2015.30 - Unsuitable

My darling now I must confess
That I don’t love you any less
Than I did before
It’s just: I wasn’t sure 
If my passion was under duress. 

It seems, as your best friend opined,
That I’m just not that way inclined.
See, your bits aren’t like mine –
Does that make me a swine?
To continue would be quite unkind.

Yes, that’s right – I am “one of those”,
Born this way – it’s not something I chose.
It’s not you, it’s me,
You can keep the CDs...
There’s no chance of a lift, I suppose...?

No, you’re right, I’ll just be on my way
After all, there is no more to say
I’ll be gone in a trice,
You won't have to ask twice –
Out there it’s a gorgeous new day.

2015.29 - Afon Tam

She says she wants to be a stone
The weight of care is hers alone
Tree calls out to sky
Water beckons why
My fire won't
Bring her home.

_________

I've been meaning to play with Welsh poetry forms for a while. This is a clogyrnach.

2015.28 - Harbour

I think I've nicked the first line (or something very like it) from a song I heard tonight by Rrose Sélavy, but she said I could have it, so that's okay. :) Check out her music - it's glorious! :D

_____________________

Shadows ripple under my skin.
You have touched off tremors
With the brush of your voice.
We are vibrations answering
Age-long echoes.

I know you sometimes
Want to run, escape your bones;
You twitch percussion
And I itch to clutch your wrist,
Whisper: hush, breathe,
Summon the hardest virtue,
Everything will come,
This too shall change,
All debts are paid,
Pile these heartfelt platitudes
Across your lap.

But, when the high winds take you,
You can only stomach
Semaphore and Morse,
Coarse-grained patterns,
The most casual of plans,
Permissive maybes.

And I will blaze in the grazing
Glance of you,
Feather-passioned,
Unimagined.

2015.27 - Shades of Bentley

Hereward the Wake
Ate a lot of cake;
Drowned his face in orange squash
Then refused to have a wash.

Rosalind Franklin
Liked to straighten lank pins;
Decorated lampposts
With things that looked like damp ghosts.

Stephen Hawking
Loves to watch a cork spin;
Doesn't know why,
If you ask him, he will sigh.

J.K. Rowling
Will often stop for bowling;
Gets fed up as hell
When asked to do a spell.

"Syd" Barrett
Imitates parrots;
When asked if he likes cages
Says: well, it's all the rage, yes.

Susanna Clarke
Goes punting after dark;
Sings carols to the bats,
Says they have some lovely chats.

2015.26 - Typical

Quick work eludes Robert
Today - Yvonne’s upset is
Occluding PowerPoint

And sadness doesn’t feature...
Great - Hilary’s just knocked:
“Later?”

“Zap Xiangyang,
“Call Vienna, Bob -
“NOW: meltdown!”

Momentarily numb
Bob vascillates, caught:
Xiangyang zipped?

Lurching, knowing
Jian holds grudges,
Face drops,
Sighing absently.

Phones Oliver,
Intimidating underling:
“You twit - remember Ecuador?!”
Wilts quietly.

2015.25 - Guides

We have rambled rivers,
Picnicked up trees,
Known the salt savour
Of true hunger,
Lost the map, and
Made our own ways.

We have carved curves,
Following the gentle, unexpected
Way of seams and grains,
While they have slapped
Metal rules on thin paper,
Applying architecture.

They summoned canals,
Eschewed fords for bridges,
Dismissed hills,
And took their best shot
At regulating sunset.

And sometimes
We turned out to be
Collecting twigs,
While they printed certificates,
Presented themselves.
And why not?

They have inspected the
Serried rank of plantations
And never found them wanting;
We floundered in mudpits
And learned new terms for it,
And why not?

They sit in straight lines,
Stacked like cups,
While we wanderers
Excel at getting lost.
And why not?

Because the world is wide,
Smiling at satnav and dowsers
Alike, and I like being lost
With you, knowing that we
Can find our way out of anywhere,
And that, anytime we like,
Will find our way back here,
To the clearing with the
Tiptoe view of the sunset
We never even photographed.

2015.24 - Logbook

Today in the Allographic workshop (Finding the Narrative, with Matt MacDonald), we put together twelve words/ phrases between us with which to make a poem. They were: sand, running, flocculent (thanks, Emma!), it, 2001, Caribbean, the sensation of cat's fur under fingertips, Justine, green, teeth, winnowing,  bloody.

I cheated slightly (you're supposed to work all the words in explicitly), but hey...
___________________

2006:

Your footsteps are already fading,
The sand winnows into plumes,
Ash-breathed, kiting westward.

2005:

We have said nothing,
Loud enough to break glass.
I suck silence from between my teeth,
Start to make lists.

2007:

I still run, hunting calf-burn,
Celebrate heat in the clang of
Ambitiously green liquids in
Frictionless bottles.

2004:

I coo between gritted teeth,
Inch, bark-bellied, as you advise from below,
Summon the sensation of cat fur
To reaching fingertips, clench thighs against
The trembling.

2008:

A blue-and-white summons:
Justine has friended you.
Gape at the warmth of shallow waters,
The sudden fan of creases
I will never feel beneath my thumb.
Find myself on the driveway,
Stale cigarette smoke tugged into my lungs.

2003:

My kitchen is a haven of strange scents,
Abruptly, I am someone with a steamer,
And buckwheat tea.
You dab dots of jerk seasoning,
Suck your finger, grin.
The steamer falls, to be attended later.

2009:

"Wow, where did you learn that?!"
I lie with a nameless book.
'Flocculent' is your word - a nest of
Tiny morning dreads.

2002:

I emerge into cotton mouth,
Iron filing dregs like sweet penance.
A half-known ache pulling me to my right,
Your comma shape a gravity well.

2010:

He packs the bloody space with cotton wool,
I breathe the bitterness of
Doing the right thing.

2001:

You are salt water on my chest,
A shuddering warmth calling my arms,
A coiling strike upwards at my throat,
A tsunami in slow motion.

2011:

I click, gaze, scroll west,
Ease shoulders into unfelt heat.
It's good to see you made it, after all.

2015.23 - Shifting Gear

Birds experiment -
The time has come to challenge,
Ring in new changes.

Neighbour is hammering -
The time has come to peg out
New territory.

Candidates tell us:
"The time has come to fix things!"
Recycling mounts.

2015.22 - Sea and Mountain Call

Home is where the heart is, so
I'm trapped in a limbo,
Rhapsodising on (at least) two themes,
Absent on a wing of thought,
Eddying in an echo of regret,
Tied with loving bonds,
Hand and foot and throat.

2015.21 - Gloriana

She has seen the past
And she wants no part in it,
Glimpses the smallness
That she rejects with every breath
In the relentlessness of
Other people's pessimism.

She does not know what she wants,
Yet,
Only what she doesn't -
Dullness, the fading of
Her name and face.

She was born for glory,
To be a sharp outline against
The backdrop of the rest of them,
And she thinks she's ready
To be literally monumental.

And she finds it does not stop,
That being good enough is never
Good enough,
And that a warrior must learn
To trade and craft
And train, and be placating.
And that sometimes best means
Finding someone better.

But she wages war on the mundane,
Battles bland,
Grabs for grand,
And stands, alone,
The way she always meant to,
Burning, and learning
To take the pain of light.

__________

I was reading about Hatshepsut, the longest-reigning female Pharoah. It's fascinating, especially the way she managed her own legend, but she was also genuinely brilliant, and did an amazing number of things that changed Egypt's fortunes for the better…

2015.19 - Half-day, April

Zephyrs seem to bless me;
Dress-down Friday
Flings me, beribboned into
My kind of sunshine.

There is nothing to fight.
Scents are gentle;
Sounds of city bustle
Blend together.

Everything's adventuring -
Crows and footballs,
Ants and bare arms,
Blossom, grass, guitars.

There's a holiday haze
To the town's fumes,
I'm being lured to lay my head,
Rest on this bench, regretless.

Junk is jaunty,
Garbage is art,
It's all part of the
Wide day's pattern.

We are flattered by
Wary, warm light,
The flight of cut grass,
And the season's first ice cream.

2015.20 - Red: Take Action

Shall I compare you to the winds that howl?
To downpours that make every step a chore?
I’d illustrate the thunderstorms that prowl,
And twisters flinging dust around and more.

When held against the misery you bring
The metaphor of weather’s pretty tame
There’s no umbrella of which we could sing
To stop you putting avalanche to shame

They say that no disaster’s truly done
Until the aftermath is all put right
Our clean-up, mate, has only just begun
To undo all your damage done last night.

I will not speak your name, or see your face
You cannot ever get back my good grace.


_________________

Every year in April I do a new sonnet, building up (wearing down?) my resistance a poem at a time...

2015.18 - Ask Me Tomorrow

Another one from #PoetryToGo, this time a one-word challenge: “`Happiness´. Can you write something from that?”

“Well, yes, but it could head off in all sorts of directions, so: what does happiness mean to you?”

“People leaving me alone.”

“Er, I can take a hint, if…”

“I suppose that´s quite rude, but I didn´t mean you…” and she went on to rhapsodise on what I can only describe as the serenity of solitude, the peace to think about past and future rather than present, requested a 10-ish line free verse poem, manually typed on green card:

_________________

Walk me into light.
This silence sings,
And brings me into a
Core of peace.

Release the busy clutter,
The bright bustle of polyphony,
The drowning questions,
The apologetic constants.

Here I can hum
The one note of me
Suspended in the grace
Of continuity.

2015.17 - A Message

One from #PoetryToGo - the brief was from talented local storyteller Marion Leeper, who's been joining us for NaPoWriMo this year. She said she wanted to give me a challenge: a terzanelle about political cross-dressing (she'd just been to see a talk by Steve Bell of the Guardian). The poem needed to be put in a party-neutral poster form for Marion's window.

Behold the result:
______________________________

That mannequin you might well label Queen,
But not the one you think that you all know.
(Some people find that sort of thing obscene.)

The time has come to dress up for the show,
To cover up this figure’s ugly fact.
(But not the one you think that you all know)

Although you know this smile is just an act,
You may not see how smoky mirrors serve
To cover up this figure’s ugly fact.

Don’t speak up and you’ll get what you deserve –
The Emperor’s bereft of honest thread –
You may not see how smoky mirrors serve.

Don’t let the bright lights turn your pretty head –
There’s something darker lurking underneath.
(The Emperor’s bereft of honest thread.)

In shiny shoes here comes a heavy tread –
That mannequin you might well label Queen.
There’s something darker lurking underneath.
(Some people find that sort of thing obscene.)

2015.16 - United in Rhyme

I blame Ian Barker, who captioned the attached photo of me as: '"...and then I choked him" [discussing a visit from UKIP to the stall]'

Warning: xenophobic and violent imagery to follow, along with the worst rhyme I think I've EVER perpetrated…
_____________

That candidate's a nasty man
He's got a lot of gall
To bad-mouth immigration
When he steps up to my stall

He says: "Is this poem foreign?
"For I shan't have none of that!"
I say: "That word comes from the Greek
"You narrow-minded prat."

I add: "While we're on the subject:
"With a surname such as yours,
"It's ten to one your family
"Came here from other shores."

"Never mind the fact that immigration
"Is far less to blame
"Than your old mates the bankers
"With their nasty little games."

I feel I gave fair warning
But he wouldn't stop his rant
So I put him in a chokehold
To inspire him to recant.

I helped him show his colours -
In fact, he was a couple -
A yellow little coward
Turned that hateful UKIP purple.

2015.15 - Detritus

Last night she found
A threadbare tennis ball
(and a penis)
By the side of the road.

Today the man with
Cosmos eyes circled
(and circled)
At the top of our street.

The penis was attached
But she took the ball home
(it sits on our sofa)
But that's not what I'm trying to say.

Maybe tomorrow
We'll find the spokes
(of the circle man)
Finally drifted, spinning no more

No-one has claimed
The mirror forlorn
(all bells and whistles)
That squats near the top of our street.

2015.14 - Save My Soul

Don't go.
I used to make you laugh,
Dizzy and late,
Turning through degrees
Of definition
'til we rotated into friends

Don't leave.
Remember the time
We sang you to tears
And you saw my other side,
Binding music into
Another rung in our DNA

Don't turn away.
Life crimped you early,
Dealt you a set of marked cards
And cast-iron boots,
But you marked your own path,
Carved chaos into compassion,
And learned how to stomp.

Just listen.
You sent me a text once,
That I treasured immeasurably,
Told me I was worth remembrance
So I'll send back that love,
Enfolded over years,
Softened in its creases
Where I unwrapped
And rewrapped its
Five-word package.

Please stay.
Because we value you
As more than all your pain.
Because we bear your mark in us,
Bright as birdsong
Where your love touched.

Just one more day.
And one more step.
And one more laugh.
And one more text.

"Don't forget:
"You are awesome."

2015.13 - Splinters

You are a beautifully-decorated
Electro-acoustic guitar,
Untouchably of another discipline;
In my memories
Stropping out tributes to
Other high-pitched men
With ephemeral tendencies
And death wishes.

You straddle two worlds,
Turning between workmanlike
And rockstar,
Refusing to choose.
You have travelled forth
And back, maybe as far
As you can, and now you stand,
A little dusty, taut lines sagging
As time wreaks its tricks

There is still time for new ones,
You mutter,
For tumbling licks,
And fretting stretching
Dreams into reality,
Tunes to mend all tears.

You strike tangled chords in me still,
Sometimes
But all I ever knew, in the end,
Was your weight,
And how to despair of your tuning,
My ears sharp to our dissonance.
Still, miles and years away,
I wish you well.

_____________

This technique was learned at a workshop run by Tina Sederholm, called "Extraordinary Conversations with Everyday Objects".

2015.12 - Devices

Green 

You whisper at night
Of theft, shine cruel light on all
My pitiful gifts

Gold 

One word can turn my
Head, spin me breathless in an
Endless mirror cave

Purple 

I squirm, caressing
Everything, dig deep, and come
Up sticky-fingered

Pink

Crammed to the rafters
I gape still, trying to fill
That elusive gap

Blue

If only I could
Stir myself to...

Orange

Less than the sum of
My parts, my heart hold no more
Space for charity

Red

Raze it to the ground,
Delight in the hollow thump
Of fists and bootheels


_______________________

There are traditional colours for these things, apparently, but I've chosen my own...

2015.11 - Sunday Chorus

Hark to the song of
The summer to come,
The deep-throated thrum
That's as welcome as bumblebees

See how the sleepers
Are quaking and waking,
No, I'm not mistaken:
They're breaking out daily.

The greenery rattles,
The shade loses thatch,
As a million grand schemes
They are starting to hatch.

In the gaze of the sun
There are things to be done,
And plots to be spun
Now that next door's begun.

Yes, the ode of the mower,
The whack of the hatchet,
Says winter is over
In blade-breaking racket.

2015.10 - Kindliness

One dreams of steel,
Plots out molten schemes,
Deep in February feels
The ideal summer breeze.

Another scribbles eyes,
Wreathes her dreams in lines,
Twining rhymes,
Dives into the ice of yesterday.

Another markets laughter,
Barters slickness for depth,
Casts her net for spontaneity,
Harks after the craft of presence.

In the echoes of between
They weave a tapestry of chimes,
Impassioned, incorrect and
Deft in tangled, loving lives.

2015.9 - Revelation 2015

You're wondering why
My smile slips wider
Now young men's eyes
Slide from mine,
Minutely shaking heads.

You'll never guess.
It's all in the power of my
Totem creature, who strolled up
Last week: pleased to meetcha,
Calls himself the Don't Care Bear.

He wears comfortable socks,
Rocks the latest line
In careless smiles,
Whiles his time
Doing things he actually likes.

He spikes his own drinks,
Winks at the elderly,
Weds elegance with
Effortlessness,
Gets his kicks from "just enough".

It's tough shit if you want
To buck him, he knows
How to make his own luck,
Has no truck with truculence,
And gives precisely zero fucks.

Good in a ruck, he knows
When to to step up
And when to step on
Ominous as thunderheads,
He calls himself the Don't Care Bear.

And there's the final jest -
Best if you remember
That his love is strong, and
His heart is true, it's just that
He knows whom to give it to.

2015.8 - Inconsolable

Along the path I stump and shuffle

Today I'm wearing new boots in
My whimper-breaths I strive to muffle
Along the path I: stump and shuffle
My pinking heels begin to ruffle
Tomorrow may be blistering
Along the path I stump! And! shuffle…
Today I'm wearing! New! Boots! In…!

2015.7 - Beholden

It seems that mine's the nicest
Head to fit the block
My disappointments slip
Like icing sugar into your cause's maw
While you - your own cat's paw
Whisper stridently of "sacrifice"
A sententious lesson for "us all."

Your heels are clean;
We see you at the back of the temple,
Another's blood daubed across
Your forehead like a frown
"Ah penitence!" you sigh,
And, before the smoke clears,
You disappear.

Give me the strength
To keep my own
To rise from where I'm
Thrown across the altar
Of your wandering ambition,
To listen for my own voice,
Follow it to do more than
Just recognise, but keep on rising,
Bringing my fellow sacrifices
To their feet.

2015.6 - Life Lit

My brain got blown at some point this evening. I think it was when I was sitting in SHINDIG, which I was MC'ing, listening to Henri Salonen improvise with Adam Vallance to the latter's grandly simple piano compositions while watching Gytha Lodge's words turn up, projected across the back wall, as she - in turn - improvised a story in response to what she was hearing. That's live literature right there.

So I decided to write a poem in response to what I was watching and listening to. It's another stream-of-consciousness piece (necessarily), but there you go…

It's late, so I can't really tell if this would make sense to anyone who wasn't there as well/ isn't me, but hey…!

_________

Why are you still here?
For the hateful-sweet father groans
In contrary motions,
A evanescent threnody
Echoing in its own silence.

We wonder why bruises feel sweet
When pressed again,
Why salt water tastes inspiring.
It is because we've survived,
And are surviving.

Our choices appear to be:
Shuffling along boardwalks,
Or battling the wracking heave
Of dark oceans;
And either way,
There is the sunset -
Equally distant but gifting different
Perspectives on hope.

We are all driven by beats
Often hypnotic
But heard more clearly some times
Than others.
We are never locked in entirely
There is always a portal
That has (maybe) not been
Thought of before.

Even the instruments we've been given
Can be sounded differently,
Turning corners,
Making water from rock
Fire from water,
Air from fire.

And we will gather companions,
Sometimes only of our own
Imagining,
The safe places from which we stray,
Kites to the world's winds,
Tethered in love.
And forgiveness.

Sail on, dear heart,
Chart the arpeggios of wind
And water, the chords of
Fire and stone.
You are never alone
While our words together linger.

2015.5 - Gifts of Groaning

You are a taste in the throat,
A shape in the hands
Born of the ways
I waited for you,
Pulled through my palms
Like a star rope,
Sticky with expectations.

I cleave to, heave-ho
The mainbrace of our sailing weather
Uncertain if we're better together,
Shipwrecked,
Or a crystal split,
Calling us history, clever wrecks,
Wracked now by waves.

My mind now is heightened,
And I will call all the ways we spoke
Brave, or knavery,
Depending on the direction
Of the next fourteen seconds,
Because I don't want to be
A port in a storm,
Formed for idleness,
Repairs, and slow regrets.

_____________

Written as pretty much a atreawm of consciousness after reading Poppy's latest poem, so I've no idea what flavours she brewed there… Thanks, Poppy!

2015.4 - Apocritical

Spring is sprung, the grass is ris',
The bird is on the wing,
But I'll confess to hating
What these warmer seasons bring.
It isn't buoyant crocuses,
Or curly lamby mops -
I even love the dandelions
That feed those bunny hops.

It isn't randy froggies
Frothing up my pond at night,
Or the fact I leave work later now,
Confused by longer light.
It isn't that the pretty folk
Strut out in short-cut tops,
It's that when you leave the window cracked
The bathroom fills with wasps.

Okay, it's not that large a threat -
In fact, it's one wasp only -
But the first ones of the season
They are big, confused, and lonely.
The line about them being
Frightened more of me is crap
If that was so, why would it
Try to cwtch up to my lap?

As an adult, I know fine well,
Even given half a chance,
It wouldn't sting me rigid,
And yet still I do that dance
The one that is accompanied
By hopping, flaps, and squealing,
As if, with sheer decibels
I can yet send it reeling.

In the kitchen I could take
The chance to trap it in a glass
But, here, bereft of clothing,
Well, I think I'll take a pass.
Perhaps it's time for therapy
Where my fears some shrink dissects.
It's that or spend the summer
Out-manoeuvred by insects.

________________________

True story. Also: this is why I don't do rhyming poems... :-p

2015.2 - Riptide

We are in love
With our own misconduct
Running down corridors
Knocking on windows.

We are a fast and heady
Whirlwind of limbs
A tangle of notions
Flung to the fates.

We are bramble:
Sweet and scratchy,
A patchwork clan,
A gad-about-towning

Crown us and gown us
With the clouts of
Our own demise, but
We'll surprise you

A stumble tumbles
Into a dance move,
A suture for our
Brief frowns

You might surround us
But we'll astound you.
Don't try to trip us,
We'll only skip,
Hop, and jump,
Surfing our love
For this hurly-burly world.

________

The first two lines of this were taken from Spike Daely's poetry blog - https://spikedaeley.wordpress.com/ - go check it out!

2015.3 - Invidious Kisses

Lines from the Random Line Generator: 

glasseye kiss frosty river angel mildew storm drain glasseye 
radiant mistyrose shimmer asphyxia white jungle firefly icicle 

Where's #2, I hear you ask? It's written, but I need permission from the person who accidentally supplied the first line.

____________________

Sometimes it feels like
I have two glass eyes,
One scrimshawed with
All the lies you told me.

You called me your angel;
I am losing my laden wings
To a mire of mildew,
Radiance reduced to a firefly glimmer.

This misty shimmer is
Not what you think it is -
My heart is frost-cracked,
An expanding drain of hope.

You named me, so
You must claim me -
Angels are not just
Decorations.

I rose from a white storm.
I am all the non-conforming corners,
All the hot and rooted tangle
Of jungle, the enduring fist of tundra.

And we were armed once -
Swords and scimitars -
And I will rise hard,
An icicle to pierce your indolence.

It's not the fight I fear -
It's the asphyxia that stutters
Every time you
Hold me near.

2015.1 - Sky Road

Today I am gust-riding.
Today I have curled
Straight fingers into
Wind-feather ribbons,
Hitched myself to chiming light

The night clangs,
Roars, hisses,
Bellows indiscretely,
Rattles curtains,
Unburdened with the
Need for sleep.

But today I am
Rubbing eyes and smiling
Feeling sight shift
With flickering shadows,
My mind slip to ride
Free air to untold places.