Plane or Machine
I do not wait: I falter
I do not exist: I am a seed
I do not expect: I marry
My dreams
With the pieces
Laid out in front of me
I do expect:
I expect a lineage
Of ants
To crawl
Across my chest
I invest:
All my eggs into the basket
I get carried away
With cracking shells
Oozing out
Disappointment
Eaten up
When fried.
I am scared:
Of new beginnings
I am scared:
Of the ends
& the never-ends
I am scared:
Of losing myself
In these repetitive days
Heightened & tinged
With new sensations:
Each week I am different
Borrowing from states
I have been before:
Amalgamating into
A new version, always,
A new me, a new way ---
It is not a line!
That is the great lie!
It is a succession of elastic moments
Shrinking and stretching
And recurring:
A snowball effect
Constantly melting.
There is no getting there:
There is no there
It is a plane:
It is a machine
_____________________________
Desire
The room is hot,
Fresh-boiled with dreams,
Behind the curtain comes
The jewelled opening
Of sweet crow-throats:
That summer morning promise
Transports me
To a kind of paradise
Of real, touchable options
And whip-stinging fantasy
My skin has soaked the sun
I bathed in waves
Am now heavy with salt,
I am ready to be cooked,
Devoured,
To be sunken,
Submerged
I am ready to inhabit
Nests and gorges,
To seep and trickle
Across mounds
And end up a wire
In ecstatic form,
Breathless with tongue-ache
And worn
Cherry-Picker
There are men outside the window
Low monotonous rumble
Of a cherry-picker machine
Cutting down branches
To save the trees
The mountains purple
And cloaked in cloud
The air cold and static
With moisture
The shiver of lime leaves
I could stroke them by sight
The pleasing symmetry
Of two mirrors:
Two windows:
Four walls
Lament
I am so bored
She said as she soaked
Her hands in the sink
Nail varnish the colour
Of alligator scale
Skin the colour
Of pallid apple
*
Sipping mojitos
Rim crunching of sugar
Lamenting
For when people were objects,
Empty vessels
To be imbued:
Projectile fantasising
On to tanned skin
And shoulder blades
Meeting dark characters
With Mongolian cheekbones
*
High beyond high
Beyond skittish
Skirting the edge
And falling each morning
With a thud that sounds
Hollow
But whose echo
Jangles
And becomes euphoric
In its repetition
*
Those necklaces:
Stacked up chains
Nights and days
And sandwiched hours
There she discovered
The glamour
Of annihilation,
The battery
Of the senses
The serenity found
In those places
*
The kitchen is full
The cupboard stocked
The fridge
With its languid buzz:
Upon the world
She encroaches
Cracking the spine
At dinner time
_____________________________
Come Undone
My teeth melt into caramel:
And so sweet,
The jumble of the senses
The wire and string
Edging
Lock-jawed and loosening
The crumble of bones
Perspiring
Dew-soaked knickers
Thrown in the bin
And lavished
With the petrol
Of my morning breath
Sodden
With stumped resistance
Clean
Petrified
All fat shorn off
Existential
Mind-numbing
Breaking:
Come undone
_____________________________
We Walk Through the Gardens
Those apples are delicious I say
The ones red as poison
But there are none to pick
From the ground
So you cannot try them
We walk through hydrangeas
And I feel as if I am leading you
Deep into a kingdom
Alive all around,
The power of foresight
At the pool that reflects
Like a shimmer: a sheet:
You tell me of the lizard you found
Tail bit off
And its symbolism
Of rebirth
I hear your voice from behind
And register its message
Unknowingly
We comment on the frames
New perspectives from each position
We notice
There are no names on the statues
I know that we will walk
To my favourite spot at the end
I know because I’ve pictured
This walk, this meeting
Through roses we pass
To sit on stone wall
Dividing field from lawn
Wild from decorated
Coarse from cultivated
Two worlds split
And there it is warm
_____________________________
Princess
Many moons ago
A princess let down her hair
She basked in glorious light
With the taste of charcoal on her tongue
She swam down
From her high position
And balked at the guards
Off duty:
And on she went
Past cattle and farm
Over marshland
Until she reached a cave
Home to
A congregation
Of winged beings
And there was a loud belly breath
From the sky
The way it opened
It could have cried
And down fell paper snowflakes
In came the wind
Howling at the distance
Piercing all cells
And the glimmer, the beginning
Of eggs
Cracking,
The leaves like shells
Bursting
Their velvet yokes
The golden truth
Of that awakening
Rose up the princess’ chest
And she too howled
Ribcage split
Exiting the pain
That all this time had been stored
In that treasure chest
Of blood-filled canals
And tissue
PRAY PRAY PRAY
ALL THESE DAYS I HAVE PRAYED
AND STILL STAYS THE PAIN
She howled
And her teeth became black
With the darkening light
Of the forest
And under her eyes
Bruised and blue
With the exhaustion
Of all that standing
In high places
She prayed then
Reluctantly
To a new god
A god of web and spiral
A god of circle
Not of spear
She prayed
With her feet
She stuck them bare
Into soil rich with soot
And from there
A splinter: a spark:
From there
Roots grew
Her toes stretching out
And dividing
Like veins
Like a river’s journey
From its mother:
The sea
_____________________________
When You Were Born There Was a Storm
My father said
Oh when you were born
The hail beat down
So heavy
Above us!
What he meant was
There was a storm
As you arrived
He is very proud I think
That he was the first person to hold me
His hands blessing
My wet and innocent
Skull
_____________________________
After Hours of Consideration I Have Decided
I must be my own sword
& your resting place
