Saturday 27 February 2021

for my children because I too often forget:

 

In this fix, stuck fast

between the opening my feet dangle into

and the small space my head has found

my chest and back pressed, breath difficult –

 

I may never make sound again and here I wanted to

connect, say some things, explain but stuck fast,

the moment a rock that gives no ground, so many words,

cavern moths flutter into the shadows and are gone.

 

The pressure builds, the thought

is this the last time we’ll ever talk

and I cannot find the sound, so pressed are my ribs

so difficult to expand the lungs.

 

then the rope, the chisel,

the hammer, a chance; I forget words,

let thoughts as bats hang and sleep in the dark

and use my ears to find the path, I listen.

 

That act we so often forget

as we explore

the ears, the canals, the passage

into the underneath.


The boy as an older man to his mother:


Into this then, this space
of sacred rocks placed in balance,
the sunlight to screen thoughts.

I remember when we were young
you held my hand, mother, as I
now hold yours, your eyes then, clear
looking forward to a time of me
never to become a reality,

those rocks that hover
huddle against wind and word
create shelter in thought and deed.

This man I am, distant now
from that time of holding hands,
my children adults now
who plan that hand-holding in their futures
and whatever they will see
standing there with their’s
will match
and will not

the vision you had
and that now sometimes I glimpse echoes of
as you sit, frail, barely present
in this second between dreams.
 

Wednesday 24 February 2021

Puhpowee:

 

They make their own wind to send children

out into the world

thrive in the electrical storms

have their own force that pushes them

to emerge ready to be seen every morning

some can bend the mind

form miniature circles and amphitheaters

provide shelter and shade

 

and all the while we think of apples falling

an atom’s dance

and a cat that’s neither here nor there

 

while failing to see powers that create

as they feed on radioactive waste

and dream of one single forest again.


Tuesday 23 February 2021

rock formations:


 

Underworld shadows, the movement of a hand

it touched my brow, the fever

smells of ochre and the litany

we will be here forever sung

as rain and wind steal particles of faith

carry them to the water’s edge,

set them adrift a million tiny babes

seeking the lagoon of some Pharaoh’s daughter.

 

When I was young in solemn oath

I did swear the bible and all the words

and fear to be truth-telling, sister, sister

you smiled and knew that lagoon would call to me

as soon as the necessary year’s accumulated

here now I float, touch my hand

and imprint a thousand caverns

sing to ensorcell any daughter’s haven.

 

Inside, in the shadows and rivulets that run

with all the actions done

handprints glow, red patterns discerned

by closing eyelids exposed to bright hope

all the while the caves chew the years

hollow the space to receive the bones

the heart a geologist watching solid steps

become the mists of a new age.


Petiole:

 

fading leaf grips with knowledge

the worst kind of hanging on

can see the future unfold

in deep green dreams

the wind whispers

you’ll come back, you’ll come back

it is always about the return

 

the earth thinks it ends

when the leaf touches down

but at night

as the saucepan catches all stories

stars hold the deeper understanding

eventually darkness will win


Monday 22 February 2021

Inosculation:

 

First, let us acknowledge

the depth to our lichen and fungi

entwining thoughts that span years – did you

know dear a lichen can create soil from rock?

appropriate for my heart that met yours

made whole at last, I think we forget

across the milky way of years

that your flesh and mine cannot know

where one begins and the other ends

 

Second, as I stand here before your absence

in the ground (pay heed children,

 two die when one goes)

family and friends behind pale

shocked as my right hand holds the soil

any moment the freefall into your new home

I know this is as much about my passing

as yours even though I am the one breathing.

 

Third, if I can find the courage

in that bed we bought thirty years ago

I will roll into the emptiness and hope

in filaments none of us truly understand

to touch and heal us both

spend nights alone with dreams

of the days we spent sharing sunlight synthesizing

events into food, eating in out of body experiences.

 

Fourth, with one heart now, in blood

that flows and that does not,

doing double the work two shall speak

with a single voice and through the spread

into children and their children’s children

see the forest, a single contour of difference

that supports so many who have never met

and yet connect through the underworld

structures only mutual time can erect.


Sunday 21 February 2021

Fossil traces:

 

In the salt wedged between progress

and an echo of a dream giant machines

rest, stilled in the end by a lack

bigger than greed. Where mountains

once stood holes stare up at stars

imagine their peaks returned at last.

In the oceans, in the sand the imprints

of packages discarded for the worth inside.

 

Across the flatlines of the globe

bones sing the dirges, future minds

struggle to put the bones into a semblance

of sense out of the mass of loss, beneath land

in caverns stacked cylinders hold a poison

a thousand, thousand years in the unmaking.

 

Shadows of cities rest now

in the reclaimed forests, steel girders

twist into new stories for fur and feather

hold eggs and young safely above.

 

Buried in time, deep in the ancestral mind

memories float unheard, untold, sacred.

 

Who will release the casket’s dirt now?


Wednesday 17 February 2021

Blue Aura:

 

In the underneath

where the only light is in a dream.

In the drift of potash.

In the land of what is and what has been taken.

In the age of recollections

I remember the promises made –

they are the flash of blue

showing what has passed

and cannot be seen;

what once had touched

and where it had been.

 

The flare of colour

the only signal of life

in the decay of body and mind.


Wednesday 3 February 2021

Roadkill:

I found a word today

crushed into disuse

its brittle white letters exposed

its smallest heartsound stilled.

 

The word I think – it is hard to be precise

with words found in forms

no longer used after they have fallen

by the roadside – was groovy.

 

That carried me back to pretending

when I was twelve with Patrick

that I was a Rockstar with long hair

singing Daydream Believer.

 

It took me forward from that

to my brother who continues to use grouse

another word threatened,

in the spoken context at least –

 

I presume, though do not know,

the flying variety still exists

out there in the whole wide world

alive unless it has been recently shot.

 

Time forces us to wear words out,

hits them with the force of a generation’s desire

to change words spoken

create new avenues for sound to parade along.

 

When I was really young

I was threatened

to have the tip of my tongue

snipped –

 

my mother even went so far as to display the scissors

that would perform the slicing deed –

I had uttered the word bloody

now I say fuck as frequently as the. 


Tuesday 2 February 2021

Sounds of the week

Sunday is the sound

of lawnmowers mowing lawns

 

Monday is the sound

of doors hurriedly opening

 

Tuesday has no sound

unless it snores

 

Wednesday takes a deep breath

lets loose a chant

 

Thursday mutters miserably

under the weight of chores

 

Friday roars

Saturday sings frantically happy lyrics

 

Sunday is the sound

of lawnmowers mowing lawns.