Simon John Harvey
My husband is a writer also. Mostly he writes fiction but occasionally he turns his hand to poetry and has had poetry published in a number of magazines including Literary Review and Poetry Now.
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ORDINARY MADNESS
One of the carers helping my father
told me about her partner
whose job it is to pick up
attempted suicides
people who have hallucinations,
delusional people,
schizophrenics,
people with depression,
people with dementia,
crazy people who are violent,
who need to be restrained,
all of them needing to be kept safe.
She told me about the lives he's saved,
people he had carefully lifted down on ropes
from which they had hanged themselves,
and the young scientist – she was in her 20s –
who went to pieces when her parents got divorced.
She was found completely naked
having drenched the carpets, curtains
and all the furniture with water
because she was afraid of the rats,
even though there were no rats.
I had to ask myself,
what was the connection between a parents' divorce
and an invasion of malicious rodents?
For every exceptional case
that seems worthy of an entire narrative
there are countless others that are ordinary.
The sad truth is, we are all at risk
and we do not acknowledge our fragility –
where our fault lines are –
until we break.
CHARMS
Sometimes I pause for a moment,
arrested by the pat of rain on leaves
the sudden scent of lavender
the soft summer breeze
the taste of strawberries
the slanting light through broken clouds,
the sense of something other-worldly.
These moments are not like the rest;
they are charms on the bracelet of time
that I will carry with me to the grave.
They are like secret knowledge,
divine intervention,
a reminder that even when alone,
even when dead,
the universe is with me.
THE COLD
The cold, it speaks to me of death.
It always has and always will,
until I draw my final breath.
My thoughts, they focus on the frost
and leave me there, alone and still
and mourning all the years I lost.
The ice, it creeps towards my heart
and sends ahead a morbid chill.
I know that I must soon depart.
The snowfields, they're a blaze of white
a vacant land no hope can fill
till shrouded by the dead of night.
BLACK DOG
There's a dog outside,
a sad looking dog
I used to feed unwittingly
when I thought that
I was feeding foxes.
It wanders the car park,
barks at things,
looks at people hopefully
then runs away.
I was out there
and the dog was
standing staring
and all I'd got
was squirrel food,
and its sad dog face
told me everything
I needed to know
about how lonely it was,
how lonely I was.
Sometimes at night
I lie awake and
listen to it barking
through the pines,
through the seasons,
through the various
dark moods that I suffer
in the hope of finding
comfort somewhere
far away from here.
If ever I escape
I'll take that
sad black dog
along for the ride.
IN AWE
There isn't much left in this world that impresses me
fatally flawed, life seems pointless and dull.
The few things that lighten the darkness escape from me;
frustration festers and fills every lull.
There's a feeling inside that I got what was coming,
paying the price for my somnolent ways
and I long to wake up but I know I'm succumbing:
terminal lethargy filling my days.
And yet there are moments when bright inspirational
voices, unbidden, but lucid, sing out
from the grave – admittedly often sensational –
offering hope where there'd only been doubt.
As silence returns I accept mediocrity,
losing the fight for what's worthy and pure;
alone I'm in awe of a carefree profundity
thrown in my face like some miracle cure.
The words may be different, the sentimentality
welcome at times when depression is rife.
The song is the same, though, and awesome reality
reasserts quickly and dominates life.
7p
The 7p I found in the mud
beneath the bench
upon which I was sitting
while talking to the woman
who could have been my therapist
but who, instead,
was just a voice on the phone,
was not enough to buy anything
I really wanted,
but I took it anyway.
SURROGATES
He was a surrogate father I suppose,
like the two Johns that I worked for.
There was something about him –
about them all – I admired
that I never saw in my real father,
some sense that I meant something to them,
that I was more than just an employee:
a surrogate son perhaps.
I never had any sense of
what I meant to my real father;
we did so little together,
we weren't like father and son at all.
Whenever I went round a friend's house
I'd see how their parents behaved
and they were like a real family
living and working together.
I never got the sense my father cared much
what inspired or interested me,
never enquired as to my aspirations,
my hopes and dreams.
He was always at work, doing overtime
and mum was always cleaning, washing,
ironing, washing up and cooking,
the radio a perpetual soundtrack
to her never-ending housework
and when not at school,
I was outside playing with friends
or shut away in my room.
But with these other men, who encouraged
and supported me in my default occupation,
I held conversations, and it is their voices
I miss hearing in the crowd.
STILL WRITING
It was early October 1975
and I was woken,
just past midnight,
to be told our dog,
a boxer called Dunzel,
was in a bad way and
needed to be taken to the vet.
My parents said
he'd not be coming home,
so I said goodbye
and they left me all alone.
I can't remember
if I slept at all
or if I simply waited
until their car
pulled up outside
a few hours later
and we sat together
in the living room
and cried.
There was no chance
of a day off school
so I took a photograph
of Dunzel with me
because that was the first day
of my life without him.
When I got home
my mother gave me
a writing set –
a fancy pen and pencil –
as if that was any substitute
for the companion I had lost.
But here I am,
decades later,
still writing,
writing now about him.
ANTIQUE DESK
All I want
is an antique desk –
something with a history,
something that my mother
would have admired,
something that will itself
inspire me to greatness
as I work into the early hours,
writing, always writing;
pouring out my soul.
There's not much else;
I've little interest in material things,
or wealth for its own sake,
but a fine desk
and a comfortable chair,
a bottle of wine,
an old-fashioned typewriter,
in a room of my own
so I can shut the door,
live imaginary lives on the page –
these things I crave.
But it's the desk that is
the foundation of my faith
and the landscape of my dreams;
preferably of solid oak and
a couple of hundred years old,
with scratches and ink stains
so that I am reminded, always,
that others died at this station
long before I will.
ON THE PAGE
On the page you have matured but not aged
and you are strong in ways a mortal cannot be.
This inner self is expressed far better
in something other than flesh:
something that the years, the pain, the longing can't corrupt;
something invulnerable;
something magical.
Through your words a loveliness persists
that will transcend death,
and your voice, your ideas and ideals,
your way of looking at the world,
in these things there is truth and the divine.
THE GRACE OF GOD
These men had lives,
families, friends,
and now they sit in doorways
and stare out at the rain,
and wonder where it all went wrong.
And when night closes in
they bed down where they can
in stands of trees
and old neglected cemeteries.
I see them and I wonder
what it must be like:
that kind of freedom,
with no ties to anything
except the world and life itself.
They drink and smoke
what cash they have
and why not?
It's a free world after all.
I imagine myself
one of their number.
I practice the vacant stare
that fixes on a dénouement
that doubtless will come sooner
than I would like.
But for now I have these walls
to keep me warm,
this roof to keep me dry.
I have food and somewhere
safe to sleep at night
but I know these things
can all be taken away.
Is it the grace of God that keeps me here?
Am I as vulnerable as I fear?
Will all my life amount to nothing?
In an instant, will I up and disappear?
SUNDAY SCHOOL
When I was a kid,
every Sunday morning
we would go to church.
No-one ever asked
if this was something
that I wanted to do.
I was dressed up,
taken and made to sit
on a pew while the vicar
droned on and on
and we sang hymns
that were a far cry
from the music
that appealed to me.
Every Sunday.
But I only
went to Sunday school
the one time.
There was plasticine
and we were told
to make a baby Jesus
in a manger.
I didn't do that.
I made a snail,
which seems
more relevant now
than it did back then.
THE QUIET ONE
You were the quiet one
the still one
the slow one
expressionless enough
that I was fooled into believing
you could not quite
stir the pixels
into pleasing patterns
or interesting conflicts.
There you were, framed,
and there was nothing wrong
with the image you inspired
but then – I don't remember the trigger –
you smiled
and your features shifted
in exciting ways
and what was almost lifeless
was suddenly
very much alive.
THE ARTIST
The artist observes
and listens more closely
than the shrink,
is more perceptive,
never misses a cue,
never jumps to conclusions,
provides a more creative
and – yes – therapeutic space.
The artist does not miss
the subtle aversion of eyes,
the evasive response,
the held-in breath,
none of which can be captured;
all of which can, nonetheless, be expressed.
The artist does not judge
but seeks the truth
which is found in glimpses
and desperate sighs,
and the reflected light of eternity
that shines on each arrangement of atoms
indiscriminately,
without emotion,
beautifully.
THIEF
Since his appetite is not what it was
my father usually leaves some cake
to give to the pigeons on the Forum.
Today we scattered the cake crumbs
and waited for the pigeons –
they were busy shagging up on a roof –
when this small dog came along
and despite its owner
attempting to pull it away
it succeeded in gobbling up
most of the crumbs
leaving any pigeons
that could be arsed to descend
with slim peckings.
I don't know if
the pigeons ever came
after we left but my father
thought the dog was funny
so it gets a round of applause.
Greedy little fucker.
BAIT
I cannot help but wonder
if it's possible to create art
without first fully
comprehending the subject.
Or maybe the truth is
that artists need only
comprehend themselves:
their motives and means of expression,
so that their work becomes
not so much a record of the subject
as an expression of the artist's soul.
It is the life they would live,
the landscape in which they would die,
the atmosphere and the substance
that sustains them while they exist.
All artists are obsessed
but never with creating perfect art
because art for art's sake is empty.
Life is not all smiles.
There should be rain, pain,
imperfection, bad light and obscurity;
a million other things
because that is the truth of experience
and without truth
art is nothing more than
bait for the financially insane.
LOSS OF INNOCENCE
Mrs Peterson from No. 32
called at my grandparent's house
because her husband had died.
I was there with my cousins:
Martin, Lynne and Karen
and being too young to understand
we were sent upstairs
where we whispered to each other
and pressed our ears to the floor.
None of the grown-ups
had used the word death
but we could hear
Mrs Peterson crying.
We knew even then
that grief was the
language of death
and hearing Mrs Peterson's grief
did more to steal our innocence
than sex ever would.
MORE SNAILS
Write more poetry,
the voice said.
It's always speaking to me:
do this, don't do that.
Shame it couldn't stop me
stepping on that snail last night.
Write more fucking poetry,
it says to me now.
Actually...that's a lie.
There is no voice;
I made it up.
But the snail is dead,
and I'm sad about that.
I don't miss the voice
(that was never truly there)
but thinking about that eyestalk
sinking slowly, sightless
as the life drained out
of that crushed shell,
makes me want to cry.
Write more poetry,
I tell myself.
It's what the world needs,
I tell myself.
But that's a lie too.
More snails would be nice
but how do you write a snail?
WAYNE'S DAD
I went to Wayne's birthday party
with Faye and Colette.
Turned out we were the only guests
so it wasn't much of a party.
Mostly what I remember
is Faye's delightful cleavage
and the fact that when we arrived
and Wayne's dad greeted each of us in turn,
he kissed Faye full on the mouth.
After that Colette suggested
Faye fasten up her blouse,
which put paid to any enjoyment
I might have had that evening.
Wayne looked somewhat embarrassed
and I can't say I'm surprised.
Faye looked worried because at some point
we would have to leave
and sure enough, when the time came,
Wayne's dad grabbed her
and kissed her again,
as if they were lovers
which maybe they were...
...in his head.
HOLLY'S MOTHER
I've never been particularly good
at pitching to prospective models,
that is girls I meet on the street
that I think have what it takes,
that are photogenic,
that have the kind of personality
that will show up in the pixels,
but since handing out flyers
didn't work especially well
and talking to the girls
in the local M&S café
had resulted in Anna,
occasionally I give it a try.
So I took dad onto the Forum
where he could sit in his wheelchair
and feed the pigeons
while having tea and cake,
and I saw this girl
with an older woman
I took to be her mother.
They were in the queue
in front of me
so I had the opportunity
to get a good look at the girl
and listen to the way she talked,
and I thought she had potential.
Back outside I kept watching
because they were sitting nearby.
I waited because I didn't want
to interrupt their conversation.
When it looked as if they were leaving –
the older woman took their tray inside –
I went up to the girl
and introduced myself.
I explained what I was doing
and what I was looking for
and she seemed happy to chat.
She told me that her name was Holly
and I gave her my card.
The older woman came back
and the girl confirmed
it was indeed her mother.
So I explained to her
why I'd approached her daughter
and she just glared at me
and nodded as if to say,
I know your sort
without actually saying a word.
They left and I went back to dad.
Needless to say I never
got a call from Holly.
It's encounters like this
that make me realise
just how fucked up
this country has become
when people are more suspicious
of photographers in public places
than they are of politicians
behind closed doors.
And lady, those CCTV cameras
everywhere around the town
are filming your daughter
ALL THE FUCKING TIME
without ever asking permission.
NUTS
I was walking
through this bit
of woodland,
following a path,
when I heard this squirrel
clucking and squawking
somewhere overheard,
like they do when
they're annoyed
about something,
a cat most likely.
Anyway, I started
clucking and squawking
and the squirrel
answered back.
I had not
the slightest clue
what I was saying
but that squirrel
understood
and after about
five minutes of this
I realised I was
having an argument
that made absolutely
no sense to me.
Some days are just
like that.
SLUGS
I wish the slugs
would stop chewing the leaves
on the sunflowers that
the squirrels planted
in my father's garden.
There's a lot of slugs out there.
Every night they
pile into the water dish
and – I don't know – sit there
cooling off or soaking up
the water to make slime,
which is fine;
the birds
and the squirrels
and the foxes
that drink from the dish
don't seem to mind
slug-flavoured water.
The unsightly holes chewed
in the sunflower leaves, however,
that's a different matter.
There's plenty of other stuff
they could chew up
so I see it as a conscious
act of vandalism.
I could blame the parents,
and the general lack of
any aesthetic sensibility
within the slug community
but each slug has a choice
and the culprits
need to accept
full responsibility.
SMILE
Just try, once in a while,
to smile in the face of misfortune.
Shrug it off and move on
to the next catastrophe.
You could always look ahead
and steer a path that appears
to be free of adversity,
but the chances are that something
will surprise you,
some shock, some horror,
some infuriating distraction
that comes out of nowhere.
Practise in front of the mirror;
count your blessings,
unless you have none,
in which case, smile anyway;
your reflection, at least, will smile back.
A WORLD OF THEIR OWN
They were down in a shallow depression:
two girls standing together taking selfies.
I did not stop to watch them
but as I walked – slowly –
along the flanking path,
they were hidden and revealed
by trees and brambles
and each glimpse was a frame
from a movie about friendship,
innocence, the art of isolation,
because there were other people nearby,
playing with their kids, their dogs,
but these two girls
were lost in a world of their own.
THIS IS AN EXPERIMENT
Let us abandon our bodies,
our physical corruptible selves
and meet up somewhere else,
in a new dimension,
on a spiritual plane
where our true selves –
complex; pristine –
can be released
without the burden of reality,
where we are free to be companionable architects and builders,
because what we see in this world, this life,
is not and never was who we are.
One thing or another –
a horde of hostiles –
has weathered us both,
has tested our mettle and tarnished it
so that the shine is gone
and the surface is pitted and sharp.
So let us go there, you and I,
to that other world
and be the prince and princess of our make-believe.
THERE YOU ARE
There you are: on the page.
I thought I'd never find you
but I see you are the girl
I always dreamed of,
full of passion and strong verbs,
longing for a love that never lies,
a love that quickens the heart,
a love that is echoed in the storm,
in the crashing waves,
in the elemental starlight
and the dream-like misty moon.
THE HOURS
These are the things I value most:
the hours we spend together,
talking and talking,
our conversation twisting, turning,
doubling back on itself,
sprouting odd new subjects –
a whole encyclopedia
in an afternoon –
until the pain returns
and the sadness settles over us both like a shroud.
I look forward to the next time,
the next exiting wriggle of words
shed by flitting, open minds,
but I know that there will come a day
when there are no more words between us,
when dialogue segues into monologue
because one of us is absent,
and the voice speaks only of the void.
CLOSETED
I thought I knew you;
not completely of course –
no-one knows anyone completely.
Now I think I don't know you at all.
Your self – your true self –
is closeted away,
shut off from the world
and from my prying eyes
that for so long now – so very long –
have tried to find you.
What I see instead is your closet,
with angry declarations
and warnings on the door,
and a formidable lock to keep it closed.
I thought – I hoped – you'd show me in,
but you never did.
I never got as close to anyone else,
as I got to you.
I conclude, therefore,
that I have never truly known anyone.
I have a closet;
my fear and guilt go in it,
while I remain relatively safe
from both outside.
You see, it is my demons
that I keep in my closet,
not my self.
I am more than the sum
of my guilt and my fear.
I never want to be closeted;
I would rather die
than live my life in a closet.
THE MIRACLE CURE
I believe I've tried everything else;
there's only one thing left to wish for:
The Miracle Cure.
An intervention by the gods,
to sort everything out,
fix what's broken
and cure all ills.
I can then be the person I was always meant to be,
instead of the miserable relic I've become.
If the divinities are indisposed
to do the deed themselves –
if they're busy with the bigger picture –
then the money would suffice.
I can buy my way out of this mess,
and start over: live a new life by the sea.
MEMORY POTS
I put this moment here,
in a pot for safe-keeping.
It is precious,
singular,
unrepeatable
and I cannot bear
to be parted from it.
The years steal all un-potted moments,
the mind plays tricks with them,
juggles them,
loses some
and those that are gone
are gone for good.
No-one else can find
and keep them safe for me.
So these are my pots
and the moments that I keep in them
say more about me
than words ever can.
NOTHING ELSE MATTERS
It's a peculiar landscape,
somewhere between the states of wakefulness and sleep;
a liminal zone
where, semi-conscious, I creep and cower,
my imagination bleeding
into reality.
Misshapen thoughts writhe like freakish infants;
twisted memory fragments
that I force together
in startling new ways,
casting new light on the details kept in shadow
and shading things I no longer wish to see.
This is a forever beach
where nothing else matters
except the tide
that washes up dream-wrack,
and draws back into the ocean
eroded chips of reality.
IS THAT ALL WE HAVE TO SAY?
Is it over yet? Is it time to go home?
I miss the companionship,
the comfort that I valued more than anything;
I admit I took it all for granted.
This place, wherever it is, is like a madhouse;
this dumb charade unnerving
in its verisimilitude.
I know it isn't real – none of this is real -
it's not what we had planned.
This awful, abstract settlement,
this semblance of a life,
everything unordered;
all these unfinished books,
all these ill-bred infants, stillborn on the page,
all our talk of happiness,
a small house by the sea,
a garden of our own,
a place we could feel safe
and hold the world at bay;
a sacred retreat; a blesséd plot:
just so much wasted air.
Our spent breath mists the cold glass screen
that separates us now
like a presentiment of death.
Did you forget your lines?
I've forgotten mine.
What is left of us, our dreams,
our lives, the love I thought we shared?
Is that all we have to say to one another?
Are we done here yet?
TRUE LOVE
Forever we are bound like this
in history; untouched, unkissed;
you in your perpetual youth,
me in my eternal bliss
for age will take us both in time
(your looks will fade,
and I will die)
and so, with due respect,
a distance must exist
between your loveliness
and my desire lest
what is pure be sullied.
And love, obsessive love
but true love nonetheless,
is proof that it is better
to be parted than possessed.
MAIDEN OF THE WORLD
Who am I now?
The maiden you would drown;
a cast-off maiden of the world.
Prim and proper
I was got for you
and yet you did not value me,
no more than what you paid for me.
One night of lust too soon fulfilled,
that could have been a lifetime of companionship.
I could have been a mother for your dreams,
a comfort for your cares,
a reason for your old age.
Who am I now?
My name is whispered by the fast-flowing stream,
is remembered by meanders in the wide, slack river,
is shouted by the crash of oceans
breaking upon far-flung shores.
I am the spill of surf on rocks,
the surge and swell of tides,
the fall of rain,
the clouded skies,
the maiden you would drown,
a cast-off maiden of the world.
[Note: Attributed to the character Royanne Zafrayn in the novel Creatures of Confound.]
SILENCE
I thought I knew you;
I thought I understood your grief,
your loss.
What arrogance; what folly.
There is no grief, no loss,
that truly can be shared;
it is like death itself
which each of us must face alone.
But maybe somewhere
in the space – the silence –
that uncomfortably sits between us,
a space now partly filled
with someone else's words –
a book we shared –
I think I know the truth of grief;
of loss; a truth inside myself
and in particular that part of me
that cleaves – oh, how it cleaves – to you.
PLANNING
I'm planning a psychotic event.
I've never had one before.
My therapist confirmed this.
I said to him, but it must count for something
that I'm making plans for one.
Making plans is good, he said;
it demonstrates investment in the future.
THE FATES
There is a tiny part of me
that would step back in time,
return what I had taken
and take what's there that's mine.
It didn't look as useful though,
as pretty or as bright
and so I stole another fate
that brought me here tonight.
I wrestle with a conscience now
I never thought I'd find
and wonder at the fate I left
that's playing on my mind.
If I could go back to that day
and face that choice again,
I'd choose the fate 'twas meant for me
and save myself some pain.
There is another part of me
that worries every day
that someone else, dissatisfied,
might steal my fate away.
If I don't soon revisit it,
I'll have one more regret
and now all I can hope is that
it hasn't happened yet.
MISSING
You are gone now,
like others who are gone
though unlike them in many ways;
I'll remember you more easily
than I remember them
perhaps because you touched me,
and they never did.
I am untouched now
but my imagination
pores, lingers over you,
though it is not you.
There is no truth in
your unmarked beauty;
no truth, no innocence.
If they return you,
will you be the same?
Will age and care have spared you?
They did not spare me.
HEAR ONLY THE RAIN
(From: The Seven Houses)
It is raining,
and the rain that falls on me,
also falls on you.
We breathe the same air,
we see the same light
reflected by and refracted
through this coruscating world.
We are the same
and yet we are not,
and the sameness
and the notness
are compliments
we pay each other.
In our sleep
we tread the same paths
and the past escapes,
abandons us
identically fast.
In the stillness
of my private garden,
with my eyes closed,
I listen for your breath,
but I hear only the rain.
ESMET'S SOLILOQUY
(From: The Seven Houses)
To be chosen and abandoned
is far worse than never being chosen.
Being overlooked was my fate;
I had embraced it
and she challenged me only on a whim,
of that I am quite sure.
She set me on an unfamiliar path,
furnished me with all of her devices
but what was I to her?
Was I a muse, a figment of her vain imagination?
Was I a project, an experimental affair?
Or was I just a bolster for her vanity, an easy option,
an excuse for her absent mind?
Whatever I was, my heart began to sing,
though with a far from confident voice,
and her attentions soon became as the action
of the waves upon a stone,
and her hand upon my own
conducted an entire symphony of need
that was repressed, and unexpressed.
I felt it though, as sure as I feel death approach me now.
It: her weakness,
her need for me a fatal flaw.
Her kiss, her touch, her uncomplicated smile:
these things were my undoing,
the complex but intoxicating taste of something forbidden
(for I was never truly worthy)
and divine, for who but the gods
could craft such an exquisite beauty
or define such an absurd romance?
Her body became my cathedral;
her parted lips, my altar;
her affluent affection, my wine;
her desire for me, the foundation of my faith;
her leaving me, my fall from grace.
But I, unmade, am not forgotten here.
And my heart will be the cold, cold place
upon which her last breath may be condensed.
BEETLE
A beetle knows the secrets of the universe
and has a small, but prized, collection of fossils.
He was friends with Aristotle
so he's been around a while
and apparently he spoke at the Lyceum.
While his small voice was lost within the crowd,
his big ideas fit best inside an empty head.
His name is of no consequence -
he's a beetle after all.
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY
The day has all but died behind this hill;
this place where some great mountain should have been.
A thin red line remains: a firebrand
to warm the gulls: the only mourners seen.
A flimsy gauze collects; a placid shroud
that lingers like the ghost of day abroad.
As threads disperse to whisper through the town
the sleep of troubled sleepers is restored.
The feeble lights that glimmer here and there,
like facets on the anthracite of night,
extinguish in a moment of regret.
The harbinger of dawn has taken flight.
Without the bugle-call of falling bombs;
of air-raid sirens, breaking glass and screams,
a more insidious device departs
and leaves behind a place of broken dreams.
The boldest statements of the day are lost;
its kindest words forgotten and unmade.
The God of War came calling after dark.
The apocalypse street-preachers were repaid.
FISH LIPS
I made fish lips today
while staring in the mirror.
It made me think of evolution
and how, many years ago,
I used to be a fish.
THE BETTER PART OF VALOUR
I was never a courageous kid,
the chances others took were not for me,
my life was safe and mostly indoors
out of trouble, out of danger
mostly in my head in fact
where anything was possible
and no-one could get hurt.
So when my mother died
and the nurse in the intensive care
said that I was brave,
I was confused...
because it was not me who died;
it was not my adventure.
DANSE MACABRE
Part one
This is a dance - the two of us -
you, singled from the crowd
and stripped of all your pretty couture,
vulnerable, caught up in my lust.
With these hands I grip you tightly,
sacrifice you righteously,
sink my teeth so deep into your sweetness,
suck and fountain off your blood
and suck and, greedy for you, suck.
You fall against me with your dead eyes
glazed in that prerequisite of fate.
I have no need of reason;
I have no need of love.
At least that is what I tell myself
yet slowly, and with isolated steps,
I cut from one death to another,
so surprised to feel something,
anything at all,
and all that's left within me
is a god-damned memory.
It is you, and you're still bleeding,
in my arms, so cold yet bleeding
drops that freeze like crimson glass beads.
If, with thread, I could now string them all
and wear them round my neck
I'd keep you near me.
Part two
This is my dance.
With a clarity so sharp it makes me shudder
I percieve, in death,
the weakness that consumes you:
the sour breath of unrequited love.
For in one moment of miscalculated lust
you forced yourself upon me
made me bleed and freed me from my inhibitions,
tortured me with all the possibilities
that death could entertain.
Yes, I am still screaming, deep inside
where hope and anguish mingle.
No decay will ever kill my passion.
Fix me with your hard stare,
kiss me with your dead lips,
bite me, hold me tighter,
nothing you can do will steal away
this heart of mine that
beats for me and me alone.
This is my dance.
As I embrace death I can sense
expressions of confusion and of dread
spread like the phantoms of regret
to haunt your every passing hour.
In death I turn away from you.
So strange that you and you alone
reveal to me the power of this darker side,
this twisted, bitter, vicious side,
in an orgasmic burst of reason
that indemnifies my pain
and elevates my consciousness
and renders conscience obsolete.
So look into these cold eyes;
I'm the monster that you made me.
Part three
Release is as elusive as your ghost
and while I waste away,
the hours are my nemesis.
Doomed to this dark emptiness
I cannot kill again.
Nothing is quite what it seemed
and I am woken to an understanding,
too late, that my immortality's
a wretched thing I want no more.
This is a dance but with no partner now
I dance the steps alone.
MELANIE MISSES HER CUE
Melanie existed on the threshold of exception,
always the muse, always amusing,
not one but two whole repositories of joy.
She was a parade of charm and wit,
a paradigm of skimpy vestments,
a positive crescendo of delight.
Her quest for ease was hushed
in an authentic maze of colour.
With her aspirations spent she gazed
and coolly apprehended her success.
Perhaps it was the subtle application of narcotics,
or the compound distillation of her pride
that accelerated, downward, her progression
to the floor where she remained, unmoving
and docile until some consideration could be shown.
In effect, she passed out and the myth
of her delirium, on waking, was to excuse
all and sundry for the failure inside.
Hers was a foolish complaint
embittered by the coffee that
filtered through her, enervating,
sparking as it went,
making her twitch just a little
and blink more often than she should
and vow to never do the same again.
HUSH
Hush, and if you breathe,
breathe softly on the face of death.
The pathway you have chosen
is strewn with vagrant analogies.
Each step is a prescient blunder,
each pause a reminiscence,
a vacant scatological absurdity.
Each voice is a waste of sound,
each name a waste of sense,
each sense attuned to just one memory.
Thus it is that silence offers
the most profound reflection of our selves.
Hush, the terrified linguists
revoke all licence to speak.
Each letter is removed from the air
until none remain in suspense.
Bound words hide their sacred meanings
in dark and featureless walls,
but the plaster cracks,
and the plasterer hears their lament.
ABANDONED
There is still something abandoned
in your tightly folded arms,
in your cast off aspect,
and I find myself
addicted to your darkness.
When it rains,
your separating hands
reach out to apprehend...something,
anything at all.
And yet they come back empty.
Your interminable suffrage is taxing;
you are vexed, that much is for sure.
Despondency cuts well above your heart
and leaves you tentative.
You hoard unconsummated sighs.
Nothing is as curative as distance,
so you thought,
but inside you keep schedules of frustration,
and shun the bitter truth
that you were wrong.
THE NATURE OF ART
It isn't the soft focussing,
or atmospheric side-lighting
or the fact that it's in monochrome.
It isn't even the composition, the pose,
the facial expression,
or the shallow depth of field
but something more profound
that makes this picture art.
It is something that eludes
all but the artist
who recognises, early on,
that art is so much more
than the ingredients;
who achives it
but is never sure
how it came to be;
who sometimes looks,
in puzzlement,
at pictures he took years ago
that move him now
more than they ever did.
FIGMENTS
[On being influenced by David Hamilton]
If only there was some way to explain,
in words, just what it is I need to say.
But words fail me,
and I'm left with an amalgam of ideas
that take some understanding;
that could be misinterpreted so easily:
these mental rushes,
these sequences of linked, still frames.
I know the way that other voyeurs work;
I've heard the words they use
so inappropriately.
Only rarely do they hint at something deeper;
something more profound;
some artistic or aesthetic edge
as they get near, but never to, the point.
I am not afraid to say
that these figments of imagination
are not objects or abstracted bodies.
They are living, breathing women
who exist beyond the page;
beyond the picture.
When you look at what he's done,
then look with better eyes
than you've been using until now.
You'll be surprised, perhaps.
that there's a striking
lack of exploitation.
What there is:
fragile, transient perfection
and there is no other way to capture this,
because all too soon you'll blink
...and then it's gone.
A LASTING IMPRESSION
If by chance you died today,
I would still photograph you.
Corruption would not steal
your beauty from my lens.
Carefully I would focus
on your very last expression;
candidly I would digitise you
bit by lucid bit.
Over time I would explore you;
the subtle and the more extreme
changes in your skin-tone,
deathly palour blossoming in spectra.
Your gentle curves would bloat,
then cave in as time passed
and the heartless laws of nature
had their wicked way with you.
Your flesh would rot,
exposing sallow bones
surrounded by a stain
so like your living shadow.
Then I would put away my camera
and settle a plain shroud over you.
Respectful, I would thereby leave
a last and lasting impression.
---
You may leave a comment for this poet at the bottom of the page and it will be posted there once approved. Please indicate which poem the comment relates to if it is specific.
ORDINARY MADNESS
One of the carers helping my father
told me about her partner
whose job it is to pick up
attempted suicides
people who have hallucinations,
delusional people,
schizophrenics,
people with depression,
people with dementia,
crazy people who are violent,
who need to be restrained,
all of them needing to be kept safe.
She told me about the lives he's saved,
people he had carefully lifted down on ropes
from which they had hanged themselves,
and the young scientist – she was in her 20s –
who went to pieces when her parents got divorced.
She was found completely naked
having drenched the carpets, curtains
and all the furniture with water
because she was afraid of the rats,
even though there were no rats.
I had to ask myself,
what was the connection between a parents' divorce
and an invasion of malicious rodents?
For every exceptional case
that seems worthy of an entire narrative
there are countless others that are ordinary.
The sad truth is, we are all at risk
and we do not acknowledge our fragility –
where our fault lines are –
until we break.
CHARMS
Sometimes I pause for a moment,
arrested by the pat of rain on leaves
the sudden scent of lavender
the soft summer breeze
the taste of strawberries
the slanting light through broken clouds,
the sense of something other-worldly.
These moments are not like the rest;
they are charms on the bracelet of time
that I will carry with me to the grave.
They are like secret knowledge,
divine intervention,
a reminder that even when alone,
even when dead,
the universe is with me.
THE COLD
The cold, it speaks to me of death.
It always has and always will,
until I draw my final breath.
My thoughts, they focus on the frost
and leave me there, alone and still
and mourning all the years I lost.
The ice, it creeps towards my heart
and sends ahead a morbid chill.
I know that I must soon depart.
The snowfields, they're a blaze of white
a vacant land no hope can fill
till shrouded by the dead of night.
BLACK DOG
There's a dog outside,
a sad looking dog
I used to feed unwittingly
when I thought that
I was feeding foxes.
It wanders the car park,
barks at things,
looks at people hopefully
then runs away.
I was out there
and the dog was
standing staring
and all I'd got
was squirrel food,
and its sad dog face
told me everything
I needed to know
about how lonely it was,
how lonely I was.
Sometimes at night
I lie awake and
listen to it barking
through the pines,
through the seasons,
through the various
dark moods that I suffer
in the hope of finding
comfort somewhere
far away from here.
If ever I escape
I'll take that
sad black dog
along for the ride.
IN AWE
There isn't much left in this world that impresses me
fatally flawed, life seems pointless and dull.
The few things that lighten the darkness escape from me;
frustration festers and fills every lull.
There's a feeling inside that I got what was coming,
paying the price for my somnolent ways
and I long to wake up but I know I'm succumbing:
terminal lethargy filling my days.
And yet there are moments when bright inspirational
voices, unbidden, but lucid, sing out
from the grave – admittedly often sensational –
offering hope where there'd only been doubt.
As silence returns I accept mediocrity,
losing the fight for what's worthy and pure;
alone I'm in awe of a carefree profundity
thrown in my face like some miracle cure.
The words may be different, the sentimentality
welcome at times when depression is rife.
The song is the same, though, and awesome reality
reasserts quickly and dominates life.
7p
The 7p I found in the mud
beneath the bench
upon which I was sitting
while talking to the woman
who could have been my therapist
but who, instead,
was just a voice on the phone,
was not enough to buy anything
I really wanted,
but I took it anyway.
SURROGATES
He was a surrogate father I suppose,
like the two Johns that I worked for.
There was something about him –
about them all – I admired
that I never saw in my real father,
some sense that I meant something to them,
that I was more than just an employee:
a surrogate son perhaps.
I never had any sense of
what I meant to my real father;
we did so little together,
we weren't like father and son at all.
Whenever I went round a friend's house
I'd see how their parents behaved
and they were like a real family
living and working together.
I never got the sense my father cared much
what inspired or interested me,
never enquired as to my aspirations,
my hopes and dreams.
He was always at work, doing overtime
and mum was always cleaning, washing,
ironing, washing up and cooking,
the radio a perpetual soundtrack
to her never-ending housework
and when not at school,
I was outside playing with friends
or shut away in my room.
But with these other men, who encouraged
and supported me in my default occupation,
I held conversations, and it is their voices
I miss hearing in the crowd.
STILL WRITING
It was early October 1975
and I was woken,
just past midnight,
to be told our dog,
a boxer called Dunzel,
was in a bad way and
needed to be taken to the vet.
My parents said
he'd not be coming home,
so I said goodbye
and they left me all alone.
I can't remember
if I slept at all
or if I simply waited
until their car
pulled up outside
a few hours later
and we sat together
in the living room
and cried.
There was no chance
of a day off school
so I took a photograph
of Dunzel with me
because that was the first day
of my life without him.
When I got home
my mother gave me
a writing set –
a fancy pen and pencil –
as if that was any substitute
for the companion I had lost.
But here I am,
decades later,
still writing,
writing now about him.
ANTIQUE DESK
All I want
is an antique desk –
something with a history,
something that my mother
would have admired,
something that will itself
inspire me to greatness
as I work into the early hours,
writing, always writing;
pouring out my soul.
There's not much else;
I've little interest in material things,
or wealth for its own sake,
but a fine desk
and a comfortable chair,
a bottle of wine,
an old-fashioned typewriter,
in a room of my own
so I can shut the door,
live imaginary lives on the page –
these things I crave.
But it's the desk that is
the foundation of my faith
and the landscape of my dreams;
preferably of solid oak and
a couple of hundred years old,
with scratches and ink stains
so that I am reminded, always,
that others died at this station
long before I will.
ON THE PAGE
On the page you have matured but not aged
and you are strong in ways a mortal cannot be.
This inner self is expressed far better
in something other than flesh:
something that the years, the pain, the longing can't corrupt;
something invulnerable;
something magical.
Through your words a loveliness persists
that will transcend death,
and your voice, your ideas and ideals,
your way of looking at the world,
in these things there is truth and the divine.
THE GRACE OF GOD
These men had lives,
families, friends,
and now they sit in doorways
and stare out at the rain,
and wonder where it all went wrong.
And when night closes in
they bed down where they can
in stands of trees
and old neglected cemeteries.
I see them and I wonder
what it must be like:
that kind of freedom,
with no ties to anything
except the world and life itself.
They drink and smoke
what cash they have
and why not?
It's a free world after all.
I imagine myself
one of their number.
I practice the vacant stare
that fixes on a dénouement
that doubtless will come sooner
than I would like.
But for now I have these walls
to keep me warm,
this roof to keep me dry.
I have food and somewhere
safe to sleep at night
but I know these things
can all be taken away.
Is it the grace of God that keeps me here?
Am I as vulnerable as I fear?
Will all my life amount to nothing?
In an instant, will I up and disappear?
SUNDAY SCHOOL
When I was a kid,
every Sunday morning
we would go to church.
No-one ever asked
if this was something
that I wanted to do.
I was dressed up,
taken and made to sit
on a pew while the vicar
droned on and on
and we sang hymns
that were a far cry
from the music
that appealed to me.
Every Sunday.
But I only
went to Sunday school
the one time.
There was plasticine
and we were told
to make a baby Jesus
in a manger.
I didn't do that.
I made a snail,
which seems
more relevant now
than it did back then.
THE QUIET ONE
You were the quiet one
the still one
the slow one
expressionless enough
that I was fooled into believing
you could not quite
stir the pixels
into pleasing patterns
or interesting conflicts.
There you were, framed,
and there was nothing wrong
with the image you inspired
but then – I don't remember the trigger –
you smiled
and your features shifted
in exciting ways
and what was almost lifeless
was suddenly
very much alive.
THE ARTIST
The artist observes
and listens more closely
than the shrink,
is more perceptive,
never misses a cue,
never jumps to conclusions,
provides a more creative
and – yes – therapeutic space.
The artist does not miss
the subtle aversion of eyes,
the evasive response,
the held-in breath,
none of which can be captured;
all of which can, nonetheless, be expressed.
The artist does not judge
but seeks the truth
which is found in glimpses
and desperate sighs,
and the reflected light of eternity
that shines on each arrangement of atoms
indiscriminately,
without emotion,
beautifully.
THIEF
Since his appetite is not what it was
my father usually leaves some cake
to give to the pigeons on the Forum.
Today we scattered the cake crumbs
and waited for the pigeons –
they were busy shagging up on a roof –
when this small dog came along
and despite its owner
attempting to pull it away
it succeeded in gobbling up
most of the crumbs
leaving any pigeons
that could be arsed to descend
with slim peckings.
I don't know if
the pigeons ever came
after we left but my father
thought the dog was funny
so it gets a round of applause.
Greedy little fucker.
BAIT
I cannot help but wonder
if it's possible to create art
without first fully
comprehending the subject.
Or maybe the truth is
that artists need only
comprehend themselves:
their motives and means of expression,
so that their work becomes
not so much a record of the subject
as an expression of the artist's soul.
It is the life they would live,
the landscape in which they would die,
the atmosphere and the substance
that sustains them while they exist.
All artists are obsessed
but never with creating perfect art
because art for art's sake is empty.
Life is not all smiles.
There should be rain, pain,
imperfection, bad light and obscurity;
a million other things
because that is the truth of experience
and without truth
art is nothing more than
bait for the financially insane.
LOSS OF INNOCENCE
Mrs Peterson from No. 32
called at my grandparent's house
because her husband had died.
I was there with my cousins:
Martin, Lynne and Karen
and being too young to understand
we were sent upstairs
where we whispered to each other
and pressed our ears to the floor.
None of the grown-ups
had used the word death
but we could hear
Mrs Peterson crying.
We knew even then
that grief was the
language of death
and hearing Mrs Peterson's grief
did more to steal our innocence
than sex ever would.
MORE SNAILS
Write more poetry,
the voice said.
It's always speaking to me:
do this, don't do that.
Shame it couldn't stop me
stepping on that snail last night.
Write more fucking poetry,
it says to me now.
Actually...that's a lie.
There is no voice;
I made it up.
But the snail is dead,
and I'm sad about that.
I don't miss the voice
(that was never truly there)
but thinking about that eyestalk
sinking slowly, sightless
as the life drained out
of that crushed shell,
makes me want to cry.
Write more poetry,
I tell myself.
It's what the world needs,
I tell myself.
But that's a lie too.
More snails would be nice
but how do you write a snail?
WAYNE'S DAD
I went to Wayne's birthday party
with Faye and Colette.
Turned out we were the only guests
so it wasn't much of a party.
Mostly what I remember
is Faye's delightful cleavage
and the fact that when we arrived
and Wayne's dad greeted each of us in turn,
he kissed Faye full on the mouth.
After that Colette suggested
Faye fasten up her blouse,
which put paid to any enjoyment
I might have had that evening.
Wayne looked somewhat embarrassed
and I can't say I'm surprised.
Faye looked worried because at some point
we would have to leave
and sure enough, when the time came,
Wayne's dad grabbed her
and kissed her again,
as if they were lovers
which maybe they were...
...in his head.
HOLLY'S MOTHER
I've never been particularly good
at pitching to prospective models,
that is girls I meet on the street
that I think have what it takes,
that are photogenic,
that have the kind of personality
that will show up in the pixels,
but since handing out flyers
didn't work especially well
and talking to the girls
in the local M&S café
had resulted in Anna,
occasionally I give it a try.
So I took dad onto the Forum
where he could sit in his wheelchair
and feed the pigeons
while having tea and cake,
and I saw this girl
with an older woman
I took to be her mother.
They were in the queue
in front of me
so I had the opportunity
to get a good look at the girl
and listen to the way she talked,
and I thought she had potential.
Back outside I kept watching
because they were sitting nearby.
I waited because I didn't want
to interrupt their conversation.
When it looked as if they were leaving –
the older woman took their tray inside –
I went up to the girl
and introduced myself.
I explained what I was doing
and what I was looking for
and she seemed happy to chat.
She told me that her name was Holly
and I gave her my card.
The older woman came back
and the girl confirmed
it was indeed her mother.
So I explained to her
why I'd approached her daughter
and she just glared at me
and nodded as if to say,
I know your sort
without actually saying a word.
They left and I went back to dad.
Needless to say I never
got a call from Holly.
It's encounters like this
that make me realise
just how fucked up
this country has become
when people are more suspicious
of photographers in public places
than they are of politicians
behind closed doors.
And lady, those CCTV cameras
everywhere around the town
are filming your daughter
ALL THE FUCKING TIME
without ever asking permission.
NUTS
I was walking
through this bit
of woodland,
following a path,
when I heard this squirrel
clucking and squawking
somewhere overheard,
like they do when
they're annoyed
about something,
a cat most likely.
Anyway, I started
clucking and squawking
and the squirrel
answered back.
I had not
the slightest clue
what I was saying
but that squirrel
understood
and after about
five minutes of this
I realised I was
having an argument
that made absolutely
no sense to me.
Some days are just
like that.
SLUGS
I wish the slugs
would stop chewing the leaves
on the sunflowers that
the squirrels planted
in my father's garden.
There's a lot of slugs out there.
Every night they
pile into the water dish
and – I don't know – sit there
cooling off or soaking up
the water to make slime,
which is fine;
the birds
and the squirrels
and the foxes
that drink from the dish
don't seem to mind
slug-flavoured water.
The unsightly holes chewed
in the sunflower leaves, however,
that's a different matter.
There's plenty of other stuff
they could chew up
so I see it as a conscious
act of vandalism.
I could blame the parents,
and the general lack of
any aesthetic sensibility
within the slug community
but each slug has a choice
and the culprits
need to accept
full responsibility.
SMILE
Just try, once in a while,
to smile in the face of misfortune.
Shrug it off and move on
to the next catastrophe.
You could always look ahead
and steer a path that appears
to be free of adversity,
but the chances are that something
will surprise you,
some shock, some horror,
some infuriating distraction
that comes out of nowhere.
Practise in front of the mirror;
count your blessings,
unless you have none,
in which case, smile anyway;
your reflection, at least, will smile back.
A WORLD OF THEIR OWN
They were down in a shallow depression:
two girls standing together taking selfies.
I did not stop to watch them
but as I walked – slowly –
along the flanking path,
they were hidden and revealed
by trees and brambles
and each glimpse was a frame
from a movie about friendship,
innocence, the art of isolation,
because there were other people nearby,
playing with their kids, their dogs,
but these two girls
were lost in a world of their own.
THIS IS AN EXPERIMENT
Let us abandon our bodies,
our physical corruptible selves
and meet up somewhere else,
in a new dimension,
on a spiritual plane
where our true selves –
complex; pristine –
can be released
without the burden of reality,
where we are free to be companionable architects and builders,
because what we see in this world, this life,
is not and never was who we are.
One thing or another –
a horde of hostiles –
has weathered us both,
has tested our mettle and tarnished it
so that the shine is gone
and the surface is pitted and sharp.
So let us go there, you and I,
to that other world
and be the prince and princess of our make-believe.
THERE YOU ARE
There you are: on the page.
I thought I'd never find you
but I see you are the girl
I always dreamed of,
full of passion and strong verbs,
longing for a love that never lies,
a love that quickens the heart,
a love that is echoed in the storm,
in the crashing waves,
in the elemental starlight
and the dream-like misty moon.
THE HOURS
These are the things I value most:
the hours we spend together,
talking and talking,
our conversation twisting, turning,
doubling back on itself,
sprouting odd new subjects –
a whole encyclopedia
in an afternoon –
until the pain returns
and the sadness settles over us both like a shroud.
I look forward to the next time,
the next exiting wriggle of words
shed by flitting, open minds,
but I know that there will come a day
when there are no more words between us,
when dialogue segues into monologue
because one of us is absent,
and the voice speaks only of the void.
CLOSETED
I thought I knew you;
not completely of course –
no-one knows anyone completely.
Now I think I don't know you at all.
Your self – your true self –
is closeted away,
shut off from the world
and from my prying eyes
that for so long now – so very long –
have tried to find you.
What I see instead is your closet,
with angry declarations
and warnings on the door,
and a formidable lock to keep it closed.
I thought – I hoped – you'd show me in,
but you never did.
I never got as close to anyone else,
as I got to you.
I conclude, therefore,
that I have never truly known anyone.
I have a closet;
my fear and guilt go in it,
while I remain relatively safe
from both outside.
You see, it is my demons
that I keep in my closet,
not my self.
I am more than the sum
of my guilt and my fear.
I never want to be closeted;
I would rather die
than live my life in a closet.
THE MIRACLE CURE
I believe I've tried everything else;
there's only one thing left to wish for:
The Miracle Cure.
An intervention by the gods,
to sort everything out,
fix what's broken
and cure all ills.
I can then be the person I was always meant to be,
instead of the miserable relic I've become.
If the divinities are indisposed
to do the deed themselves –
if they're busy with the bigger picture –
then the money would suffice.
I can buy my way out of this mess,
and start over: live a new life by the sea.
MEMORY POTS
I put this moment here,
in a pot for safe-keeping.
It is precious,
singular,
unrepeatable
and I cannot bear
to be parted from it.
The years steal all un-potted moments,
the mind plays tricks with them,
juggles them,
loses some
and those that are gone
are gone for good.
No-one else can find
and keep them safe for me.
So these are my pots
and the moments that I keep in them
say more about me
than words ever can.
NOTHING ELSE MATTERS
It's a peculiar landscape,
somewhere between the states of wakefulness and sleep;
a liminal zone
where, semi-conscious, I creep and cower,
my imagination bleeding
into reality.
Misshapen thoughts writhe like freakish infants;
twisted memory fragments
that I force together
in startling new ways,
casting new light on the details kept in shadow
and shading things I no longer wish to see.
This is a forever beach
where nothing else matters
except the tide
that washes up dream-wrack,
and draws back into the ocean
eroded chips of reality.
IS THAT ALL WE HAVE TO SAY?
Is it over yet? Is it time to go home?
I miss the companionship,
the comfort that I valued more than anything;
I admit I took it all for granted.
This place, wherever it is, is like a madhouse;
this dumb charade unnerving
in its verisimilitude.
I know it isn't real – none of this is real -
it's not what we had planned.
This awful, abstract settlement,
this semblance of a life,
everything unordered;
all these unfinished books,
all these ill-bred infants, stillborn on the page,
all our talk of happiness,
a small house by the sea,
a garden of our own,
a place we could feel safe
and hold the world at bay;
a sacred retreat; a blesséd plot:
just so much wasted air.
Our spent breath mists the cold glass screen
that separates us now
like a presentiment of death.
Did you forget your lines?
I've forgotten mine.
What is left of us, our dreams,
our lives, the love I thought we shared?
Is that all we have to say to one another?
Are we done here yet?
TRUE LOVE
Forever we are bound like this
in history; untouched, unkissed;
you in your perpetual youth,
me in my eternal bliss
for age will take us both in time
(your looks will fade,
and I will die)
and so, with due respect,
a distance must exist
between your loveliness
and my desire lest
what is pure be sullied.
And love, obsessive love
but true love nonetheless,
is proof that it is better
to be parted than possessed.
MAIDEN OF THE WORLD
Who am I now?
The maiden you would drown;
a cast-off maiden of the world.
Prim and proper
I was got for you
and yet you did not value me,
no more than what you paid for me.
One night of lust too soon fulfilled,
that could have been a lifetime of companionship.
I could have been a mother for your dreams,
a comfort for your cares,
a reason for your old age.
Who am I now?
My name is whispered by the fast-flowing stream,
is remembered by meanders in the wide, slack river,
is shouted by the crash of oceans
breaking upon far-flung shores.
I am the spill of surf on rocks,
the surge and swell of tides,
the fall of rain,
the clouded skies,
the maiden you would drown,
a cast-off maiden of the world.
[Note: Attributed to the character Royanne Zafrayn in the novel Creatures of Confound.]
SILENCE
I thought I knew you;
I thought I understood your grief,
your loss.
What arrogance; what folly.
There is no grief, no loss,
that truly can be shared;
it is like death itself
which each of us must face alone.
But maybe somewhere
in the space – the silence –
that uncomfortably sits between us,
a space now partly filled
with someone else's words –
a book we shared –
I think I know the truth of grief;
of loss; a truth inside myself
and in particular that part of me
that cleaves – oh, how it cleaves – to you.
PLANNING
I'm planning a psychotic event.
I've never had one before.
My therapist confirmed this.
I said to him, but it must count for something
that I'm making plans for one.
Making plans is good, he said;
it demonstrates investment in the future.
THE FATES
There is a tiny part of me
that would step back in time,
return what I had taken
and take what's there that's mine.
It didn't look as useful though,
as pretty or as bright
and so I stole another fate
that brought me here tonight.
I wrestle with a conscience now
I never thought I'd find
and wonder at the fate I left
that's playing on my mind.
If I could go back to that day
and face that choice again,
I'd choose the fate 'twas meant for me
and save myself some pain.
There is another part of me
that worries every day
that someone else, dissatisfied,
might steal my fate away.
If I don't soon revisit it,
I'll have one more regret
and now all I can hope is that
it hasn't happened yet.
MISSING
You are gone now,
like others who are gone
though unlike them in many ways;
I'll remember you more easily
than I remember them
perhaps because you touched me,
and they never did.
I am untouched now
but my imagination
pores, lingers over you,
though it is not you.
There is no truth in
your unmarked beauty;
no truth, no innocence.
If they return you,
will you be the same?
Will age and care have spared you?
They did not spare me.
HEAR ONLY THE RAIN
(From: The Seven Houses)
It is raining,
and the rain that falls on me,
also falls on you.
We breathe the same air,
we see the same light
reflected by and refracted
through this coruscating world.
We are the same
and yet we are not,
and the sameness
and the notness
are compliments
we pay each other.
In our sleep
we tread the same paths
and the past escapes,
abandons us
identically fast.
In the stillness
of my private garden,
with my eyes closed,
I listen for your breath,
but I hear only the rain.
ESMET'S SOLILOQUY
(From: The Seven Houses)
To be chosen and abandoned
is far worse than never being chosen.
Being overlooked was my fate;
I had embraced it
and she challenged me only on a whim,
of that I am quite sure.
She set me on an unfamiliar path,
furnished me with all of her devices
but what was I to her?
Was I a muse, a figment of her vain imagination?
Was I a project, an experimental affair?
Or was I just a bolster for her vanity, an easy option,
an excuse for her absent mind?
Whatever I was, my heart began to sing,
though with a far from confident voice,
and her attentions soon became as the action
of the waves upon a stone,
and her hand upon my own
conducted an entire symphony of need
that was repressed, and unexpressed.
I felt it though, as sure as I feel death approach me now.
It: her weakness,
her need for me a fatal flaw.
Her kiss, her touch, her uncomplicated smile:
these things were my undoing,
the complex but intoxicating taste of something forbidden
(for I was never truly worthy)
and divine, for who but the gods
could craft such an exquisite beauty
or define such an absurd romance?
Her body became my cathedral;
her parted lips, my altar;
her affluent affection, my wine;
her desire for me, the foundation of my faith;
her leaving me, my fall from grace.
But I, unmade, am not forgotten here.
And my heart will be the cold, cold place
upon which her last breath may be condensed.
BEETLE
A beetle knows the secrets of the universe
and has a small, but prized, collection of fossils.
He was friends with Aristotle
so he's been around a while
and apparently he spoke at the Lyceum.
While his small voice was lost within the crowd,
his big ideas fit best inside an empty head.
His name is of no consequence -
he's a beetle after all.
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY
The day has all but died behind this hill;
this place where some great mountain should have been.
A thin red line remains: a firebrand
to warm the gulls: the only mourners seen.
A flimsy gauze collects; a placid shroud
that lingers like the ghost of day abroad.
As threads disperse to whisper through the town
the sleep of troubled sleepers is restored.
The feeble lights that glimmer here and there,
like facets on the anthracite of night,
extinguish in a moment of regret.
The harbinger of dawn has taken flight.
Without the bugle-call of falling bombs;
of air-raid sirens, breaking glass and screams,
a more insidious device departs
and leaves behind a place of broken dreams.
The boldest statements of the day are lost;
its kindest words forgotten and unmade.
The God of War came calling after dark.
The apocalypse street-preachers were repaid.
FISH LIPS
I made fish lips today
while staring in the mirror.
It made me think of evolution
and how, many years ago,
I used to be a fish.
THE BETTER PART OF VALOUR
I was never a courageous kid,
the chances others took were not for me,
my life was safe and mostly indoors
out of trouble, out of danger
mostly in my head in fact
where anything was possible
and no-one could get hurt.
So when my mother died
and the nurse in the intensive care
said that I was brave,
I was confused...
because it was not me who died;
it was not my adventure.
DANSE MACABRE
Part one
This is a dance - the two of us -
you, singled from the crowd
and stripped of all your pretty couture,
vulnerable, caught up in my lust.
With these hands I grip you tightly,
sacrifice you righteously,
sink my teeth so deep into your sweetness,
suck and fountain off your blood
and suck and, greedy for you, suck.
You fall against me with your dead eyes
glazed in that prerequisite of fate.
I have no need of reason;
I have no need of love.
At least that is what I tell myself
yet slowly, and with isolated steps,
I cut from one death to another,
so surprised to feel something,
anything at all,
and all that's left within me
is a god-damned memory.
It is you, and you're still bleeding,
in my arms, so cold yet bleeding
drops that freeze like crimson glass beads.
If, with thread, I could now string them all
and wear them round my neck
I'd keep you near me.
Part two
This is my dance.
With a clarity so sharp it makes me shudder
I percieve, in death,
the weakness that consumes you:
the sour breath of unrequited love.
For in one moment of miscalculated lust
you forced yourself upon me
made me bleed and freed me from my inhibitions,
tortured me with all the possibilities
that death could entertain.
Yes, I am still screaming, deep inside
where hope and anguish mingle.
No decay will ever kill my passion.
Fix me with your hard stare,
kiss me with your dead lips,
bite me, hold me tighter,
nothing you can do will steal away
this heart of mine that
beats for me and me alone.
This is my dance.
As I embrace death I can sense
expressions of confusion and of dread
spread like the phantoms of regret
to haunt your every passing hour.
In death I turn away from you.
So strange that you and you alone
reveal to me the power of this darker side,
this twisted, bitter, vicious side,
in an orgasmic burst of reason
that indemnifies my pain
and elevates my consciousness
and renders conscience obsolete.
So look into these cold eyes;
I'm the monster that you made me.
Part three
Release is as elusive as your ghost
and while I waste away,
the hours are my nemesis.
Doomed to this dark emptiness
I cannot kill again.
Nothing is quite what it seemed
and I am woken to an understanding,
too late, that my immortality's
a wretched thing I want no more.
This is a dance but with no partner now
I dance the steps alone.
MELANIE MISSES HER CUE
Melanie existed on the threshold of exception,
always the muse, always amusing,
not one but two whole repositories of joy.
She was a parade of charm and wit,
a paradigm of skimpy vestments,
a positive crescendo of delight.
Her quest for ease was hushed
in an authentic maze of colour.
With her aspirations spent she gazed
and coolly apprehended her success.
Perhaps it was the subtle application of narcotics,
or the compound distillation of her pride
that accelerated, downward, her progression
to the floor where she remained, unmoving
and docile until some consideration could be shown.
In effect, she passed out and the myth
of her delirium, on waking, was to excuse
all and sundry for the failure inside.
Hers was a foolish complaint
embittered by the coffee that
filtered through her, enervating,
sparking as it went,
making her twitch just a little
and blink more often than she should
and vow to never do the same again.
HUSH
Hush, and if you breathe,
breathe softly on the face of death.
The pathway you have chosen
is strewn with vagrant analogies.
Each step is a prescient blunder,
each pause a reminiscence,
a vacant scatological absurdity.
Each voice is a waste of sound,
each name a waste of sense,
each sense attuned to just one memory.
Thus it is that silence offers
the most profound reflection of our selves.
Hush, the terrified linguists
revoke all licence to speak.
Each letter is removed from the air
until none remain in suspense.
Bound words hide their sacred meanings
in dark and featureless walls,
but the plaster cracks,
and the plasterer hears their lament.
ABANDONED
There is still something abandoned
in your tightly folded arms,
in your cast off aspect,
and I find myself
addicted to your darkness.
When it rains,
your separating hands
reach out to apprehend...something,
anything at all.
And yet they come back empty.
Your interminable suffrage is taxing;
you are vexed, that much is for sure.
Despondency cuts well above your heart
and leaves you tentative.
You hoard unconsummated sighs.
Nothing is as curative as distance,
so you thought,
but inside you keep schedules of frustration,
and shun the bitter truth
that you were wrong.
THE NATURE OF ART
It isn't the soft focussing,
or atmospheric side-lighting
or the fact that it's in monochrome.
It isn't even the composition, the pose,
the facial expression,
or the shallow depth of field
but something more profound
that makes this picture art.
It is something that eludes
all but the artist
who recognises, early on,
that art is so much more
than the ingredients;
who achives it
but is never sure
how it came to be;
who sometimes looks,
in puzzlement,
at pictures he took years ago
that move him now
more than they ever did.
FIGMENTS
[On being influenced by David Hamilton]
If only there was some way to explain,
in words, just what it is I need to say.
But words fail me,
and I'm left with an amalgam of ideas
that take some understanding;
that could be misinterpreted so easily:
these mental rushes,
these sequences of linked, still frames.
I know the way that other voyeurs work;
I've heard the words they use
so inappropriately.
Only rarely do they hint at something deeper;
something more profound;
some artistic or aesthetic edge
as they get near, but never to, the point.
I am not afraid to say
that these figments of imagination
are not objects or abstracted bodies.
They are living, breathing women
who exist beyond the page;
beyond the picture.
When you look at what he's done,
then look with better eyes
than you've been using until now.
You'll be surprised, perhaps.
that there's a striking
lack of exploitation.
What there is:
fragile, transient perfection
and there is no other way to capture this,
because all too soon you'll blink
...and then it's gone.
A LASTING IMPRESSION
If by chance you died today,
I would still photograph you.
Corruption would not steal
your beauty from my lens.
Carefully I would focus
on your very last expression;
candidly I would digitise you
bit by lucid bit.
Over time I would explore you;
the subtle and the more extreme
changes in your skin-tone,
deathly palour blossoming in spectra.
Your gentle curves would bloat,
then cave in as time passed
and the heartless laws of nature
had their wicked way with you.
Your flesh would rot,
exposing sallow bones
surrounded by a stain
so like your living shadow.
Then I would put away my camera
and settle a plain shroud over you.
Respectful, I would thereby leave
a last and lasting impression.