lights the sky;
a wet and naked,
full-grown birth set to music,
dancing to the waves’ order.
A name to bind the cruel,
moist, hardening fire;
the dark, organic cleft beneath the
marble lines of Governance.

From this insistent voices issue,
prophesying ivy to twine
around those columns,
birds to nest in gap-toothed roofs,
and those stiff lines softened,
broken and concealed
by weather, theft and newer gods,
whose love is spoken differently.

As you travel, you will find that
Names can be slippery.
Fly North across the iron-cold ocean
Where these waves crash heads and
foam at the lips;
follow Loki’s light -
a spear thrown across the sea
to bring ash and blood spurting
from a lust for gold and screams.

And further yet,
In another country,
that bright, consuming mystery
has yet another name.
For love of freedom,
Lucifer ignites the eastern sky.