Windfall
I have grown old;
A shrub turned
tree
Now lost in the
forest of itself,
Where dreamed of
maidens wandered,
Where fires were
built
And the heat was
squandered
On vast star-filled
skies
In a universe
that was at a tilt.
Now the fruit
has fallen to the flies.
I have grown
cold,
The branches
without a single leaf
To cover what was faith, what was belief.
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,
after
the pyrotechnics
l am
after the pyrotechnics shattering the enamelled sky shards of colour and
sound the choreographed embers flying the old year going up in flames and
cheers resounding the banging of drums has finished the drunks gone to their beds
the animals still paralysed with fear
then there
is the silence
the
darkness embedded with mica
the breath
held like a stopped clock
the faith
in something new replacing the old
and the
weight of what has gone lifted rising
only to
fall again softly like rain
like the unsummoned
light coming
the healed
sky
 |
…
your you
I once joined a queue of me’s
waiting at the ice-cream van
hundreds
and thousands
we were all
Mr
Whippy
staking a claim on the future
a 99
claiming a stake of the past
chocolate
sauce
unwrapping the present
crushed
nuts
broken wafers
strawberry
sundaes
melting
?
You tell me
Your me
is as valid as mine
your you
Glaucoma
Eyesight’s going ...
Each year the lenses thicken
To unscramble the flurry of words
Either read or written;
A discursive Morse Code:
Pictograms, hieroglyphics,
Tattoos, graffiti, facebook, woad.
Though looking back seems clear enough,
If you don’t stare too hard
At all the peripheral stuff.
But one always glossed over the small print,
What the packet really contained:
Those illegible, inedible ingredients.
Still, it’s in the failure to deliver
That life takes our measure,
That and in the unsuspected depth of the
mirror.
Yet, finally, the future’s focus is tight
On the oncoming darkness –
The tunnel at the end of the light.
Legacy: Take 1
In the scheme of things,
I go first:
fall off, pass away,
drag myself out,
leaving you with the job
of grief, resolution, euphemism,
platitudes and clichés;
the coming to terms with ...
this thing we call love:
the failure that is wrapped
in good intentions,
ribboned with guilt
(you’ll have turned away first -
a sleight of hand, a slight -
into another life,
leaving me
blind-sided).
You’ll understand one day,
when in what you believe
is your own life
you slip from its fingers
and you’re caught out,
not waiting
for the impact,
not remembering
how it comes in
sideways,
then remembering,
as it does;
reminding
you of me,
of us.
Touché, you’ll say.
And smile ...
And ... cut!
