#30 Ave et Atque

Hello

We shake hands,
Duck and dance,
Try to remember
Do we hug?
A brief scent
A kiss of eyes


Bonjour!

It's so loud
That part of the evening
Where all is rush and flurry
Arms wide
Breath moist on necks
Bending to hear
Those words


Bore Da/ Hylô/ Helô

We had to steal words
From the outside
Until recently
Everything was
About the rhythm of days
Saying bathed in
What kind of light graced us
A whole day together
A whole day apart

Some things translate
Across boundaries
And there's nothing like a smile
To make your day

...

We are mirrors and circles
Turning, starting, ending
Breaking and mending
In the same breath,
Echoing: Again...

Nos da/ Hwyl/ Da bo chi/ Wela i chi

Au revoir

Goodbye

#29 Simian

#weareallmonkeys 

Watch us as we swim in
Our first weeks:
Tadpole, lizard, primate -
Wobbly commas
Cradled by the same bone,
The same blood,
The same love.

Out in the light
We divide ourselves
Lay down boundaries
And definitions
Think it makes things simpler
Stone Age brains struggling
With numbers bigger than ten -
Tribe is what you can see
On a clear day.

But now the drums are
Beating faster
Light-speed flickers -
Thought touching eye
Touching thought
The genius of our genus
Bending ignorance
To better ends

Today we say
There is one colour:
Bright yellow
And one taste shared
Around the world
Hands raised
Hands clasped
While one calm gesture
Redefines ridiculous.

#28 Sonar

Personal boxing - one-to-one. Tone fast!

I toddle down steps
Swapping stares soaked in adrenaline
Mine mellowing,
Flipping legs tick-tock,
Bagged and shouldered
Through the door,
I tip my hat to a cold
I'm not feeling yet.

Mind you, looking at those flumes now - they're actually tiny...

The discipline of seal-folk
Is a plait of after-dinner chlorine
Goggle-blind and arcing
We reconstruct plash and echo
Out here in the dark

Large chips for the lady. Large chips now! To go!

Caramel polyglot slots orders,
And eyebrows, surprised by his own
Return smile.
This is a place of serious conversation
Man-talk, pizza-based debates

Shokran. Bel'afiah. Sala'am alaikum! Ah!

He flips a salute,
His smile still wary, but settling,
Swerves back to cuff someone
With height and youth
And words

Осы маған алып бер-! Мен солалқындыру білемін!

Slim fingers haggle in the dark,
Darting over the tiny car,
Birthed in parts from
The lotus crotch of chocolate,
Delight manifesting in
Brightly-coloured clicks
Just in time - all rise
For the lumbering beacon.

... greatly overexpressed in adipose tissue...

Graphs dance,
Sinuous as late-night swimmers,
Bisecting words
Waving, as I sneak
A shoulder-glance at my past

…

We climb inside tiny screens
And printed screeds
And fingernails
And the slick trail of lights
We are night-bound
And homeward
Rapt in our nodding
Towards journey's end.

#27 Half-Past Sunday

Guilt sleigh-bells my keys,
Loud in the late night
Creep of creaks and wiped feet,
Behind me the echo of
Tomcat blackness -
Nothing to see here.

Midnight churns in the kitchen
Overnight cleaning
Gleams against my
Shrinking flesh
With the promise of
Tomorrow's godliness.

I am battered
At high frequencies
By my inability to sleep
This close to arrival,
My mind's survival pinned
To glimmers of loneliness.

I need to slough off
All those I've touched,
Every joy packed
Into the black bag
From which it can be re-examined,
Naked in full light.

The weight of words
Shaken into milkpails,
I pare myself to the core,
Fall upwards into dark,
And start to dream tomorrow.

#26 Pied-à-Terre

There's a house near the road
Where nobody goes
Its shingles are withered
And so are its toes
It used to stride freely
Its cargo to tote
Now it's stuck by the roadside
Where nobody goes.

It's seen witches and princes
And feisty heroes
Now dust lies in state
Over mouldy old throws
How it used to perambulate
No-one now knows
It's a lonely old lookout
Where nobody goes.

"Little house, little house,
Turn round to me.
Let the sun on your windows
The whole world to see"
The heroes would seek it
But peasants would flee
Now it camps out in scrubland
And pines for the trees.

Its mistress is long-gone
Which just goes to show
That you shouldn't turn round
On the word of heroes
Its magic ambitions
Are covered in mould
And all it can do now
Is stare at the road

She saw that old house
As they, northbound, sped by
She felt its predicament
Wanted to cry
That its power no concrete
Could heedlessly bind
If it just changed those words
It had stored in its mind.

"Little house, little house
Turn round to see
That there's nobody stopping me
Least of all me
With my mistresses gone
And no heroes to flee
Little self, please believe me,
I'm perfectly free."

There's a patch near the road
Where nobody goes
With a flattened-out square bit
And marks of huge toes
One day its old tenant
Rocked, creaked, groaned and rose
To march off to a future
That everyone knows.

***

I'm assuming that you all know the story of Baba Yaga and her ubiquitous hut...

#25 Homeward Bound

An inaudible bell chimes
And we shoal of mammals clamour calmly,
Breaking onto open air,
All brief smiles
And thank-yous to
Held doors as we
Discretely sniff the wind.

Strolling, I'm overtaken by a door-mate;
He clutches his pocket, stumbling,
A man not designed for running
(Or the growing of beards)

I crane my neck, see
(As he does not)
That he's being rescued by
A phalanx of cyclists,
A logjam of stubborn frames.

He runs like a duckling,
Broad bottom swaying,
Knees splayed,
Praying and gasping
To whoever governs
The Number 8

When I next look,
He's gulping quietly, watching,
Locked in a trance of summoning
Come on, come on,
Supplicant briefcase clutched.

He does not nod,
We do not lock gazes,
His trained on the saviour behemoth,
But I smile anyway.

#24 Parliament

"Make a big fist now", he urges
My own drowning in the grip
Of generations

You sidle, stomp,
Shake your shoulders,
A veteran performer
But still up betimes

We have been told your story
The intricate knit of land
And prey and you,
And watched you land, sighing,
Laughing, snapping, pointing, shuffling,
Shifting from foot to foot.

I feel you echo this
On my fingertips,
Watch, incredulous at fortune,
See you duck as the image-maker
Blinks and beckons
"Come on, boy!"

I release you to your warden,
Still in awe, grinning,
Head spinning;
Wishing, wishing, wishing.

***

Photo by Carla Keen

#23 Non-Verbal

The tiny, tanned woman
By my side
Stretches herself impossibly wide
Her tattooed ankle eye-high.
I avert mine.
She sighs - a small sound
But penetrating.

In front of me, the tall blonde
Bounces, upright and proud
Loudly gasping, slightly smug

The man, Spanish by his accent
Grunts rhythmically,
Punctuating his thumping beat.

On the way in
A stranger's nipples shouted at me
DON'T STARE!
I smiled politely,
At the back of my mind:
They're quite like mine...
DON'T LOOK!

And now they're speeding up
The blonde is lost, mouth slack
The man jackhammers
Leans into his stroke,
She arches her back.

My fingers are frantic,
Faster now and slippery,
I mouth my own obscenities
Wondering bluntly
Who will finish first.

And then...
Oh, relief.
It rushes through me
Cool and pure
I let my breath out,
Drowned briefly,
And heave myself
Back into action.

I adjust the volume,
Pleased I've found the track,
Reflect the gym's a funny place,
Pace increasing,
Face flushing,
Mouth firmly shut.

#22 Continuo

There are some well-known birthdays and celebrations going on today. I thought I'd commemorate someone else instead.

You probably didn't mean to be
But you are always Christmas.
I hear you and it is 1979,
My legs swing beneath my wicker
Dining chair and I jiggle
"Again! Please?!"

The virtually imaginary hero
Peers and swerves through pens and paper
But my ignorance is bliss,
Jinking in my pelting sled
To the chime of ice bells
Bedecking my fine steeds

I bank to the spray of bracing breeze,
Glee streaming from fingertips.
Glitter under moonlight.
Later yet, you guide us through
The anatomy of my abiding love
While my brother's namesake
Gambles a trade of wits
Against a desperate predator.
"Again! Please?!"

And now, with music flying
Light as a feather, I am hunched
Over the dark, heavy scent of compression,
Its precise placement
A tiny triumph of paternal approval.
Even today, where I can click
From desire to possession
In thirty-seven seconds,
The miracle doesn't stop.

Again please - more
Soaring and sinking in
Memory's waters,
Forty fumbling towards me,
I am twelve and seven and four
And you will be the one whose name
I recognise but can't remember,
Better known in a tumble of glass notes
And snow. Always snow.
Again, please. Once more.

#21 Do Ye Ken John Thorn?

So I've been reading about Norse poetry forms. Probably safest to say that this is "inspired" by them (and some rune theories) than strictly any one old form...

***

Fourth night finds this fellow
Bellowing brutishly:
"Give me glasses to gulp!
Wenches to woo wetly!
Heavy heads to hammer!"

She sheds her shift, sighing
Wonders why work wears thin,
Men mere miasmic meat,
Girls giggling glib ghosts,
Cretins curtain corners.

The thickened throng thins out
Hearing hollers ahead
Leaves lingering louts late
Exposed, everts her eyes
Catches catcalling clod.

"Oi, oi! Oi! Oi! Oi-oi!"
Fellow flails fetchingly
"Cor!" he crows, calls "Crumpet!"
Approaches avidly
Bounds, bobs, beckons blowjobs.

Finally: a fair fight
Jeering jizz-gesturer,
Lolloping lickspittle
One warning to withdraw:
"No, nitwit - now naff off."

He, hopping, hardly hears
Leers like a lackwit loon
Reaches to rap her rump
Thundering, thumps, threshing;
Ground grinds the gormless git

Clog clips his cloaca
"No, no, no, no, no, no!
Try touching temptation
With awe, witless wanker.
Respect our responses."

Ponders pragmatism:
"Always ask, you arsehole."
Strides off, satisfied, smiles.
He humbly hobbles homewards,
Mends manners, mind, and more.

#20 In Place of Truth

I keep telling people that "I don't do sonnets" (or rhyme, or comedy, or iambic n-ameter). I thought I'd give it another go, this being the month of poetic challenges and all:

You ask me what I'd like to do today
I know I should just tell you all my heart
I find it very difficult to say
That I would like to spend this time apart.

I love you, dear, with every breath I draw
You light up my existence, this I swear
But sometimes I need peace and quiet and more -
It's only solitude that I can bear.

"Give me one day!" I very nearly cry
I gather up my strength to say out loud:
"I cannot miss you when you're always by"
But it turned out that I made not one sound

I wandered lonely, drowned in company
My cowardice had triumphed over me.

#19 Orrest Head, Windermere

Poetry's no good
When the landscape writes its own
Lines against the sky

Mere colludes with
Fells, sun, and horizon to
Scour me with beauty

I'm eyes without mouth,
Ears without fingers, and a
Soul with no outlet.

#18 Dove Cottage, Grasmere

Layered in darkness,
Quilted in authentic falsehoods,
The house waits for us
To stand, hands folded,
Blink and coo,
Gaze without touching,
Grazing a palimpsest of lives

We are only the latest
In a long line of poets
And doters to pay court,
Breathe against the glass,
Glance at the stolid heart
From which so many images fly.

Stuffed with sweetened
Morsels of truth,
We dawdle, sated
To the daffodilled wayside,
Set our sights high,
Over layered landscape
And wind back,
Dazzled by speed,
Leaving the dark house
To its centuries.

#17 Chat Room

Someone on the internet was wrong...

***

She say: "what good can talking do?"
I blink at this,
Think twice, or three times,
Can't envisage free speech
Equalling powerlessness.

"How will words change a jot?"
How can they not
As - drop by drop -
We erode old notions,
Make a stepping stone
For thought
Alchemising into action.

Even chatter with our
Mirror selves holds weight,
A way to confirm ourselves
In echo.

And for some of us
It's celebration
We remember the mire of silence
Its toxic tyranny
The way secrets
Breed shame
How naming ourselves
Brought us, shivering
Into our own power.

In our nattering meandering
We reshape matter,
Examine it from all sides
Find ways to decide,
Safe in dangerous play,
Changing our own,
And others' minds:
The first and hardest step
Towards a new reality.

Whatever didn't talking change?

***

"Secrets breed shame" is not an original line - I owe it to my virtual big brother Scott Shanks, a very talented writer and excellent giver-of-advice

#16 Her Father's Hands

She remembers them, sometimes,
Unbidden.
Broad and sure,
Dry as wit
Or a northern wall,
Thinks of how that works -
No cement, just the absolute
precision of placement,
the weight of years
Of doing it right.

Balance is everything.
Nothing in nature will topple
Such certainty
But accident
And the acts of vandals
Impossible to tell,
in the morning,
Which is which.

She remembers strength
And gentleness
Patience with her tracing
The crowded map of lines
And their speed
When called to action.

Those hands have
Mended and healed
Bruised and bled
On both sides.
The heartline is heavy
The head strong,
Decisiveness made flesh.

When all else is faded,
She will know his voice,
Those hands,
The histories they hold,
As well as she does her own;
Wonders, sometimes,
How close the copies grow.

#15 White Knight, Emerald Street

I'm still quite ill, so I went searching for inspiration and found it in the internet. Specifically, this is thanks to the Language Is A Virus "Random Line Generator", from which I got:

"cherries mist lemonade ice water kisses antiquewhite [which I interpreted as two separate words] glass black emerald faded" this time.

This is what happened (yes, I cheated two of the words into the title... what?!), in all its curious glory:


Your drink curls and spumes,
Cresting obsessively
Around the thick, slanting walls
And unnecessary cherries.

Your gaze is drawn into the whirlpool,
Not even tracking the ice,
Just pulled to the eddying centre

My teeth are dissolving
Under three half-pints
Of lemonade,
Waiting.
Occasionally watching
The insolent bob of lime

I am resisting metaphor,
Staving off allegory
You are swaying,
Fingers sticky,
Looking like someone
Who's dissolved syntax,
And is aiming, next,
For balance.

It is twenty-seven minutes
Since I checked my watch.
A clever antique
Worth checking.
If I hold it up,
I'll hear the dependable
Clips of silence
Slicing through
The jars of chatter.

I take a breath
Hold it
Release,
Crease and flex fingers
That itch for action,
To match feet
And tick
And heart.

"Not yet", I tell them.
We're waiting for the mist
To kiss his brow,
We're waiting for
That tell-tale quiver,
Not long now.
We're waiting for the final
Fade to black.

#14 Daphnis

I've got some kind of viral infection that makes me dizzy and headachey, so no poem from my dry, fragile brain yesterday, but I snuck a look at some of the napowrimo prompts from the last couple of days, and was inspired by the suggestion for a wine-and-love song (Anacreontic is a particular form - I didn't have the wherewithal for a new form, so this is what you get):


It was never about wine
It makes us both sick
In different ways
Me in my chest
You in your head

It was sometimes about beer
Or whisky
But never too much
I felt you slip from my touch
Become imaginary

My hands would pass
Through each other
Over and over
And I felt the pressure
Of an empty mouth
And dissolving barriers
Between dark and light.

It had to stop being about beer
Or whisky
But sometimes the sticky fun
Of things with intricate names,
Interesting shapes
And expensive labels

And food
Lots of food.
I don't lose myself then
Can't swim in solids,
Drowning in the cave of ideals.

But I can run,
Sugar-fuelled,
In mad circles,
Singing to the moon.
"Diana! Give me your brother's
Bright arrows! Just tonight!"

But you stopped
The mouths of muses
With arrows of your own
And we, pierced,
Sank under each other's weight
A delicious, spiral swoon.

We found different ways
To be in our cups
And sometimes still,
Even alone
I sup love from the eyes
Of a trembling moon
And walk taller,
No longer stumbling.

#13 River Glass

This will have to stay cryptic until I can take pictures that do this justice...

I was given a piece of old bottle for my birthday by someone who clearly knows me well...! :) Picture below

 

***

For two weeks I've kept
Friendship in a box,
Knocked and slightly tattered,
Clattered in my bag,
Tags and pretty string
Things of the past.

Soft green paper
Makes a bed of moss,
Tossed weight
Cradled in kindness
Mild and implacable as water.

The outer side is clouded,
Gouged with ribs,
Gripping, mysterious grooves;
Smooth inside,
Meanwhile, fits my thumb,
Humbles time,
Chimes truths to comfort.

Sand and water
Walked in air,
Shared tales
Regaling
Changes.

And I keep friendship
In a box,
Pocket history,
Listen.

#12 Rolling

She's looking for a new name
A way to shake fate
And take on the rain.

She's searching for fresh hope
A place beyond coping
No longer alone.

She's calling down fire
A blind strike to burn
Her way out of the mire

She's opening to clean air
Daring to reclaim fair
Share fortune's favour.

She's summoning the tide
Riding the wild crests
Arms wide to net the moon

She's standing her ground
Pounding earth
To bring forth thunder

She needs to be tree and stone
Hearth and forge
Shore and wave
Wind and lightning
Heart and breath and blood

But just now
She's looking for a new name
And it will be glorious.

#11 Waves

They say that quicksand
Only tightens its grip
When you start to struggle upwards

That said - it seems to me
That you could sink quite slowly
And only notice when you try to rise

From this I can surmise
That quicksand must be warm
Blood-heat, really

There must be some comfort
In being so enveloped
And the first warning signs dependent
On your day-to-day.

Some may shudder at slowing feet
Others at the numbness of knees
You might take fright at the clasp
Around your waist
The compression of chest
The tightening of your windpipe
Or be one of those who only sees
When they've gone blind.

Today it was the loss of hands
That brought home my fate
Nearly too late,
I'm flailing calmly,
Grasping at branches,
Conjuring the memory
Of solid land

#10 On the First Sunny Week in April

Today is smiling,
No longer shy over bare
Shoulders of branches.

We are awash with
A froth of blossom, giddy
With fertility.

Greens are glossier,
Windows give back more blue, and
Hearts burden us less

We squint into kind
Brightness, ease shoulders against
The sun’s warm caress,
Grin to feel Spring’s fingers tug
Our hair, quaff drafts of cool air


For those of you interested in such things, I've combined three haiku/ senryū as verses, with a final tanka.

#9 Charm for Rage

Forget to drink.
Drain your cells
to desert cracks.
Wrack your spine
in awkward seating poses,
As you eat bad food,
Alone.

Seek out high pitches -
Other people's crisps,
The smug crumple-squeak of
cellophane.
Leave your earphones
at home.
Better: leave them
on the bus.

Wear uncomfortable socks
and cheap pants -
The ones that twist and sag.
Sit next to the man
that everyone avoids -
The one with stale breath
And distance issues.

Set all the clocks wrong
except one,
Then give it to your friend -
The one who likes to hoard.
Lend her your favourite book,
Your new scarf,
And twenty-seven pounds.

Do elaborate favours
for arseholes,
Give your boss's sister
A lift to Kidderminster.
(Unless you live in Kidderminster.)
And let Bob Jenkins make your tea -
He never remembers.

Now walk home from work,
Scarfless and chafing,
Flailing and narrating
at the night.
Be sure to skirt near puddles,
As you stride beside the bus route
that would deliver you
in fifteen minutes.

En route, do not buy milk.

Or bread.

Or toilet paper.

Now, are you ready?
Get home and watch
the worst telly out there,
Trip on other people's cables,
Spin and swear,
Slam foot or fist
(It doesn't matter which)
Into the table:
BAM! BAM! BAM!

Wear the bruises proudly
that blossom in thin skin,
Gaudy medals of
Unstoppable force
Meeting immovable future.

(And don't forget to let
your romantic replacement
friend you on Facebook.)

#8 Catharsis

You are the runaway horse
To which I strap my ire
From time to time.

Reclining on a fat cushion of
"There but for the grace of..."
Well... who will ever know...?

You are cut out of ply,
Ragged-edged,
A pledge to the future

You occupy sly corners
Of my psyche
A shouting sandtrap

That era was exhausting
A forced march through
The further ends of every Bell Curve

You gave me these things:
Assonance, orgasms,
New definitions of arrogance

Consider this a thank-you note
For, if nothing else,
A kind of immunity.

This is dedicated to all those who will know what I mean today when I say "fucking BEIGE".

If you don't want to be in a poem, don't fuck (with) a poet.

#7 Digging up Luggage

This went all kinds of wrong. For hours. It's a "Golden Shovel" form - the end of each line together becomes an Easter egg of a completely different poem. This afternoon it wanted to be iambic pentameter, and it was going fine until it broke me.

I gave up and did this version in free verse (because sleep has been all too absent anyway this week already). Bonus points for getting the stanza and poet that inspired it before the end:

~~~

This is the way of all things that we do
This is the mask of those we do not
That final touch that lets you go
Hurts. However slow, it's never gentle.

Here is the darkness I descend into
A clammy veil over all that
Comforts or delights - all that's good
I'm in that suffocating noonday midnight.

I know this feeling well of old
Experience enough for twice my age
"Call yourself a poet?! You should
Have written of that cold burn
By now" - the absence of your hand.

Without its shape I ape the brave,
Find other monsters to run at
Shout louder when you come close.

(She says: "What are you afraid of?"
"Guilt: that maybe if I saw her today
She'd be just a stranger from another age.")

I still have the capacity for rage
A flame to cup against
The cold and dark - a spark - the
Warmth that still leaks from embers dying.

And never mind what I'm guilty of -
I'll alchemise pain; from your unchanging love, mother,
I've made a raging light.

#6 What Next?

#5 revolutions

i am every truth i ever heard
words blurring into
birds flight
enlightened sky
nights delight

i am every word that ever found me
deeds hurling into
heads mending
ends meeting
in the light

i am every truth that ever left me
weft heading into
warp drives
a pilots night
heads might just

i am every maybe that unmade
frayed weaving as the
lights leaving
birds leading
me to night

i am every night that words made true

#4 Smoke Without Fire

Pulses quicken, sirens whine and blare
The sky is close, a touch is all it takes
Breath seems precious, nothing I can share
Pulses quicken, sirens whine and blare
Gasp for the memory of freer air
Unfreighted by humanity’s mistakes
Pulses quicken, sirens whine and blare
The sky is close, a touch is all it takes



I'm back to work after a couple of days off sick. The polluted air is thick here, waiting for wind and rain...

Cross-posted to the Cambridgeshire NaPoWriMo blog.

#3 Morning Calmer

It starts with a chitter,
A skitter of tiny nails,
A wave of that bog-brush
They're so proud of.

They're flirting with vision,
Skirting past eyelines,
The tree-line shaking
As they wake to the world.

Then BANG! a scattershot of nuts
As they thump,
Bump the tits from the table,
The sable-hearted bastards.

I crouch, seething,
Breathing huffs of discontent
Against this
Baffling barrier.

"Gently…" he says,
Lifting my wrath away
From coffee cups, dumping me
Among the laundry.

My lip curls and I hiss defiance,
Take stance, then slink away
To wash my face,
Grace personified in black and white.

Out of sight, he shrieks,
And I race back, heart thumping,
Thundering to the rescue,
Ready for anything.

He dangles my morning gift
In a pincered grip,
Grimacing with pleasure
As I purr against him.

Words of love
Pour from his lips
As I slip between his feet,
Leap to watch my foe.

You're going down, my boys,
The next time I'm let out.

This came from the Bibliomancy prompt from the NaPoWriMo site. Mine was the following:

Pretend you have instant karma instead of instant coffee. There’s a war outside between squirrels

*

from “Another Roadside Distraction” by Kelli Russell Agodon

http://bibliomancyoracle.tumblr.com/

http://bibliomancyoracle.tumblr.com/post/22828685311/pretend-you-have-instant-karma-instead-of-instant


Cross-posted to the Cambridgeshire NaPoWriMo blog.

#2 Closing Time

The The lighting here perfectly complements
My three-day migraine -
Sour and relentless -
Your hand stutters against your thigh
Like the strip in Aisle Six
That just won't die.

And I am tired
The kind where you can't remember
Otherwise,
Winding ourselves in grasshopper
Elastic knots
Cup it in your hands
And feel it jump.

We're stumbling slightly,
Steering around families,
Perambulating around the elderly,
Looking for celery because
You read that thing today,
That thing about how
It's now seven fruit and veg,
Apparently.

And I'm edging along the ledge
Of your temper,
Hedging my bets,
Letting everything slide deep -
The snide remarks,
The silences,
The frowning at the order
In which I take the aisles.

I'm gliding in the  ice waters,
Caught, shaking, as you
Turn corners,
By ambush images,
Five-dimensional,
Of throat-tearing screams,
Here in the depths of Aisle Thirteen,
Or the careening crash
Of the trolley ending its
Arcing bid for freedom
In the shock of pickle jars,
And mustard,
And eight types of olive oil.

Or, more likely,
But still grazingly far,
The deafeningly quiet,
Breath-bound tread
Of me, unencumbered,
Lumbering over linoleum
And tarmac,
And concrete,
And all the silent streets beyond.

In the final approach
You nudge me, reunited,
Point.
I frown-smile, shake my head,
Keep pushing on to milk
"But…"
"No, thank you, not tonight."

Checkout-bound,
We lock eyes,
And I surmise
Your glare's about me
Daring not to buy for you
Vicariously,
Victory of nothingness
Sullied in every breath
Because you still ache,
Sin in everything but deed,
Undone daily by your
Greed for oblivion.

And I…
Can only carry everything
And drive us home.

#1 Cage Aux Folles

Look at me!
Free to flap my wings
And chatter,
Map out my plot
In sensuous tread,
Admire my bob-tail colours,
The graceful wire
Of my horizon.

My song was made for flocking
No mockingbird, I chirp,
Flirt with my admirers,
Gulp down the praise
Thrown in handfuls,
Swing in short arcs,
Giddy with ambition.

Once, a small hand
Managed the insinuation of bars
Stroked my neck,
Begging for a dab of
Glamour by association.
I closed my eyes,
Leaned into a snatched caress
Blessed the owner with extra trills
That echoed long beyond departure.

They fade now -
Admirers and colours -
One drawn to the next songsmith,
The other to the too-small space
Beneath my feet.
I strain my gaze
To hills that were only ever vistas,
Heave shortened breaths,
And listen for the bell.

 

Inspired by a visit to The Birdcage, Norwich - image is a LuLu Guinness Birdcage Umbrella (thanks, Google).

Cross-posted to the Cambridgeshire NaPoWriMo blog.