Monday 11 September 2017

KEPT.


My hands are white, I do not plough
My lace is even and skilled
Absorbing my dreams as I loop and knot
My head is bowed, docile and focused
Pretty nape, 
I am patient and wealthy and fed

I do not want; my cup is full
No need to think or worry
My waist is small, whalebones tight
If I faint, it’s the expected constitution 
For my sex. Take small bird-breaths 
And do not hurry.

We have the means; I can stay here
All day like a cat by the hearth
With my women friends
Pulling and weaving and threading
Sharing stories familiar and edifying
I cannot see manacles.

Sometimes I dream
Of the sun on my body
Just dreams as I click and thread and pull 
Swapping anecdotes and recipes 
I look at my progress; an heirloom
A future treasure from nimble fingers.

Sometimes I dream of using my arms
Straining like I do when I lift my son high
Above my head.
Use my arms to dig and plant
Use my lungs to suck in sweet earthen air
My deep psoas to stabilise my hips.

Sometimes my hand shakes
My fancy-work is ruined
And I have to pull it all out, alas, all of it…again
Because I remembered a dream
In which I was a brumby
And it seemed so real that I cried uncontrollably.

But I am status, I am kept
I am bound and trussed
I am your symbol; I’ll not wander
A compliant king tide, a genie in a bottle
A godless, bleeding, stinking gash

And I, smilingly, hand the reigns to you.

Wednesday 29 March 2017

Poem 3

Smoke and mirrors
Big time dinners
Lentils at the end
Of the month.

Take me somewhere
Dirty and make me

Social lubrication
Lugubrious customers
Take my tired legs
Home tonight.

I’ll take you out
Somewhere to make you

Lots of voices
Like champagne bubbles
Pop, pop….pop
My teeth are smiling dry.

They take us out
To get us dirty.

A fist full of
Plastic money
Hard to counterfeit
Modern currency

Tuck it in with your hairy finger

Pin it onto the bride.
Approaching the imminence.

What if the lie was not the only deficit?
What if it turned out to be me?
When did the possibilities fly out the window?
Replaced with longingness for a time before?
How many wonderful moments go unnoticed
Giving weight to unimportance
Things we will forget in time,
For moments we didn’t even experience.

Long live the breeze
The cold air at night
Cool grass under evening feet
Tender and water laden
From the backyard pool
Savour the cold wet run
In damp towel
Into the summer warmed house
And cold nippled changing
Into flannelette pyjamas.

Catching your face in the bedroom mirror
Flushed and young
Plump and fuelled with oestrogen
About to burst into full bloom
Beautiful beyond words
You contemplate yourself
And accept this magnificence
Without full knowledge
Of its momentary existence.

North winds blow
Hot air enters the oesophagus
Summers find a rhythm
Each one heralding a brand new chance.
What springs forth
Time after time
Wishing to Acknowledge
The passing as well
As the permanence.

Is this why our children look like us?
To help us know that we remain
That we are ongoing
As the summers roll and become a smell and
A shape and a hum
A season in which to hear the voices
Of children on the beach
Waves and squeals and laughter
Against the background white noise of
The universe.

Who will we meet on the beach the last time?
Buoyant with the permanent Summer
Will we know it is the last time and will
We look back over our shoulder
To see the ocean once again before we leave?

What drops of saline ignite us and make us move
With the moon
When oestrogen retreats and tells nature to loosen its grip
Where are we then?
Free agents spinning unanchored
What is this freedom that seeks a new beauty?
How do we negotiate being outside the boundaries?

There isn’t a set of laws to attend us
We are lawless, uncyclical, and radical
Scentless, wayward, hurtling
Should we spread our wings and
Choose to fly
We may find a bounty without a dimension.
Unchartered, unsafe
And debauched.
What shape is life
At this point?

I find myself elegantly

Poised and ready.

Saturday 31 October 2015

And Stretch.


Paradigms
Scaffolds
Frameworks
Contexts
Houses
Brackets
Trackers
Arms
Containment Fields
And Fences.
I can’t hold my neck up.
Without my rings

Bindings
Bandages
Bras
Trusses
Braces
Cases
Dressing down
Stopping up
Finger Dyking
Waiting staunch
Button up
To the neck
With
Soiled hands
From
Busy work

Hair growing
Springing and
Merging
Bursting forth
Headway
Forging
Airing
Venting
Arcing freely
Curling
Unfurling
Stretch to the
Outer limits
Of the edges
Of
Your body.
Keep Going
Into the
Echoes of
The Echoes.
Run
Run

Run.