Trophies

The gulls cry to be fed
and the woman raises the sound on the TV.
Hungry for love, the gulls screech
and the woman preens her hair.
Desperate, they beg.
The woman 
slings slices of white bread 

They land just within reach

She straightens their feathers, takes 
them to a place where a man 
coils words around their beaks, their eyes
and shoots
framing their formal guise

The woman 
places the portrait 
on the living room wall.
The gulls see.
This must be love, they say.
The woman
Switches on the TV
to drown out their squall.

The gulls grow.
 raise families of their own.
Their polite poses  
crowd the woman's wall.
Not a hair out of place,
Many mouths saying “Cheese”
many obedient eyes gazing 
into a stranger's face.
He clicks, and it's done.
He clicks.
He clicks, and the children - for
they are children - stretch their muscles,
appreciating release.

The proud matriarch of three generations
turns from the TV
and and reaches to make space 
in her spick and span home
                                            for another trophy.

©Jane Paterson Basil

Oak

This brave beauty
has been buffeted 
by autumn's steely breath,    
robbed of its faded cape.
Not one thread clung 
to shield it 
from winter chill. 
Twigs snap, strained limbs 
creak and break, 
yet victory is gained; the tree 
remains staunch,
tall and erect. 
Vanquished 
by harsh wind, 
leaves crumble 
and decay into mulch 
to feed next season's 
stunning display.

©Jane Paterson Basil

Reprimand

You can't beat addiction by beating the addict;
it will hitch up their need to reach for a fix.
Shame on your actions,
you showed no compassion.
You oppressed and tormented and drove her to drink,
then you slammed her and thrashed her, but she didn't sink.
Throughout your life and long after you died
her beautiful spirit and body survived.

 
 
 
©Jane Paterson Basil 

Toll

Nobody told me
you say:
no-one explained; it seems
at each road you pay a toll.
Where crossroad meet,
signposts scribe lies, or mud
smudges each destination,
you claim.
 
You've lost control: you 
never know where the next path will lead.
Looks like a dead-end street.

Your hands 
shake, shame
numbs your brain.
 
So many mistakes.
 
Nobody told you, you say,
then you heap blame
on those who are blinded like you.
 
Loved ones tried,
their words blurred by your need,
your potential curdled by wild hurtle 
into dim thrill of needle 
and sleep.
 
Deep sleep just short of eternal.
 
Mornings bring cravings,
day follows day filled with theft and sale, theft and sale 
to pay for your sleazy escape
again and again.
 
Always the same
peppered with desperate efforts and creasing failures and cramping pain and careless mistakes and fleecing arrests and imprisoning cells
while your head forever screams
to be clean,

while your need
to appease the clamouring beast that clamps your frame and grabs your guts and clings to your skin and kidnaps your mind and steals
your very being
rejects the thought.

...
  
How times change:
these days
you clean my home,
cook my meal. We share expenses and I
marvel at your strength of will.

I ask you:
what was the defining moment
that inspired you to strive
for the light?

This is how you reply:
 
 I gazed
at the signpost ahead
and as I wiped the mud which had blinded my eyes,
I read where each of three roads led.
the first was a dire, familiar trail,
the second pointed to sudden death.
I chose the third road,
the hard road, the right road, the sane road, the safe road,
the stuttering shock.
It was a toll I had to pay:
that searing act of cleansing agony.
I'm glad I grappled through the pain
which led me back 
to hope and health.
 
 
 ©Jane Paterson Basil 

Cultivation

Weed,
you spit. 
Anarchist,
you accuse.

You snap stems,
discard seed,
grasp leaves, dig dirt 
until each root is forcibly freed, 
or maybe you apply herbicide
for ease

"Die, weed, die
you cry with glee. Double dahlias
are what we need. Chemical feed
will raise crowds of blowsy blooms
from cultivated seed"

Bees leave
to seek pollen that they
can reach

Along steamy streets
pockets of green tickle pavements
reaching to conceal heaped waste
which feigns
innocent sleep

Beyond greedy shops,
magnates' dreams emigrate overseas 
to where labour is cheap, and workers 
too poor to complain. 
Industrial relics rot in the rain, 
Britain's shamed industry, obsolete. 
Filth, obscenely tipped into rivers,
fails to biodegrade.

Far from plastic parade and urban decay, 
wide roads surrender to narrow lanes,
white lines submit to green blades, and hedgerows
exhibit kinship between living species,
yet earth's tilth 
tips into sickness; trees strain
to erase our mistakes 
and seasons
struggle to progress.

A frayed leaflet
flitting in the wake of a chance breeze
asks:

Which Path Will You Take?

©Jane Paterson Basil

Existential Angst

My thirst: 

When did it surface?
Is it right to lay the blame
on a fly in my DNA, a crack in the egg,
a badly-placed step in the dance of the sperm?
Did it seep in while I swam in neo-natal simplicity?
Is it lack or a perverse surplus; missing mineral or toxic germ,
or is it quickening depletion?

Can’t slake my thirst.

Oozing through a bruising birth canal,
keening for unseen  freedom, did I forget to collect
my nourishing any-time drinks?

I started to burst

Lying naked at the wide end of space,
thin flesh tingling with echoes, did I relish or regret
my clamorous exit from the womb?

while mother nursed

My mouth spelled an O
around a milky breast, my ready tongue reached to feed –
did not the food fulfil my need?

and dreams were rehearsed

When shadows
ignored each command, did they steal
my core of stability?

and knowledge reversed

When my expanding brain saw
that the world was not me, and I was not the world
did abandonment hurt?

and faith was submersed

When young fingers
plucked springtime flowers that died,
did I mourn mortality?

and pain interspersed

When oak trees
offered me gifts that I could not reach,
did the distance scrape me?

and thunderclouds cursed.

When I tried,
yet failed to describe my existential angst,
did I itch to die?

Flew head-first

When a slick film
thickened over whimpering blood – a second skin to protect me,
did it block entry to the piece which was missing?

for the limits of verse.

How can it be
that even as I embrace life, my lungs
would like to cease breathing?

Still the ache of thirst;

can’t slake my thirst.

~~~

©Jane Paterson Basil

Mumbling Sheep

At the start of the end of the heady hippie days
I briefly dipped my toes in the sinking hippie ways.
I floated in long dresses and I jingled as I walked,
I used the hippie lingo every time I talked.
I tried smoking cannabis, but not for very long;
it took all my sense away and made me feel wrong.

I never fancied LSD – I liked to see the world
in its organic gorgeousness, not twisted and unfurled.
I disagreed with half the things the lippy hippies said;
they thought they were original, but their minds half dead.
They told me I was brainwashed because my ideas
were far too well-considered for their dippy hippie ears.

They said that they were breaking out of mediocrity,
they said their way of life was a better way to be,
they said they wanted peace and an end to all the killing,
but when I asked for action, few of them were willing.
They spoke of demonstrations, but they always missed the train,
or they couldn’t be bothered, or they feared that it might rain.

I was often irritated by their inconsistency;
the only thing they stood up for was brewing cups of tea.
Most of them were stoned from smoking Mary Jane,
a few of them were tripping, and one had gone insane
from swallowing blues, snorting speed and smoking weed —
to put it very bluntly, they had all gone to seed.

It’s true that their culture had seen some better days,
but I met a lot of mumbling sheep, slumped in a fuzzy haze;
while I was a thinker, and I let my thoughts run free,
they were more concerned with the psychedelic creed.
They agreed with whatever concepts stood at odds
with all the world’s hard working, deep thinking bods.

It was interesting at first, and fun for a bit,
but it wasn’t very long before I had to admit
I didn’t fit in with my drug-loving friends
who spoke of new beginnings, but never tied up ends.
I looked like a hippie, but I felt no passion
for the pseudo hippiedom in local fashion.

Written for Reena’s Exploration Challenge #Week 10.

©Jane Paterson Basil