clear out

 

clear-out 

 

the skip arrives   unloaded like a burden

metal against metal   the machinery

the grinding mechanics of what is still yet empty

with the attitude of a coffin chosen but unfilled sturdy

 

then the work begins   years that have carelessly gathered

in boxes overfilled and spilling in black binbags stuffed

bursting and split amongst webs forlorn and tattered

are dragged and heaved through opened windows

 

to fall

 

cascades of childhoods a honeymoon and holidays

of clothes outgrown cast-offs and hand-me-downs

the broken and the bent the damaged and the disowned

the flotsam and jetsam of undiscovered beaches of unremembered bays

exuviation

 

Exuviation  

 

Imago wakes one day to wonder if the soul

Of the child will accompany the soul of the adult into heaven

For in a dream from which he awoke in a sweat

His younger selves lay upon the floor discarded

Were draped over chairs drying had been folded carefully

Then stuffed into chests of drawers were hanged

In cluttered wardrobes unwashed unironed innocent

Blooded   bloodied and fleshless   price paid

Disingenuous unsung

Imago shivers in the skin he is yet to shed

Naked and cold with no hands to hold

on stage

 

onstage

     

there’s all that waiting in the wings

other people’s time   for you nothing

just a twinkle in someone’s eye and then

led to what you believe is centre stage

not yet spotlit   the lights coming up

taking an age the crowd restless

and so many extras

and those first-night nerves that last

a lifetime even with all that prompting

and such a short run   a premiere

an unending rehearsal ending

in Act VI   the curtain closed

the auditorium empty

the stage in darkness

the caretaker’s

turning of the key

 

everyone has gone home

gone to the after-party

uninvited

alone

in wonder

in wonder

 

in the atlas of my body

there is the country of me

a kingdom where I rules

we suppose the heart

its beating of life of love –

can life love live in the meat

the muscle of a ticking clock?

or the brain? that tissue of lies

of lives the story the pathology

of the diseased the narrative

breadcrumbs once upon a time …

a sneeze and therein the mind

find it scan it X- ray the map

X marks the spot buried treasure

 

look in the mirror each day   trace

the quiet betrayal as the body deserts you

stare at the intimacy of DNA

the flag the coat a little worn

a hand-me-down cut to fit

its subtle disguise you   you

a passerby passing by

looking for direction

crossing borders heading west

hitching a ride in a cul-de-sac

for which you are the map

and there you are at the back of the bus

staring out the window at the scenery

in wonder 

a view from a window

 

a view from a window

 

a garden blanketed   somewhat desolate

there’s a bench rimmed in snow

its back struts darkly visible   a rack of ribs

old bones aching with the cold

piano keys unplayed   a noteless wordless stave

and opposite   a buried flower bed

with frozen knuckles of black stems

clawing the air

and beyond by the high wall a colonnade

of deciduous trees arterial diagrammatic and exact

supporting a blank sky   silence 

 

trying to picture the summer

that would eventually paint this scene

to feel its heat to see the trees leafed

the sky released the flowers bloomed

those painted fists the clamour of colour

to get the sense of time moved on

of the world turning again

the heart unclenched

a figure   figures   sitting on the bench

 

music  

them dead

 

them dead

 

it’s hard to think of them dead

when there’s always been that absence

the excuses of time and distance

they’re still not here in the same way

living in that part of the mind that does not

mind yet lingers constantly on its own innocence

that part of the mind where no one really ages

and the futures always there   waiting   undelivered

the book’s unturned pages where

you’ve been living since you were seventeen

or so   no matter what the mirror suggests

the incremental stages of departure unseen

unnamed     uncalled

the symptoms of a disease that do not manifest

yet are slowly killing you all

the same

so, harder still to think of yourself dead

unspared

outside of the endgame  

of the wood

 

of the wood

the daylight shelters here for the night

amongst the trees builds its nest snuggles

up to the roots rolls in the moss the mulch

disguised as darkness as a place not

not a time we travel through the moon

snagged in the drift net of branches struggles

to escape flees beneath the clouds going

nowhere west a softness underfoot a fox

a badger a nocturnal creature a sudden

crack of tinder a small voice made large

and loud the noises come here too to change

their shape to bend and stretch to imitate

and intimidate the silence that itself feels

uncomfortable and broken wishing for

morning mourning like birdsong in the dawn

daylight retreating leaving shadows brushstrokes

of itself streaks amongst the leaves light rising

slurred a drunk on his way home lurching on un

even ground dreaming of words that could …

but stumbling he can’t see the trees for the would