You were an abandoned child,
left to fend for yourself,
not knowing what you’d done wrong.
Cruelty hurts your emotional health.
You were scooped up and saved,
given a safe home and a place
until someone picked you for theirs.
Kindness softens your sense of disgrace.
Your round, pleading eyes
pull compassionate strings in my heart,
so up you eagerly jump on my lap.
Love feeds you a chunk of my tart.
Hate is too strong a word
for you. That would be absurd.
A person who claims uncle-hood,
yet is too absent to be any good,
couldn’t dredge any sense of feeling
or, while I’m at it, any point or meaning.
You pop up when there’s cash
or a chance to cut a dash.
And you act like your heart bleeds
when anyone has a need.
But your soul was sold some time ago
to the devil of distance, or vertigo.
You count your change, your deeds turn sour,
yet you turn up pure at the golden hour.
My un-love for you is cold and life-long.
Hate? That word for you is far too strong.
NaPoWriMo sets the challenge today
to focus on ‘noir’.
How can I not obey?
A glamorous fringe, sweeping one eye
is hard to resist.
Like a bullet bye-bye.
What’s not to love about murders untraced
that whisper round corners,
waists unlaced.
But my kind of noir travels way within,
to the shadow of self
that’s my evil-ish twin.
Because dark in a mirror without conscience or soul
will haunt my life’s work
like irremovable kohl.
It’s not very often I do my daughter proud
As I struggle to climb a colourful frame or slide.
While she clambers free and easy, giggling long and loud,
My bones feel far too worn, my hips that bit too wide.
But one muddy day through a field freshly ploughed
The only way home was over a fence that could subside.
She cheered me on as I inched slowly over the gate,
Saying: ‘You’re just as good as someone who is eight.’
Something about your mascara eyes
And your coral painted lips
that look confused, not scary really,
so are you sticking to the script?
But beyond the puffed up, stuffed old shirt
And the pulled-in little waist,
I wonder:
Are your twiggy fingers ready to fight
Or have you put on your bravest face?
There was a time when pink was the shade
For skirts and shoes, bags and braids.
From the palest of rose to a magenta hue
Her world was a sugarplum peek-a-boo.
But princesses, fairies, fluffs and frills
Are no longer the ways she gets her thrills.
I blinked. She grew. Did I miss a trick?
Oh, those pink days just went by too quick.
I’m made of old skin and yucky stuff.
You can clean all day. It’s never enough.
I collect and clump. The havoc I create
absorbs your projected rage and hate.
With subtle poise I get up your nose.
You sneeze. You curse. A life decomposed.
I lurk. I linger. I’m a puffball of shame
that with your duster you think you can tame.
But I’ve got a special kind of knack
To outlive all threats of attack.
Mop, sponge or sucking vacuum,
I’m stubbornly stronger than a sweep of your broom.
So leave me be. Leave the dust to the dead.
For today, go out and be yourself instead.
He wants it quiet. I like it loud.
He prefers himself. I crave a crowd.
Listen to the battle of him and me.
He needs attention. I create it all.
He wants to know what’s real. While I just feel surreal.
Sense the battle of him and me.
He likes his sauce red. I much prefer brown.
He always shops for stuff. I prefer to verb and noun.
Articulate the battle of him and me.
He wants it every day. I’m more like once a week.
He’s pret-a-porter. I’m much more boutique.
Wear the battle of him and me.
He can forgive. I can judge and blame.
He sleeps with calm. I lie awake with shame.
So maybe this battle’s between me and me.
A sight of you is rare: a flicker of fleeting soul
that’s dark and deep and draws my lens.
A sense of you is precious: a layer of feather
in a pond of green and white and beak and pen.
A feel for you is magic: a glimpse of shadow
connecting to a light
that shines somewhere within.
I’ve always wondered what was hiding in Good
about a Friday that foretells a death,
where a revered man is nailed to a cross
with the scent of vinegar on his breath.
Dying he destroys our sins
is the story I’ve been told.
But what the story means to me
is a transforming that will unfold.
I had to explain, one random year
To an au pair of Easter knew nought.
So I explained that trust and hope and faith
can get lost in the cycles we’re caught.
We’re meant to believe that all will be right,
when cometh that sacred relief,
But when agony pricks the white of my eyes
I’m tumbling into my own grief.
Metaphor’s the cross, I know all of that
because problems resolve in their time.
Let it go, they say. Let fate do its work,
let your bum note again find its rhyme.
inktuition 