light

Quiet

I don’t dream anymore

I sit and hold my shoulder

wait for the noise to end

when it does, my ears ring and

I gaslight myself, still it throbs

again, again

do I like the quiet

the sound of distant cars and ocean

invades my soul more sweet

than the motor noise of the

selfish pricks next door/ I don’t dream anymore

that reverb has eroded

my light, my joy

a sick trickle

of stale Jack Daniels

sour and tacky it

sniffs

in the back of my throat

an old injury

waiting to flare up

it could hurt me so good

it could, it could

but I don’t dream anymore so

maybe I’m safe

oh, the pain when it goes silent

and those whispers

of how to fight it

 

 

Photo: Claire Doble

hot hot cool

electrics, tricks

tick, tick, trickle

heat wavers, waves

stop. And restart

farts

old and out of date

but

aren’t we all

electric-powered today?

renewable future

our fate

fill fill the landfill

juice

running down my arm

gasp- scruffle- snip

catch, latch, snatch

from air, from light, from surge-bright

water push push

show the way

if you can-can

dance

save it

for a rainy day

say, can’t that

precipitation generate?

Oh don’t stop or

curtail

our splendid, slipshod, spendy ways

pump your pool

reverse cycle, hum, vibrate

rave

it’s only

the hot hot cool

you crave

more power, more power, power on

never never off, no loss

no, no, nooo not gonna

break

 

Photo by Gabriel Aguirre on Unsplash

amber

put that in aspic

put it in amber

as the long gold

of a winter afternoon

draws on my heart

and the cravings start

to preserve that almost-there

feeling, like where

you dragged your lips

down my shoulder

or the nostalgic

sense of a new

room

in a rented flat

as sun slants

across clean paintwork

dust-motes dance

I would

tear apart

shred the world

just to

keep this

butterfly-bright moment

pinned

to my taskbar

like yearning, like wanting, like chance

but the light just

slips

through my hands

 

Photo by Jack B on Unsplash

Caged light

 

caged sunlight

I was desperate

for another start

to bleed through

and renew

my contract with life

lizards flick

at the corners

of my vision

not quite snakes

but shedding something

a tail, a skin, a bad memory

an addiction, and

the crows call my name

when I pass

beneath the trees

another day forced awake

to meet desires

shucked off

like shoes

like socks

like trauma

like the stumps of his fingers

which set off a gleam of

peculiar-memory

wanting to remove

one digit

trim the top-third

of my ring finger

maybe I was crazier

 

than I ever knew

bleed out

grow

don’t forget

to

move through

weird-warm pockets of air

on the headland

is it

enlightenment, also?

 

Liquid love

 

If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door

life flowing cleargreenblue at the bottom of oyster-encrusted steps

clean water, the salt tang, the ripple against stone, how the light strikes

a big sky over a railroad track and the way beer disappears with the sunset

aching sweet, being drunk feels like love

we twist our affections around a glass and tip whiskey in the crevices love has eroded and cut

sluicing the jagged bits, juicing over hurt

the intense blue sky, blue like plastic, a blue dome, a blue tarpaulin from the 80s, blue like sky, a perfect cloudbroken blue over a back lane in Adelaide

ground tinted rust-red from bore water, the world’s blood and corrugated iron in the sun smells like dirt

your eyes like a tannin creek, running smooth and alive with the promise

if I pour myself full of wine from the grapes of the sky, salted from the sea, grown against wire fences in a red-brown earth

if I lie down with you and join our mouths our rivers our waves

will I be granted love

or does it just feel that way

 

I took the first line of this from Women Who Run With The Wolves by Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

Photo: Claire Doble

Look ahead

I am giving myself this gift

every day,

think back

sit in memories

as a child

bright dreamer with

quick perceptions

different ideas

the girl who held

secret worlds

in her head

rich and strange

anticipate

could not explain

or share

only a mother would

tamp them down with care

fear

from love,

to protect

a small one’s delicate

intellect

in a bigbadwolf, uncaring world

just

realised

one day

do not have

to listen

to all they say

some things are merely

manifestations

of their afraid

and not for ears

to hear

oh

I should reach for the stars

Anyway

so maybe

a soothing

a rebellion

a way to live apart

became

a river, turned to flood

when it’s gone, and drained away

left varnish cracked

after years of wear

and hot breath

stripped back

raw

dead skin, was thick with dread

protect / pierce

to show

the gleam instead

of all those forgotten worlds

revealed

thoughts, light, streams,

ahead

 

This is a long, rambly poem that is a casualty of not enough time and too much in my head today! The prompt was: to write a poem of gifts and joy. What would you give yourself, if you could have anything? What would you give someone else? Oddly, this is quite appropriate to most of my activities today. Too busy “doing” not enough time for “poeming” – that is probably a good thing sometimes though.

I loved this photo I took this morning. By me!