Spy

Dawn comes, crisp yet quiet.

Leaves stir on its breath and rise up to land on the window ledge,

locked tight

like the rest of the house.

A robin spies an insect on one of the leaves,

and flutters over to snatch it.

Its beady eyes meet large, pale ones

through the cold glass,

hungry and wild at seeing a creature move about so easily.

The robin is unconcerned, considering only

that its momentary distraction has now cost it its meal.

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Reawakening

It’s a firecracker with karate oomph.

 

No lace involved at this point.

No webs spun, no leaf skeletons

to be collected, analysed, stamped.

 

It took a while to create the right mix

of mineral and powder,

testing and re-testing until the colours were held high,

shouting, ‘we are to return to our maiden voyage.

We are to return

to the sea and its torrents, its salt and seaweed

and the lights of anglerfish in its belly.

 

We are to fight the storms and ride them through

until the calm

spreads her fingers across the surface

and we find the land

we’ve always searched for

bit could never find until now.

 

The homeland of our hearts,

where our roots can be unwrapped

from their protective cloth

and left to spread as they wish.

 

 

 

 

Chrysalis

Their wings were broken, dark bodies

in constant motion

trying to escape the mesh.

No air, no wind.

Emerged one day to a wall, nothing more.

The sun shone, but they could never get to it.

Dream Wars

What are the frames like

surrounding your dreams?

Is everything separate,

preventing thoughts from straying one to another?

Rigid uniformity, same shape, same style

down to the wire used to string them up.

Do you ever take them down, remove the frames completely,

throw the thin sheeting into the air

and see what part of you it settles next to?

What if it strayed into your motivation,

urged you to want it, achieve it,

regardless of whether it would be deemed proper,

respectable, useful to society?

I see the struggle behind your eyes as you think

how to answer, your want for freedom

fighting with your self-restraint, trained

from birth to keep a tight rein on

wishing upon ‘impossibilities’.

I want to tell you how to overpower it.

But it’s one of those times

when you have to find the answer.

What are your dreams telling you?

Silhouette in water

I can’t inhale the salt anymore,

I’ve become immune to it.

The course crystals on my tongue

might be grains of sand, fragments of places

history has long forgotten.

They’ve found me, and I am alive.

So they are alive.

The faces in the ocean, bloated, pale,

give me envious looks.

I chose to swim away on my own,

they chose to stay.

Refused the fresh air

so they could mingle, lungs full

of false laughter and smoke.

Mine are clean.

Brilliant morning

I see the edge of the world as the water spills over and falls

splashing my fingers as I turn on the tap

 

The mist in the house smells of everyone but me

I suppose it would, for who knows their own smell?

 

I watch parts of myself spiral down the drain

no longer needed for the travels ahead

 

I hum as my toes sink into the grass, morning frost

making it soft crystal needles

 

I am awake now

The newness of it all

The rainbow gave birth

Pink wisps merging with opalite tears

At having finally released its heavy cargo.

There is no gold

There never was

Only the after image of a woman stepping free

After years of being locked in

Invisible chains.

Blinding the dark

It flicks its fingers at the edge of my vision

This shadow

Pulling its cloak quick over my face

To grey my view of everything I rise to meet.

 

I claw the cloak away, but threads always remain.

I can’t see them until I take a good look,

And by then, the shadow itself has returned to repeat the process.

 

It’s made a mistake this time.

This time I step forward to greet it,

And with me I bring the flares of the sun.

 

Set Sail

Are they eyes or suckers

that latch onto us as we sail

across the jewel-glint oceans in search of new land?

We look to the horizon,

only hands of salt sparkles greet us,

but we can feel it beyond.

It has a pulse, a thrum,

that even the deepest depths cannot hide

from knowing ears.

The claws that may once have gripped us

have become cracked and dry,

brittle enough to break at a single touch,

and our boat is the ramming kind now.

Endless Days

The wind loops around my hands

playfully

nudging me onward, carrying the scent

of unexplored forests, coastal paths and caverns,

endless fields of wheat and corn and barley, meadows

full of wild flowers, that,

if I’m honest, may just make me sneeze.

 

I can feel the peace rifling through my hair and gently resting

its soft palms against my face.

My heart beats in time with the swell of the sea,

the calls of the birds

and the leisurely flutter of butterflies completely unaware

of how much an impact their wing-beats make.

 

The scurrying of people doesn’t bother me here.

I am home,

I am home,

I am home.