Alecto in the
revolving door (an extract)
1
How many
years down the drain?
She’s on a roll
now, a roller coaster
All her past
clawing its way up the slope
Ratchet by
fucking ratchet
The disappointment
the bitterness the loss of hope to
Launch itself
into the present
She’s giddy with
it nauseous
The push the rush
the gush
Does it work
like that?
To “do the right
thing”
But to do it so
badly
Held to account
for unhappiness
Yours and mine
Dark Matter
I have tried to separate
your pieces
and to fix them
into a puzzle
that is the
puzzle of you
as if you are a puzzle
to be fixed
by finding discrete
pieces
discreetly
that form a
whole only to find
there are holes
where pieces do not
fit
or do so
inexactly more parts than sum
you or someone
dropped the mirror
and when you
peer in
it’s pure
Picasso the pain
There are spaces
not bridged gaps fissures
there are cracks
plates shifting
lack of seismic
control tectonic
irregularity
tremors and yet
you are
immovable and unstoppable
All this is
invisible
my antimatter
my Sagittarius
A*
sucking in all
the light
But this is just
science
and since it
does not cannot explain
nor can it paint
a picture of a weeping woman
I hold a shard
up against the light
to see its shape
wonder if this might be
a piece of myself
sharp
enough to make you bleed
warped by the
force of your gravity
tell them about love
I should say from the outset
that unfortunately the poet isn’t here today
he has some personal business elsewhere
and has left me to hold the fort
I’ve his scribbled notes hastily written
his handwriting leaves something to be desired
and as I recall he mentioned as he ran out the door
something about love about love he called
over his shoulder tell them about love
about how it runs out the door
about how it leaves you in the lurch
leaves you to hold the fort
with some scribbled declarations
apologies a code for accusations
an ellipsis the Morse for absence
ophidian and sibilant
and how finally
irrevocably
it runs
into silence …
Prognosis
The doctor shook his head,
The horizon’s coming after
her,
He said. He said,
It’s going to tip her off
this world -
Which, after all, is flat,
linear
When unfurled -
And take a part of your
world too.
Did you imagine that the
Coriolis
Effect was a fictitious
force?
Or that Achilles would never
catch up
With the tortoise?
That life was travelled
along a Möbius strip?
The TV’s on all day, playing
repeats,
A mockery of time passing.
She sits,
A bundle of sticks thrown at
her feet,
Too many to count, too few
not to number.
How much courage do you have
to muster,
Waiting, knowing, looking
over your shoulder?
Gift
Medea takes the lift
each floor a new betrayal
love’s knife sharp truth
across the throat
until there’s no one left
no one getting in no one getting out
no more hearts for sale
and now the doors won’t open
a lid on a box that is forbidden
and then the light goes out
so there are no walls no ceiling
only a floor she cannot trust
she might be rising she might be falling
she just might have disappeared
she puts a hand to her face
touches skin with skin
understands the weight of faith giving in
She’s Psyche perched upon the spire
waiting for the marriage beast
in the darkness for her husband’s breath
for Persephone’s beauty played upon a lyre
and she’s lost all hope of Pandora’s gift
she’s alone dissolving and becoming myth
she leaps upon the pyre
Love story
It’s deep in the water,
So I’ll need equipment:
Oxygen tanks, a mask,
A suit to keep out the cold,
A torch to light the way,
A lifeline either way,
A sharp knife, and
An excuse for failing,
For returning to the surface
Breathless and empty-handed,
A reason for standing in the shallows,
Bloodless and still flailing.
The bends
Love is surely the same for some of us
the seemingly original addiction to touch
and being touched the anticipation
the seemingly endless gratification
how everything is too little and too much
the spiralling descent into paradise
only to find the oxygen thin the lack of sky
So begins the slow tortuous attenuation of desire
then the raging ascent rising for a breath of air
and towards the end surfacing into endless ocean
with nothing or no one to grasp or cling to and
the blood fizzing in the brain and the bends.
Untenable
Here’s a puzzle
for you she says
and throws the
pieces in his face
They flutter
like confetti
take their time
to settle
half his face
a ringed finger
on a woman’s hand
something out of
focus in the background
She turns around
and leaves
righteous with
his imagined grief
He tries to
unimagine her being unbereaved
What of the end, Pandora?
Pandora returns
to the kitchen late one night
unsure of what
has brought her there
perhaps some
troubled dream
that still
haunts the 40-watt gloom
the lazy shadows
that line the walls like maps
she leans on the
back of a high wooden chair
and surveys the
room the unwashed dishes
littering the
table piled in the sink
the toys strewn
across the floor
a naked doll in
a shoe box
the fruit bowl a
study in decay
but beyond the
surfaces
and on a high
shelf at the back
behind a bottle
of Tesco’s whisky
is the jar the
lid still screwed in tight.
The next day,
sometime after two
in the garden on
the rickety table
she sets down an
apple the jar the bottle
and sits down
throwing off her shoes
she lies back
closes her eyes
can hear her
daughter singing the blues
as she climbs
the steps to the slide
she stretches
out her hand to catch at the …
and as her sleeve
rises up her arm
she sees the
tattoo just below her wrist
“Gods’ Gift” her
fingers pause …
Halfway through
the whiskey the apple gone to core
she picks up the
jar and puts it to her ear
wonders if it
will purr like Schrödinger’s cat
she hears the
beat of wings things borne
all that is left
when all else escapes
takes flight
flees a prisoner all but released
the dregs the
lees there’s so little air to breathe …
What of the
end?
She wipes the
earth from her hands
but the dirt has
been ingrained
she rubs at a
spot but it won’t come out
the stain the
prophecy the reading of the banns
the spreading of
the pall
will these
hands never be clean?
She empties the
last of the whisky
over the grave
and as the rain
begins to fall
she calls her daughter
from a game
all too human
considers the
torment of hope
Check out the following links
http://mural.uv.es/spricas/pandora.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat
It’s in a shoebox under the bed - still
She’s young here
a stranger to me
the photo
its moment of
happiness
excludes me
Young and happy
the picture captures
this
imprisons and endlessly
repeats it
still as Zeno’s
Arrow
Yet no one remembers
it
this deictic
moment this little death
It lives only in
the image
and what I now
bring to it
yet still the
wound
the piercing of
the heart
It’s all there is and then it’s gone.
Betrayal
There’s an
intimacy in blood:
A map of
his heart upon the wall,
The shape
of a country
She’d
thought she’d fully explored,
But now the
borders were closed,
For good.
She envied
the mosquito
That last
touch of his skin,
That kiss,
the taste of him.
The betrayal, the fall from grace;
With death, like a slap in the face.
Unhappiness (an extract)
John believed
that it lived in the cupboard
Under the stairs
with the forgotten
Boxes of
candles, and other odds and sods;
That there was a
redolence
Of mouse droppings
about it,
Or something
pissy and fishy;
That it was
silent and needed to be spoken to,
To be taken
outside, bashful and embarrassed,
Apologetic, and given
what for.
Janet imagined
it skulking around the attic,
A stranger in a
stranger’s house,
Rooting through
the relics of the past
With bony
fingers rimmed with dirt,
Releasing the
clasps of old suitcases,
Wisps of dust, looking
For something of
us to wear,
Swearing with a
lisp in the foul air,
Rank and
jealous,
As it hunted for
something holed and frayed
And reeking of musk,
Seeking a skin
to fill that had been flayed;
That it was
simply unspoken,
Touched (by intention) - an extract
Her boyfriend’s tongue,
Tipped with promises,
Penetrates her mouth,
Loosens, unbuttons,
Unbuckles her being;
She slides off the edge
Of herself.
She moves through the cinema
Of the world,
Where strangers faces
Matinee porno movies,
Eyes panning like sleamy hands
Running amuck amongst
The folds and fissures
Of her undressing.
Her husband has an access
To her body she denies herself:
The piercing and eating
Of her flesh;
A gift, a right, she believes
She has freely given;
An invitation to ...
A movable feast,
A candle-lit supper,
A take-away dinner,
Finger food.
The napkin of her skin
Glistens.
One day,
He’ll push the plate away.
