I had a dream you were with me.
we were holding hands
and people were saying that’s not what friends do
but they were wrong.
because an unnamed personal disaster
had befallen me
and I just needed someone who knew that
to be present enough to touch my skin
to hold my hand like it’s a thought that needs soothing
to ward off all others who wouldn’t understand
to be with me.
tubes in places they shouldn’t be
there have been floods here
burst pipes, now there’s a
clear plastic tube coming out of the plughole
sticking out of the sink
trailing out of the door
droplets floating down the tubes
drips
drips
drips from the ceiling
tubes in places they shouldn’t be
there has been blood here
tubes in veins
blood transfusions
morphine drip, anti-sickness
droplets floating down the tubes
drip
drip
drip of memories
in places where they shouldn’t be
there is room for poetry now
while I am wondering
whether I will die
or if I just won’t be able
to create new life.
While I’m wondering
why people choose such
vague words
while keeping my own
words only as
specific as I can
handle.
“The world should be GOLD today!”
the sun declares, and gathers up its
friends – the tiny mirror images of itself
from far-flung beaches. It summons the
wind to lift them all and scatter them
into the sky, too high for definition,
turning blankets of grey cloud a murky yellow
like the edges of boiled egg yolks, somewhere
between grime and daffodil, headlights
dispersed over rain showers. Humans
look on and wonder if they will ever see
the sky blur and bloom like this again.
Like buttercups. Like the second coming.
Stunned by the spectacle, the leaves finally
live up to their name and throw themselves
at the earth’s feet, worshipping the sun with their
bronzed backs arched, before being spun like
caramel into the sky, into heaven.
Summer? What summer? Now is the time
for storms, a hailing of autumn, the opening
of winter’s doors.
I scrape a poem from the edges of my brain
carve the crusty consonants from the
crevices of my lobes, slide the spatula
beneath the remaining residue from whatever
once resided. I peel the skin from the corners,
pick the flaky film from these four grey walls,
soap up the sides to get the stubborn sticky
bits to budge, make room for more material –
delivery date unknown, cautious of the contents
should they be something better left uninvestigated.
I clear the crumbs with my dustpan and brush,
settle for structured silliness amid silence, make
a mess like a child, call it art, with enough
confidence to not be wrong.
my best friend is the one who
not only let me talk about my scars
and listened, but was
bold enough to ask to see them,
sweet enough to tell me they were badass,
and trusting enough to show me his own.
the earth is bone dry and cracked under the shade
of the trees, a desert in this full yet so deserted place.
Three times a year we would come when I was a child,
with plastic flowers or a wreath at Christmas. I filled
up the watering can at the tap and watch as mum and
dad cleared off dead leaves, forced metal plant supports
into the soil, hoped the rabbits wouldn’t come this time.
A vision of dad spitting onto a tissue to wipe the bird
muck off the grey granite. Grandmother visiting once
and declaring that this is no place for a child to be and
me silently agreeing as I stood at the sidelines, hands in
pockets. We scraped our shoes against the pavement
as we walked to get rid of some of the mud on those
rainy days. I wondered what they all felt and what that
was like and I still do, years later, coming by myself,
a visit partly because everyone else is in Spain and even
the dead should have visitors on their birthdays, and
partly because I want to see if I can feel something.
I don’t. I don’t feel grief and I can’t force myself to
feel it no matter how long I stand and stare at my
name and his engraved in the stone, at red and white
flowers I never would have chosen, at the gold cross
and the platitudes I hate. I don’t feel but as a by-product
of that I feel guilty for not feeling and I feel angry that
I can’t feel and I feel jealous of all the people who do
feel.
I have never felt numb and I have always psycho-analysed
myself and I have always known myself, but to not know
him, and to not feel for him – I don’t know what to do
with that so I sit on a bench and enjoy the sunshine and the
grass and think about how emotional I usually am and how
much I have grieved for myself but how today of all days
I can’t shed a single tear for him, not even a drop
to dampen the cracked, dry earth beneath my feet.
Spent a little bit of time this evening adding some blackout poetry to my scrapbook. Clippings courtesy of old Writers Magazine issues, word-twisting by me.
Also, here is the front cover of my scrapbook – isn’t it gorgeous?
A bit of time travelling this morning – this is the first poem I had published in a literary magazine. It was published in Obsessed With Pipework, a Flarestack publication, in 2006 when I was 18. Before that, I also had poems published in two anthologies (in 2004 and 2005, so at the age of 16 and 17), but this was my first magazine publication. I actually submitted a longer version of this poem, but the editor decided he liked the firs three lines and asked if he could just publish those. I still remember the full poem off by heart:
I had a dream I was at
an indoor market on a Thursday
night with my parents, not our
usual haunt but it was a
special marketplace selling
only old Beano and Dandy annuals.
Likely my parents and I were looking for
different things. I have trouble seeing
past the differences
most times
I was looking for my past
but maybe we were also all
looking for him
among those
dog-eared, yellowing pages with
crumbling spines like tree bark. I awoke
in a world where the inherited annuals I once had
are now long gone – to a charity shop, or
to collectors, or to children who already have or
soon will successfully reached adulthood, I hope.