bedtime story
the softness of
summer light
late afternoon early
evening
the way it
adheres to solid surfaces
the way it
emanates from leaf and tree
the way it
washes across the grass
the way it
gathers in the air
the way it
breathes like music
and if you
listen
the way it tells
your story
using only the
present tense
gilding the
moment …
then the way
twilight turns to dusk
turns to
darkness incomplete
turns to
starlight distance crossed
and so to sleep
Patience
Sundays
seem to come more often now:
The week a shuffled
deck -
Cut the pack and what do you get?
Another lonely day, after a week
Of lonely days, yet somehow
Longer, as if more silence had been
Wedged into
the gaps to stop the leak
Of violence.
Sundays - the
turning of the cards
And between
-
And the
slow wait in sufferance
For
Monday’s glib indifference.
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
the fallen
on the smooth surface
of the Icarian
Sea
a fisherman hauls
in his net
and shudders to
find yet again
waxy feathers and
fragile bones
swimming with the
muscular
flesh of still
living fish
writhing and
squirming the frantic
mouths the
would-be screaming
the water greasy
with fear …
above, a sky clear
and blue
holding a sun
the light a whorl
all radiant with
innocence
blinding the
world askew
and deep down in
the turbid depths
of a black sea
floor the bottom feeders
are picking
clean the gleaming
remains of a fallen
star that at least once flew
that, at least
once, flew
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 fall
Nike hesitates to cross the street
her hand held out in mid-air
just above ground zero
as if to stop traffic
tanks rumble past
the ground trembles
her wings coated in ash
she resembles a statue to an old hero
she cannot compare
her ears fill with static
a laurel wreath in tatters at her feet
Ares with no regrets
is smoking a cigarette
and leaning against a lamppost
on the other side of defeat
