My car is pathetic, purple and slow
yet my accelerating thrust
can be devastatingly annoying
to the fast cars I leave for dust.
My athletic girl is diddy and slight:
her running gear shows her tiny waist.
Yet, with her spikes, her ferocious grit
leaves the rest to give her chase.
My spirit was crushed and left for nought
after I dealt with one death too many.
Yet I still live my heart and express my soul,
because the blessings I count are plenty.
You’ll get over it.
You’ll learn to live with it.
She had a good innings.
It was a blessing in the end.
She was a good mother
You should forgive her.
She didn’t know any better
She couldn’t help but batter
A reflex raised her voice.
She had no choice.
I’d love my 200th post
To be full of love and stuff
But it comes from a place of rage:
someone who’s had enough
of doing the thinking for others
and always bowing her head.
Well, take it back, you ****ers:
we’re not long til we’re dead.
You live in a box of 70s plastic blue,
a doting reminder of
what I quickly outgrew.
Opened, it exudes a scent of resin
that transports me back
to being eleven.
One touch of your fragrant satin
and I’m back on stage in
a pirouetting pattern.
Your robust pointes are carefully sewn,
your ribbons a symbol of our tie.
To you my love I’ve always shown.
From that first day you were moulded to me.
You are singularly mine, today,
as I was back then: size three.
The day we met, I became whole.
I wept when ballet lessons stopped.
Only the smell of you, now, helps console.
My mum dies.
I lose my dad again.
Doubly I cry.
the pert petalled chrysanthemums
lean over their vase:
a tight little offering
from someone who can’t be arsed
to think of the meaning
of supermarket flowers:
chrysanths can mean death –
theirs as well as ours
There’s a magnetic lean to the front
of the elderly, knowing they’re dying.
Will I be next, they say
as their curiosity bends in
to smell the freshly tossed earth,
circling the inevitable grave.
There’s a reticence from the heart
of the broken soul knowing it’s over.
Will I finally leave, they ask,
as they submit to one more abuse
from a partner who says they deserve it.
When will alone beat feeling lonely?
It’s fifteen short years – today – since my dad passed away.
Five long months since my mum did the same –
and two sets of grandparents, before and in between.
My black suit’s hung up, hopefully for a while.
I’m clearing out cupboards, releasing old bones
from my present day guff to stuff from my teens.
I’ve been grieving, on and off, for twenty-five years:
funerals, death, and the emptying of heart,
that beiging of walls that one’s small life becomes.
But my eyes are tired of closing to what’s vibrant.
And I’m done with that greyish half-life not lived.
The anniversary today, I wanted quiet to think
but what I got was the buzz of life and a blocked sink.
I wonder if it’s finally time to colour my house
with the glories of living, not the shadow of a hearse.
I catch myself,
many a time,
living rules of others
that no longer apply.
Still their critical words
will fill my head.
Even though they’re
gone. Passed. Dead.
Their invisible binds
taper me to a past
that served me ill.
When will my ice defrost?
Loss speeds alone; angry car drive
unpleasant. Duck, dive, dodge;
sneaky sideways swerve
leaves the South London visitor
outmanoeuvred. In the funeral lodge,
wishing she’d ever had the nerve
to address the issues she’s never dared.
Long-gone relatives leave memories dislodged.
Maybe black and bruised was all she deserved.
inktuition 