The melancholy moon, with a
bite out of its side,
does a smiley for the stars
surrounding.
The constellated night jewels
catch my breath,
lining up for their sightly
performance.
Minor. Major.
Who cares what key
they play their twinkly
chords in.
Their well-placed face,
their bling, their show,
will make the dark more
bearable.
Yet the brightest one
I only have eyes for:
It squeezes my heart’s
accordion.
For Day Two of NaPoWriMo: a poem about stars
My dream images
Knew better than me
Grassy ground I refused to sit on
Just as I stayed in denial of death.
Sixteen years after my dear dad’s passing
The grass from my dreams tripped me up
Now all bumpy and countrified
I lay on my front,
felt the ground and cried.
I can’t find my mother in work,
but I can locate her
in the deepest of hurts.
I can’t find my mother when I drive,
as people cut me up, in the
conflict they contrive.
I can’t find my mother when I cry
for what I’ve lost
and my lungs are turned dry.
I can’t find my mother in love
that’s pretend; a glamour
that’s just a rubber glove.
I can’t find my mother when
betrayal means bereft.
There’s nothing left then.
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
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.
My love in life was seeing the world.
To be precise, it was sunning my soul.
I came alive on my summer holiday:
my skin could cope with all those rays.
My problem was, I couldn’t see beyond
those speckles of sun. I was just too fond
of easy-bronzed skin to see that my girls
were curled to wizened, before-their-time whirls.
A strip of hurt they might just tolerate
but, in later years, they felt victims of Fate.
It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t really know
that love and abuse could be bedfellows.
I thank the wisdom of my first-girl is called
to cancel the bits that left her appalled.
She learnt from me how to be what I’m not:
she’s now reaching out to heal what I hurt.
Ten years of non-life,
as dementia kicked in
were still the breathing years.
I’ve got maybe 40 years left
to live or non-live,
depending on what I fear.
What I can’t get over
is the flick of the fatal switch
from here to not-here.
inktuition 