The Flow of Light

 

The flow of light

 

There’s little time for us now

now that your life is beginning

beginning to take shape

to be shaped by other hands

hands held shaken   kissed waved

waving goodbye a train taken

a leave-taking tunnels and bridges

arriving at destinations

unforeseen departures stations off my map

away from the backwater of my life  

the flow of light beckons

the dissolution of vapour trails

in frail blue skies

the glint of the sun on the tracks

carried away like a wave

the now taken out of sight

lost to a bend in the river

no looking back now

a shadow falls

 

the sun also rises

Decaocto

Decaocto or how long – a story of fate

 

Sunlight sliding through a window

a universe of dust motes

busy as atoms colliding

a door left open 

a collared dove calling

 

on the kitchen table  

a cup of coffee cooling -

the faint tracing of steam

unspooling in fragrant air -

a piece of string      a knife

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moirai

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_collared_dove

Alecto

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 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alecto

deep water

it is deep water   it is shallow

 

language is a puddle

a clean white cloud condensed

dirty water reflecting sky

 

a swimming pool   the light all chopped up

the echoes   public fun   chlorine and piss

the shared privacy   the shower taken

 

the sea too   all that surface    the light dancing

the fetch   the crests   the troughs   and below

the continental shelf   rip tides and undercurrents    

the imagined sharks   the all too real shipwrecks   then

 

the melting icecaps   the far-off shores             distance          

 

the polar bear tiring   the muscle of life giving out   sinking slowly drifting down

into the mind’s dark telescope   silently as if the sound were turned off

yet leaving some residue of suffering in the empathetic ear   not quite heard

not quite a scream    not quite a prayer      not quite the word   

Lifeboat

  

Lifeboat

 

It’s letting in water

So he bails    a glass at a time

Not enough to slake his thirst

 

If only there were more time …

 

Lives flash before him

It’s so much of the same

And it takes so much time

 

He hoovers in the meantime, humming

Whistling whilst he mops the floor, rubs at the stains

Elbow grease and Radiohead

 

If only he were a stronger swimmer …

 

He’s killing time  

Betrays his wife and child

Calls the office and his mother

 

If only they’d pick up …

 

He’s up to his neck in the water

On his knees   He tries to pray   to sing

But he doesn’t know what boat he’s in  

panto

 

panto

 

taking centre stage

you hold the knife

to your own throat

take yourself hostage

demand a loss of life

if we don’t pay out

it’s just a laugh  

oh, no it’s not

it’s a party trick  

oh, yes it is

saw the lady in half

can’t see anything

the tears in my eyes

the audience upstaged

cries   sings

she’s behind you

 

I grip the blade

we all bleed

Dark Matter

 

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