Last glance

She leads him

To the mirror pool

Where she tells him to dip his hands and drink.

She doesn’t say when to stop,

And so he continues, draining the pool.

In his belly, the shards of the mirror form, and

He sees not the blood from the wound in his middle,

But the faces of his children as they play,

Oblivious, in the fields below.

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Afternoon in an empty park

The sun rests on my eyelids as I lie back,

the woven rope of the round swing-seat supporting my neck and spine

as I sway to and fro,

legs kicking out for momentum.

A cradle I’m rocking myself,

an afternoon whose warm hands soothe me without effort

and the breeze whispering its encouragements in my ears.

So this is what it means to relax.

Crude

Pine fresh, they say
stepping from the dark pool
that was flora, that was fauna,

that was lost, that was found
and now is used. Its lifeblood spilt.
Split into molecules, measured for worth, for potential
for making cloaks of green paper
with no chance to rest.

The ghosts of it chant as they chug from engines
itching to join the mists and rain back into the soil that was home.

Some do, only to find they have become poison and turn the earth black.

Rooted

We see this heart and home,

smell its familiarity on each other

as if we’ve already moved in.

The post is delivered to your eyes and mine.

Our names are stout roots that weave themselves together

to become the key that opens the door.

Weather change

If the breeze could speak, I wonder if it would tell us where it’s come from.

Tell us about the butterflies that have surfed on it, or the parachuting spiders waiting to paint the trees with silk.

How many bodies it’s brought together,  channeling life from flower to flower,

catching dreams and sending them by sky post to Mary Poppins.

Would it tell us about the cut trees it’s seen, the hunters who have no hunger to warrant hunting, the water that was ice and the islands not made of rock or soil, but plastic?

Maybe it already is speaking and we just haven’t learnt how to listen.

Sparklers

The sparks skip from your hands to mine,

Silver tears form in the corners.

I cannot laugh, it isn’t that kind of euphoria.

I am myself, yet most of my puzzle

Matches the gaps in yours. My thoughts

Come from your mouth

And your thoughts appear as vivid pictures

In my mind.

Shall we ramble as we ramble?

Bare room

Now the words come tumbling out; a sharp exhale before you jump into a mercury plunge pool. After months of them calcifying  inside, holding on to them like a babe clings to its mother, suddenly emptiness is all that offers to take their place.

Droplets

They roll down your cheeks,

Little universes

Each containing a fragment of your

Astonishment and pure joy.

A child whose eyes have been

Opened to the beauties of the natural world;

Meadows full of wild flowers,

Rock pools and puddles,

Waves rushing forward

Like herds of galloping white horses.

But you are no child,

And the wonder overwhelming you is

Love,

In its truest form,

And the knowledge that she

Is filled with it too,

Her body not big enough to contain it.

So out it comes

As tears

to match yours.

Overture

Evening draws in,

the half-moon observes

your passage home.

Hours drip by heavy,

oil falling in water.

Unmixed, always a separate entity

to those wandering past.

Cigarette butts on the ground

avoiding the traps especially set

on waste bins.

The smell of energy drinks

left on the bus two seats down

marring the truest scent

of night.

Door unlocked, house is silent.

Signs of life everywhere

that need to be tidied before morning.

Before mourning.

Of what might have been.

Not of what is.

The aftertaste of what is

is natural,

no added sugar.

New video: Four Poetry Collections

Hello everyone. Once again I’ve recorded a video, and this time it’s about four poetry collections that I’ve recently discovered.

You can watch it here: