The landlord shows,
rough and grim
in thrown-on clothes.
Raising his mallet,
he splits the door
while I predict a vengeful act –
and yet he seems
to know the score;
to understand my plight.
Efficiently, he evicts
the looming rats,
mends the walls
and cooks a meal for two.
Later, I recall
a white feather
which fluttered
from the left side of his chest
to sink unsullied
to the weathered floor.
As I search for what I need
I watch his smile
erase the midnight lines,
clarifying his kindly cause,
taste the the air
he cleanses with his breath,
feel his heart reach out for me,
and yet I did not intend
to weave this web
that snags his strings;
It happened as I slept.
Briefly stretching silken strands
he bends my way
and kisses me.
His lips’ pink embrace
leaves me thirsting
for completion,
for love, for
perfection
that I
can only synthesise.
My throat closes.
how can I explain
that he arrived too late,
that I am but a shifting wraith,
my lustre but a spectral trick
of unexpected light.
He will not believe me
if I say I am
a victim of time.
He will shake his head
if I tell him
I am dead.
Silently, I step away
to roam the lonely world alone.
Tongue fidgets against fingertip,
teeth graze the nail you ripped
while unwrapping the cake you released from the freezer.
You have to wait to eat the cake.
Meanwhile, you’ll fix the jagged nail the easy way.
Your teeth grip it, tear it free.
You spit out the shard
which lands on the knee of your jeans.
You pick it up,
examine this brittle bit of you;
this dead clipping,
thinking
my mother made this;
if not for my mother, I would not be.
Yet you flick it away like dross;
this slim grating born of the ecstasy of creation;
this small sliver, this souvenir foreshadowed
by squeeze and grunt of delivery.
The word ‘size’ reminds you
of the sight from the porthole of a giant
winged crate high in the sky,
where cloud concealed whole countries below,
yet cleared to reveal
a bland mass of distant desert.
Long before you stepped
from the plane in Mumba, you were stunned
by the expanse of the globe.
Unmeasurable grains of sand,
deepest seas where strange creatures swim and fight,
minerals, mountains and clamouring cities,
trees, fleas, bees and diverse mysteries
of all sizes. Millions of years,
millions of designs of dry cement and wet sentience
surfacing, existing, sliding into history,
civilizations replaced, to be swept away
by atmosphere, madness and accident.
Fresh animal passions, plans,
every mutation of emergency, miracle and mistake
circuitously played out
on each square mile
of this seething planet.
While you muse,
your teeth absently chew your skin.
Sensing a metallic tang, you check your fingertip.
Blood pools near the cuticle.
Something hurts,
but you cannot
locate the pain.
His lips
shape sinuous words,
but only silence reaches my ears
as he confronts
my still psyche.
This might be
a final goodbye,
yet I let the question
float on the horizon.
I watch,
fascinated
that threats and lies
can be so easily dumbed
by a medicated sky.
All around him,
childhood trinkets and toys
rain around his untouchable frame.
They sink, lost forever
beneath the blind sea.
I recline on sturdy rock;
hazily trusting it will hold me.
If I am strong,
the waves
will not drown me.
Should the message
be his final goodbye,
tomorrow
might bring solemn women or men
whose warning uniforms
and gentle breath
will lower me
into the wild vale of grief.
If this is to be,
I’ll reshape the vision,
paint flowers at his feet,
add a balloon, fill it
with five fathoms of words
describing all the love
he ever felt for me,
but for now
the air caresses me,
and I sleep.
This is the fear that the loved ones of addicts face every day. We learn to push it to the back of our minds, but it’s always there, waiting until the addict has a wobble. That’s when the fear goes into full attack mode.
They weep at the shore
feeding fish to the waves,
hoping to bribe the helpless sea
to free you.
Brave souls leap in thinking to shield you
within a synchronised circle of love,
but the vampire dives through
and with eyes honed
by a chemical sharpening stone
he traps you.
You can only swim so far.
When the energy goes you will float
until the weight on your chest
presses you into the drink.
The instant you sink,
let your body go limp.
Take deep breaths;
allow your lungs to sup
until they welcome the salty brine.
The saline will soothe your wounds.
The vampire
will chase you to the ocean bed,
staying close, clinging on,
flaying your mind as it did
when your toes were still dry,
yet lie quiet; you are destined
to lose any fight.
.
No need to say you did not choose this,
it is understood. Few of us
elect to be pursued
by blood-sucking ghouls.
Don’t waste energy wishing
for new tomorrows or reminiscing
over the innocence that preceded
the need to teach yourself
to breathe underwater.
Forget the optimism of youth.
There is only now;
only this;
a silent you
and an angry parody of humanity
seething in the deep.
Waking on the cusp of clarity I clamour
to catch receding images,
following the trail back to the entrails.
Pained family,
walls splattered with rusty shapes
that smell metallic, battened-down cells
where good and evil creatures scream,
baying for release.
I smash through timber walls
making gaps through which puppies crawl,
splintering ceilings that rain crumbs and flakes,
flinching as shape-shifting grotesques fall,
freeing beasts and all
in my quest to release the innocents.
Dogs frolic, begging rubbed tummies,
gnashing teeth set in fools and demons faces
fix false, cheating grins,
scampering to hide behind close-knit hills,
where they simper,
giggling into their sleeves.
I think: although limited,
there has been a victory.
While puppies sleep and mad dogs creep
I forge forward,
banging heads with faceless strangers
who might be foes or friends,
letting them plot the next step
while I hope for the best.
I sense wickedness,
the tang of a plan to rob a bank,
yet like a shy child, I ask no questions,
instead running with the gang.
Vacating the cracked castle
we part ways, while I memorise my instructions,
but I don’t understand the details
or the intended result.
Out in the street, the town floods,
water rising from an invisible place;
I suspect a connection to our game.
I’m thinking my finger has been dipped in fowl play
when a police constable
lifts me safely over the tide
to a leafy glade, that leads me
toward the first door
and with a friendly wave,
leaves me.
I wait while footsteps fade,
clutch the handle, smirking as it turns,
wondering at the trust of bland key-holders;
do they think the door
is too hidden for me to see?
A corridor leads to more
unlocked doors.
I creep through empty rooms
to one containing chairs,
a table, a litter of toys.
I pause, a query tasted on my lips, but dismissed
as I go through the next door.
Like a dream within a dream
my first-born daughter is beside me.
Now each succeeding room is scattered
with trinkets and symbolic artefacts,
while silently,
so silently, arriving singly,
each member of my family joins me;
all of my descendants
save my son.
I reach
a cramped space ravaged by the stains of age,
to find myself alone again.
No door before me.
Behind me, the entrance
has vanished.
Fear.
Closed in.
Pushing against ungiving walls,
fingernails scrabbling in trickster cracks.
Fear, breaking through my skin,
soaking my clothes.
Make no noise
lest the enemy is near.
Don’t panic, don’t curl in a corner.
Escape. Make no noise.
Smother the fear.
Think.
Pull out my phone,
call a friend.
The wind picks up at the other end.
“All will be well,”
it breathes.
Regaining hope,
I press the surface of a recess
too narrow to fit a door, and feel it give,
no more than a deceptive sheet of paper,
I rip it aside to reveal
a day-lit room, plush with sofas,
footstools, cushions. Voices trill nearby,
accompanied by the clink of dining.
Like a novice burglar, I shrink, nervous
to think I have broken into a private home,
but my son,
my son, my last-born, troubled child,
my son, my first-born man,
appears beside me.
“It’s OK, this is a hotel,” he tells me.
He shows the way through French windows onto a veranda
which skirts a calm sea,
where the rest of my family wait for me
Behind gleaming glass,
the diners raise their toast and applaud.
Fresh blood sings in my veins
to the rhythm of the waves
that caress the shushing sands of the shore.
I throw my store of hopes and fears to the horizon;
I cannot control its changes,
and I gaze into my children’s eyes
where this moment of safety lies.
I should offer a medal to the determined souls who managed to read to the end of my dream.
Floods, crumbling buildings, empty rooms, childhood mementoes and being trapped and in danger are all recurring themes in my dreams.
A lot of my dreams make immediate sense to me, being clearly marked ‘insecurity’, while others are a jumble. I half-understood last night’s dream, and built a poem around it to give me more clarity. It told me no more than I already know about the difficulties I’ve experienced in life, and of my opposing feelings of invincibility and weakness, of the power of my muscle and its inevitable collapse, of my confidence and my paranoia.
I can’t resist this – it goes back to the days when British record producers were little tin Gods, and many UK musicians had to bow down to them, rather than choosing their own theme and style. Those who wished to be a bit more raunchy had their knuckles rapped, and smoochy ballads thrust into their hands.
Back in the day
The Chamber of Commerce
attracted tourists by calling this town
the sunniest corner of Devon.
We all laughed and said “Is that a fact?”
but the tourists came to see the famous market
and to take in places marked upon the map.
Coaches drove down scarred roads
to set down in the long-stay coach park.
Drivers guided old folk who shuffled off the bus
to follow the trail.
Mumbling
“I’m glad I brought my coat,”
they splashed along pavements
emblazoned with flattened splats of bubble gum.
Crisp packets skittered in the wind.
Twisted drinks cans and bottles
vomited from stuffed-up rubbish bins.
Used condoms lay vanquished in the gutters,
their flattened swell bragging sticky acts
of safe sex in the back of rattling vans,
and the public lavatories stank.
I overstated the rain;
we’ve been known to suffer or enjoy weeks of dry heat,
but the Chamber of Commerce knew
that their claim, too, was exaggerated.
They updated their slogan; these days the bywords
are “ancient” and history.
The long-stay coach park has been demolished;
these days, less guests are treated to the sight
of flying litter.
In September, the kids go back to school
so most of the holiday makers have gone.
They miss our laughable carnival.
A factory ceased supplying lengths of bright nylon
to drape around the floats
since it closed, many years ago,
The nylon has been replaced by crepe paper,
which is a shame;
all the locals know
it always rains on carnival day.
This is a bit rushed as I’m going out for a celebratory meal in about an hour, but I couldn’t resist the prompt, since today is Carnival day in my town. Watching though my window, I see parents trudging, children skipping, on their way to watch the display. The pavements are wet, but it’s not raining. The procession starts in half-an-hour. The floats will already be ruined, and now I see drops of rain appearing on the glass.
The earth’s surface
spans five hundred and ten square kilometres;
its Imperial reach is one hundred and ninety-six point nine miles;
if every human stood still for one minute
and studied the scene
we might see hunger, iniquity, pain;
we might witness every kind of suffering
~ this world is too complex to be forever kind ~
yet if we could gaze
with a cleanly aesthetic eye
devoid of empathy for the frog crushed beneath the boot,
we might find beauty in every millimetre;
we’d envisage beauty in every razor blade, in every frightened face,
in every tainted pool
that seeps through limp uniform
to sink into the rusting battle field;
it’s easy to appreciate a sunset
or the wavering boughs of a willow tree,
but tucked in a desert
in the arid waste where death exalts,
as, throwing back his cape he rides the rays of an allegiant sun that roasts flesh from hollowing bones, leaving skulls to fade in shifting hills and sandy vales
there is enchantment, whether scanned
from the height of an aeroplane, or gleaned
through a microscope
as we peek at the secrets of a single grain.
and on a motorway
on a wide tarmac trail which breaks meadows in its wake, snaking city limits, displaying the detritus of terminal mishap; twisted metal, stains left by fractured death and splattered brains
we find banks piled with riotous harmony
where flowers despised by tidy garden rules
are gems that shine on nature’s winsome breast.
In an iniquitous hidden room
in a bolted cell of jailor’s shame, dank with acrid stench of psychopaths intent on tearing sacred, private silk, raping, molesting, shredding flesh in a hell where madmen claim the purity of sin
where sadists taste their sour disgrace,
and relishing it, declare it sweet
the stolen one shudders,
her hair matted with filth and tears,
an innocent born with the essence of perfection,
a woman
who grew from woman’s womb.
.
This poem has veered a long way from its original intention, but I went with the flow – which suggests that I might be getting back on form 🙂
Note to self; it would require two people for it to work as an orated poem. Stanzas written in black would be best spoken in a gentle tone; those on the right, by an increasingly threatening one. The purple line in the middle would be spoken in duet.
Shapening views in such a structure that the readers get a way better eye to look at this beauty cum world. #https://m.facebook.com/bubblesoliloquy123/
