Trees stand sentinel

to a greyness that deceives

rain soaks to bone no green

mud coats everything.

 

This time of day

nothing but night coats us:

fourteen hours of obscurity

no light & sleep digs deep.

 

Iris opens to room’s warmth

vibrancy in purple acid green

shadows on the wall a small

sprig of hope.

 

For now we hover

in hibernation

 

&

 

nothing is clear.

She wore her scars to show

she was a soldier,

a soldier used to knives;

the beatings that she bore

were bundled deep inside

Something had convinced her :

the universe was nameless,

she was cursed from birth

with constant need for meaning

ratified in sleep where phantom

figures made her understand,

God often spoke in strangers voices

hid behind their sleight of hand.

 

Her high heeled misdemeanours

broke the tension of existence,

a will to shine so bright the tears

could never be counted,

she courted city streets,

befriended urban outcasts

listened to other peoples families

carefully repressing swell of tidal grief

It was only in third person

she could talk about these things

listen to the moaning of police sirens,

the shriek of three year old from

paper thin communicating walls,

hug her own children to her chest

in order to forget,

 

she remembered.

From

All @ Sea 

to buy the collection click here 

 

 

Immense cold covers the land

trees mime, frost fractals worn grass

turning to mud in midday thaw

 

Old things die hard, men animals

crunched to brittle bones and you

continue on your mindless task

 

of trying to find yourself.

 

You aren’t hidden at the turn of the road

or where we made love by summer lake

all those words we washed with bitter wine

 

mean nothing now as January claims our

frozen hearts.

 

For a second there we turned back time

refound the love so hard to find

smouldered with the green fire in your eyes

 

but then the wind of chance had turned the key

locked us out of ‘’you and me’’.

 

You won’t find yourself at the corner of the street

or even dancing on a foreign beach

you can’t quite finger what you’ve forgot

 

but I keep it here in my hidden heart

labelled clearly with all that we have lost

the day this winter came to claim us.