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Tag Archives: confessional poetry

castles

as she is lowered
into
the swaying
undulating heat
of the underground cavern
she breathes deeply
the smell of hot metal
and foot soldiers,
and asks
is this
my home?

she asks
is this my home?
where is my home?
does it matter
at all?
is home some
abstract feeling
of childhood safety nets
that dissipate into
nothing, with age?
we lose our homes
and gain
weathered lines,
crow’s feet at the eyes?

she stands by
the quiet beggar
with his whispered
pleas for help
and change
perhaps
he knows where home
could be.
perhaps one so
much more lost than her,
could share the secret.

she cries
out in the night
for that great thing.
home is nowhere
for anyone
she realises,
a thought of comfort.
home is inside
their hearts,
not their things or their castles.
she knows this,
she knows this.

and so her mother says
best
get to work
on your little heart,
my girl.

magic

how can you
ever repay
goddesses
who gave you life?
a debt so enormous
unending
and true
yet never once
expected.

woman bore you,
in her body
laughed in the face
of the foul
modern expectation of her life
her work
never finished,
as you grew and squalled.

she bore a life,
and watched it
destroyed by
things she
could never control.
with her own pain
a searing
knife in the heart,
yours, a thousand
needles in her eyes.

yet
she carried you.
she is not made of magic
she is a foundation
on which you built your
independence,
expected by all as
a cornerstone of life

life tells us
she is not made of magic
but look
deeply into her loving eyes,
and it is what you will see
plainer than cotton
clearer than summer sky.
her magic imbues
us all.

room

the hot
white room
still tingling
with newness
paint and lino the same
is not the
friendliest place
to cast a glance
but somehow here
us strangers
freely see
our souls and sufferances
reflected in the walls
somehow here
strangers are my kin
all-knowing
of the aces and queens I
hold so tightly
locked to my chest
and though I avoid
the shocking blues
and greens of my friends
and lovers,
our brown
unknown eyes
meet in comfort
not breaking as we
would outside
in the world
we call real

what a strange
and hot room
this is.

dew

I’m not there yet, but I will be soon. 

my heart overflows with grace and gratefulness.
I suffer, surely.
but this humbles me
with a reward of
pure, composed contentment.

how could I
enjoy the dawn
so auroral,
argent and glittering with dew,

if never to live
in the mirthless night,
the sepulchral darkness?

if never to lift up my arms
in the unoiled sister-shackles
of pain, and furious fear?

the dawn comes,
and with it
the heavenliest sigh;
“freedom.”

ashes

year after year
I drop
cigarette ashes
and salt water
on your portrait.

is this not
a potent enough
concoction?
is this not
the spell
that will work?

my arms are dirty
with the
tea stains
you left behind,
no
vanishing solution
to clear them.

my lungs
and heart
they perished
along
with your
yellow skin.

but mine
emptied of
organs,
travels onward
despite complaint.

there was
no need
to breathe in.
no need to
beat.

the lesson
was learned
then,
in a hot room
of lilies
and machines.

the fifteen holes
in organs
rotten from suffering
tighten into
scar tissue.

they are
you
as I am
you.

I will
visit again
soon.

honey

your peaceful dreams
they dissolve
like sugar cubes in
below-average cups of tea

and your nightmares,
they stick to you
like hard golden toffees
stick to broken teeth

by now you should know
that sweetness rots your gums
and gives you gaping cavities
that are costly to repair

you may crave the
dripping satisfaction of syrup
in your little mouth
on your little tongue

but do you really want to remember
the honey trickling down your throat
when you are scrutinizing
the size of your hips again?

my darling, no
replace the lid of the biscuit tin
and be grateful that nobody
wants to see beneath your summer dress

mud

grief makes
your heart
sick
not sick
enough to stop beating and
kill you,
just sick
enough to suffer

grief makes
the veins collapse
makes them sticky,
so they
punish you
lest you forget
what you have
loved most
and lost

lest you forget,
as if you could
when you feel your
blood choking you
again
and you wonder
why you
are sentenced to die
so slowly.

star

a burning
hot
cluster
of atoms
falls
directly
in front
of you
blinding you
with
incandescent
white
starlight

do you
reach out
to silver
your fingers
or burn
their flesh
do you
open your
delicate mouth
to receive
perfect
fiery
light

we
obsess
reaching out to
the sky
but when
the sky
comes to us
we shiver
hot-cold
scalded
by something
too pure
too powerful
for mere
skin

stone

stone girl,
you look in the mirror
who do you see there?

do you see
the cracks
in your
nature

do you see
how you filled
them up
with technicolour?

stone girl,
you feel the storm
weathering your heart

I wonder
if you know
how implausibly strong
your barriers are

I wonder
if you feel
your rejections
of splintered wood

stone girl,
you brace the curse
of a compromise

the others
made of clay
could never know
your power

the others
so delicate
when mixed with water
glazed over

stone girl,
you were thrown
into the fire

stone girl,
you came out
at one thousand degrees

stone girl,
if only you could know
what you have defeated

teeth

two rows
sweet, straight, together
they belong to your mouth alone

no words
are available in language
to describe such utter loveliness

visible only
after exchanged words
and sharp intakes of breath

a small price
for lifetimes of pain
the gift that only we could know about

gone quickly
fleeting like rain
but sealed in memory
languageless, kept forever.