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Poetry
Poetry is the story of my soul
in her own words,
told, untold,
retold and then,
told again,
forwards, backwards,
roundabout,
fleshed out
and then skinned,
as seen from the stars
or the hollow of my heart
until I like it,
better.
Repeat.
Be tired more
Be tired more,
be heavy, helpless in your wanting,
be ready for the blue words, like ‘thus’ and ‘forget’,
be a somnolent inkblot until you’ve sulked all your heart out to the last lick of blood.
Be tired more,
be lost in the innermost swirl of your soul,
be free to the bone, drift in and out of your lists and languishes,
be in the wrong place and then, in the wrong place again.
Be tired more,
misplace things for a reason,
a season.
Be tired more,
and thus,
forget.
Picking brambles
My hand weaves past the leaves, past
fruit still spring clean green with knobbly ears,
past a blushing pair of heads leaning
cheek to cheek in coy excitement.
Then, the prize.
I hold the whole of summer gently pinched
between the soft tips of my expert fingers.
I pluck plump, silly days and sultry nights.
Sun, moon and stars, I pick the past, the future.
Just a berry.
Fragile and sparkling in the deepest black.
A world.
The theory of everything.
The phone call
Sometimes,
in that sweet spot
when days fall off cliffs
and souls can wander on any given cloud,
we chat forever.
Neither of us rang.
We meet out of time,
I’m five, I’m twenty, fifty one.
I hear you smile patiently,
as my heart leans against yours
for a goodnight kiss across worlds.
Then, the alarm goes off,
lights on, and the line is dead.
We, however,
we’re still smiling.
Easier time
Easier time
withdrew
into the curl of a fist
with seedlike patience.
Sooner, soon,
roots and shoots
would sprout flowers, fruit.
To like the warmth
was an odd, seasonal game.
A fickle tick forever rules
the stocky tock
with stubborn precision.
One moment’s peace
tastes of earth,
blood and honey.
Autumn truths
Summer lingered long, never took.
Light spilled, sat easy, asked for a truce.
Now, laughter darkens, learns to wait.
A season peels off trees in golden ochre, bloodred, rust.
Eyes roll, all colours whisper, no intention of remaining.
‘Hear me’, the caught leaf sings, pinched between two fingers.
I close my fist.
The faintest heartbeat stops.
The sailing boat
The sea takes a swig at me.
I rise and fall,
naughty waves tickle my belly unashamedly,
then slap me in the face.
Dreams sting forever.
I like it rough.
I breathe freedom
sandwiched between elements,
a traveller,
bobbing for adventure,
not meant to be anchored, chained.
Let me be.
Catch of the day
I catch the last of the evening sunshine,
let the day sink into a warm orange glow.
A burning star paints pictures on my soul,
a version of today, the story I will own
and tell to whom it may concern tomorrow.
I make peace with the colours I missed.
Never managed to squeeze in turquoise,
or aquamarine, I seemed to have skipped
the blues, left my rainbow incomplete.
Vehement, self assured red melts into
a youthful peachy pink, I can smell joy.
I catch the last of the evening sunshine,
let stardust rain on me and time disappear.
Summer then
The memory comes uninvited and swallows me like a fly.
Here it is, the reckless infinity of my childhood summer.
Clocks hadn’t been invented yet, what for? It was always
the right time and we didn’t need numbers to know when
to meet, play, swim, explore. Warm wheatfields crossed
and crissed the place, their dry spikes nodding in approval,
their beards tickling the back of my knees and I sneeze,
even decades later. I’m holding a chocolate ice cream,
nothing else could stain me so beautifully. Such a pity,
beauty melts into a sticky trickle and grudgingly runs
down my grubby fingers. I lick them cleaner. Everything
tastes of deep brown sugar mixed with soft silly sweat
and the iron tang of knees that were never seen whole
for the entire season. I’m dressed in the tug and squeeze
of last year’s clothes outgrown and step into the ghost
of shoes never worn. My feet plough through a velvety
cushion of grass, clover and dandelions. Nobody ever
went on a holiday back then. Why on earth would they?
Abroad started just outside my front door. The memory
slips away, spits the fly out onto a grey paving slab,
the concrete of my garden path, now. I can still taste
chocolate ice cream with all the mismatched sprinkles
of a childhood summer stuck on it like stubborn freckles.
Summer was big and gritty, even the dirt smelled fresh.
Everything, everywhere and no worry. I was summer then.
Pondering
Reeds and rushes, we,
like moorhens, whisper
red billed truths through
debris and duckweed. Reflections
of our freshwater hearts
flash white and echo
the bottom of our soul,
forever present, forever secret.
Sitting on a shingle beach
The soft, secret murmurs of resting heartbeats
trickle gently through cobbles and flow into the sea
with the inexplicable ease of necessity. Waves
come and go, their greedy tongues dart in and out,
licking pebbles, melting sandcastles. Water and life
take no hostages. Sleeping stones echo the whispers
of a past as I balance my soul on top of these rocks
and stare into faraway future horizons. I watch all
my hard-earned ballast break off, disappear lightly
into the humming beauty of a black shingle beach.
Odds & Ends - Poetry Blog 