you don’t know
the one who wakes to write
don’t recognise
her running face alight
don’t know
the music of the undertow
or why
they prize
a face like snow
nor how she prays
or where
the chain is
attached today
like a kite
flying
tethered light by sinew-string
so high
you don’t even
hear her sing
Photo: Rosie Kerr on Unsplash
I learnt permanence from the beach
the way the sand never shifted
and the dunes stood still
a dead spike-backed fish
forever there, the arcs of tides
ancient and fixed
I learnt love from the sea
constant, predictable
ever reliable
turn your back, nothing happens
risk free
and the rocks, so orderly
I learnt life from the wind
always that solid blue
careful, unchanged
no cloud-claw wisps
nor breeze-tossed leaf
to mar my view
gulp that salt-chunk air
sob
tear hair, wild green grass
ragged
sky-tossed waves
brine, not mine
nowhere
buzz on rocks
flies,
sandgravel-spray
ozone
flotsam
angry brain
fierce tide
floatswirl
relentless awake
Delft blue
the colour of my mother
Voodoo
a family angry dance
I do
without her
tapping into
teenage rage
and drunken tirades
a welter of
excessive expression
posturing
and obsession
that may have nothing to do
with my mother
but the calm opulence
of delft blue
windchimes and fingernails
I miss you
do you know?
the pain
of never-enough
and not-the-right-time
a hole
old and bitter
defeat
must be brave
afraid, what sits
on the other side,
lying and lies
lost moments
and cry
over far-away fingernails
and the corner
of your eye
Photo: Claire Doble
Oh my word, GloPoWriMo – global poetry month – starts today! I checked the website yesterday and it’s a miraculous Covid-free zone. WTAF? Awesome. Not sure I’ll manage a daily poem this April but I’ll definitely do a few!
clairevetica 