Tag Archives: growing up

new

I stood at the door to my new life
full of fear and tears
so desperate to find the key
under the piles of newspapers from 2004
that littered my desk
the smell of brass was a taunt
from morning til night,
knowing it was so close to my hand
but still lost.
then he came and shook me
awake at two in the morning
opened my eyes
“I am just
like you.
the papers are yours
they don’t belong to god
so get a
fucking move on”.
I found my key
and I walked into the
world that had been waiting
for me
I in my rarity and he in his
reminding each other that
our gifts of perception
are not gypsy’s curses.
my friend,
thank fuck for you
and here’s to our health.
my brother,
you’re more than a diamond
in a sea of glass shards

caves

the water washes over me
the wave cleanses me
i was a shipwreck
but there is no
longer any driftwood
splitting from my keel
the currents are warm
rough
calm
exciting
new
old
all at once

i looked out onto
that bay and its
frostwhite-tipped waves
for so many
years, never really
knowing it at all
instead I preferred to stare
at the grotted river bank in
the next town
heaving corpses from
the mud with my bare
hands and bones
trying desperately to
bring them to life
what a thing
to see such an ocean from
my own window
to pass it no thought
other than a drink at
a beach cafe table
now and then in summer

what a thing that
something so known
could be so new
could be such an adventure
could be so full of
fear and magic

i praise mother earth
my own bay
may not be in any
tourist guides or
hiking holiday books,
but it is here
at my window
and it is mine
to explore,
from the lapping shallows
that kiss my feet and ankles
to the deep and dark
storm-waves that crash
between my breasts
to the doors and caves in dripping rocks
full of natural treasures
that I can discover

all of it
has been here
all along
and what a joy of luck
that only now
have I begun to see it

holly

just a road like any other
suburban to the very core
full of grey paving slabs
and comfortable family cars
each house square and dignified
with just the right amount
of curtain twitching.

the shrubs are lined up
outside the short brick fences
each one alike in its nature
each front garden path,
trodden in with memories of
grown up children and
school mornings past

the holly bushes of the house
that once was ours
seem to glitter in
the dim night light,
but not looking nearly so
inviting as they did
all those years ago.

I steal a sprig from the front
a perfect thing, its points
all frosted with white
some fairytale thing,
it seems it my hand
a little piece of green is all
but dripping rich with
vibrant memories of the plainest
days

plain,
but so wonderfully pure
so wonderfully formative
so like a dream,
that I scarcely can believe
they belong to me at all.

joy hits me
heavy in the chest
with a fist
as I look through
painted green window frames,
still existing as they ever did.
and my sadness
comes off the roof
as mirror-like summer heat
or through the old brick chimney
smoking logs that we burnt
for three whole Christmases.