comment – Page 3 – three good words

August 13, 2017August 13, 2017

hot water

late night, past midnight
and there is yet work to be done

so I top up the bottle
with more hot water
like some comfy hen
wrapping herself up in warm feathers
cluck cluck cluck

except I stopped pretending long ago:

sudden, unpredictable cold
shivering down the spine like
a branch of flashing leaves
in an invisible breeze:
I don’t brave that anymore
like some brazen teen
infatuated with designs of cool
of “what if anyone did see?”

but cuddle up to the hot water
bottled
snug close like a young cat
curled in the crook of my lap
fast asleep, purring
while my eyes droop over keys
fingers slipping, dipping into darkness
those invisible fountain pens
flashing glossy black
on bright white screens.

August 12, 2017August 12, 2017

friends like these

quietly listening to friends
talk about
the one who went away

wondering
. . .with friends like these
what life did you
friend
lead?

icy in their words and speech
all the apparent warmth
is steeped in derision
so detached
and deliberate in their cleverness

with friends like these
what on earth did you
friend
see
in all of them?

love, here
sounds like a four letter word
with no other substance
than to hurt, insult

though maybe all they are is
exhausted, because you
friend
were not easy to be
with

so maybe all this
is grief, speaking

about the sudden loss
of a human
being
shorn of all niceties
showing the knowing
of what it was to be a
friend
to the you that once was
a me.

August 9, 2017August 9, 2017

huh

weird, that.

suddenly a
particular certainty’s just
gone

a phone call

et voilà
no more
like they just got up
and walked out
mid-sentence

left the room

except this one’s
time, space
all coordinates

huh

like turning up
at an old house
that was always open
busy, bright

full of weird things
like history, life

and finding the doors locked
all the windows dark
curtains drawn
and one permanent note
taped to the front door:

gone

July 9, 2016

yes, but

two nightmares, r and g
both alike in their utter lack of dignity
in a well-known land
where there are too many such scenes

and that’s where it ends
since there is neither rhyme nor reason
to this violence
this continuous cruelty
so organised, so repetitive
it has become the unthinkable:
commonplace, everyday
predictable
just another news reel.

how is it that death walks the land
with such impunity
and we still think we’re at peace?

we document the seas of tears
we tape the cries of anguish, terror and disbelief
and yet
eyes turn blind
ears tone-deaf
and words are written, spoken
stating repeatedly
‘yes, but’
‘not all of us’

‘not me’.

May 8, 2016

sky to ceiling

sometimes
darkness beckons
longingly
whispering of peace
that is oblivion
only there’s no
solution
in that soundlessness

hope is brittle
when harshly set against
possible/actual
may be, maybe
that could be anything
but bad dreams

nutshells aside
forks in the road
can look eyre-bleak
without howling moors
greying the sky to ceiling.

infinity, vast
or so it is written
lies quietly await
endlessly patient
like a golden summer’s day
and yet it’s in the earliest hour
when you see the light
in its most crystalline shades.

there is this:
perseverance. keeping on
never mind scraped knuckles
chapped lips and bleeding knees
invisible muscles screaming
‘mercy, please!’
but there is that peak
the summit
all sky, no ceiling.

and so: keep on
one more step, and another
until the desert is crossed
and you can rest
among the calm leaves
of brilliant green
the lush cool
quenching clarity
where those days of exhaustion
are only memory
where plenty is true, real
and sunlight warm, serene.

strange little world, this.