Poetry

from THE JOURNEY

1. Child

the child dug holes, as if she believed
earth should be cratered

or reprising long distant ancestors
how they might have lived

scooped out sufficient to lie in
had designs on the garden shed

given a doll’s pram
pretended it was a lawnmower

not wishing to play families
their games and forfeits

hands sunk to the wrists
she crooned softly

deep within herself then
did not feel wind

bitter from the moor
the chill of ’closures

only soil live in her hands
palliative, breathing

5. Dissociation

a bar of light
icicles down her spine
door opening
ugly is a smile

but she’s illusion
a flighty elf
as a daisy closes
slips out of herself

crush the thornbush
and not feel
catch in a mirror
breathe she’ll disappear

he’ll not savvy
she’s not there
she’s mischief on the wind
a cloud breezing through air

the free-fall child
a blown seed
she’s between-time
the moment yet to be

her she’ll comfort
touch the hurt
hold in the cup of her hand
like a trampled bird

SIMPLE

Like a soft-pawed kitten you stroke
the hem of my dream, utter raw sounds.

I am small again, easy in your care.
How delicately the stubbed fingers
caress night, fold it round like a tent.

Simple they term you. Kindly meant.
Your person prisoned in the body’s cell:
a halt gait, spittled lips, the eyes’ slow quest.

But a true medium, you spirit me
to all you are denied, gift resilience,
the skewed smile. Anger too.

Your terrible silence:
the small cache of nearly-words
you keep from others, knowing

rage without eloquence, mocks itself;
better endure the stares,
being disregarded,

let your soul bleed into mine;
raucous voices chant, sing –
tone-deaf, always in tune.

Tenderly you take my hand, hold it,
so softly mouth the small sound
you keep for me.

Never love so naked again.

I’m the ear that hears, the lips that speak;
fine-tuned to each ghosted breath.

But I grow, forget.

DEEP RIVER

Deep river, my home is over Jordan.
Deep river Lord, I want to cross over…

No song more apt or less seeming:
your motif concealing as it reveals.

Tenor, baritone, bass, chanting it
over and over, irrepressible, comic.

One of the boys, but without that eye
for the colleens. A confirmed bachelor

trusted to chaperone adolescent girls
to the local dance. You never danced, never

stole a kiss. Never played gooseberry either
honouring your word at a discreet watch.

*
After, we’d go often through that day in the cornfield:
the camaraderie, the mirth; you high on your own wit.

Something so beyond expectation can’t be made peace with;
seeming then a rebuttal of all we had come to trust.

Jauntily, setting off to turn in the cows, you called
from the headland, in mock severity, “Don’t ’e be slackin’ now.”

Went in
and hanged yourself.

*
That was the awakening.
A call to vigilance.

The turning aside from the long-held,
the cherished, the belief in belief.

Conviction is elusive now. I grow
easy with doubt, look to the light…

Some nights there is only the dark.

THE SURVIVOR

Remembering F. P. war veteran

Truth is known only to its victims.
Douglas Dunn, I Am a Cameraman

The hole in his temple was rucked over, ghost-grey.
His missing eye seemed to weep for itself:
a hung tear, like a child’s despair.

A perilous slither hustled him through doors,
his deft side-step keeping the tea-tray upright.
An involuntary clown, crestfallen, on the edge.

His odd-job status tolerated him, blinked: brew-boy,
postie, errand-boy, cleaner. Rages hacked at him, grew:
lost days astray, a wife who’d wept, a son taken.

Could not find a way back to himself –
racked by terrors, death-craving spectres,
their foul breaths badgering his ear;

days refusing to come clear.