a few of mine, diversity and regrets included

written in november

up on the roof


having cleared so many leaves from the tarmac drive out back a few days ago (or was that yesterday? i can't recall), today has given me a new respect for the sheer weight of leaves a tree's burdened with; how nice it must be to let them fall. oh, today? today i didn't fall off the canted roof.

?who knew how many leaves could pack a deep guttering between the old and the new parts of the house -* new* being relative, new being about 40 years old, so newer than me, a lot newer than the old house. squeezing out of the small attic window, the roof sloping down away, along and up then down again in more than one direction, pushing the broom and hoe in front of me, stepping only where i could see screws and bolts, half-sliding on my backside, edging carefully over the ridged metal, then one boot on the higher level of older roof, one on the lower, newer sheeting, broad deep guttering between my feet, clearing it a few feet at a time, stopping to sweep the additional accumulation of leaves still draping the slopes as far as i could reach...

worked my way down to the edge, swept everything clear, raked in the muck of half-rotted leaves to de-clog the dual downpipes

breathe

look down

a mountain in tones of olive drab, scarlet, burnt earth, orange, and taupe

crab-walk back towards the small window, then semi-crawl up the long slope to the apex, half-slip, half-slide down, then with my behind on the slope, boots on the other angling down closer to the external kitchen wall, clearing as i went, finally reached the outer edge and the normal, more narrow rain gutter. on hands and knees, worked slowly forward, clearing the aluminium trough with gloved hands, raining wet leaves down on the almost-7-months pyr pup. crawled to the corner, breathing in woodsmoke and mist, then had to retrace my way backwards till i was once more butt&booting the slope reaching up to the attic bedroom, up over the apex (this house is new to me, and think that part must be above ma'am's sewing room and little red parlour set out in best and never used) pushing broom and hoe before me.*

back at the window, legs in and up over first - no room to turn over, belly down - so hands under and behind, pushing up and forward to balance and support, hip-wriggles - gravity, head duck - in!

yes, i didn't fall off the roof.

written for the valentine challenge but it doesn't fit the rules so it goes here

Heart in a Box

Hearts are a bloody mess
when disconnected
from rubbery tubes collecting plaque--
4-chambered pumps
counting down our days,
tirelessly working
to send messages of life
to brain and all extremities.

Heartache restricts the flow,
triggers pain--the body's warning;
something's wrong
demands evasive action
before atrophy sets in
and a stuttering pulse.

Love
swells a heart,
engorges it with bliss
till it floats--
a hot red balloon in blue skies.

What use a heart without its body?
Zombies shuffle through their hours,
hearts derelict.
Both my heart and body need him.
Time enough to box them
when I'm dead.

Questions


Is your skull see-through?
Are your eyes like two shelled eggs,
yolks flat and raw and trembling in your head?

Do disembodied strangers
extrapolate a face
from two dark nares and a mouth
when, in truth, your gaze is raised
scanning skies for swift shadows,
bursts of light?

Do you swim alone
through the vast dimness
or cluster, as nature dictates,
safety in numbers
when storm clouds gather
directly overhead?

Is that your blood in the water?

And tell me this:
do fish feel fear?

Dreams.

Act 1: Serenity

A study in serenity,
naked, pale as breath,
you glide
head-first beneath thick ice,
arms loose by your sides;
hair rippling like silvered weed;
eyes closed to the light and my frozen stare;
floating in enchantment's stream
and waiting for some ruddy kiss
to bring blood to your lips,
flutter open those lashes,
allow your lungs to fill with living...

I follow,
footsteps on the silent ice,
unable to break through to you--
unable to do anything but follow,
that invisible cord pulling me on, on...

A startle of red birds steals me but a moment;
I look back down--you are gone.

butters said:

Dreams.

Act 1: Serenity

A study in serenity,
naked, pale as breath,
you glide
head-first beneath thick ice,
arms loose by your sides,
hair rippling like silvered weed,
eyes closed to the light and my frozen stare,
floating in enchantment's stream
and waiting for some ruddy kiss
to bring blood to your lips,
flutter open those lashes,
allow your lungs to fill with living...

I follow,
footsteps on the silent ice,
unable to break through to you--
unable to do anything but follow,
that invisible cord pulling me on, on...

A startle of red birds steals me but a moment;
I look back down--you are gone.

Click to expand...

Wow! I need more time to re-read this, butters, but the imagery and diction are a wow.

greenmountaineer said:

Wow! I need more time to re-read this, butters, but the imagery and diction are a wow.

Click to expand...

thanks for reading, gm x

not written for a few weeks or more and the dreams were about to crack my head.

Lots of blood and body imagery in the recent work.

MelissaBaby said:

Lots of blood and body imagery in the recent work.

Click to expand...

the dreams were worse crazy shit.
plenty of other stuff, too, but they haven't found their way into poems yet.

that serenity piece? the imagery was just a moment inbetween some insane stuff that included a dropped suitcase on a coach and the stuff that spilled from it was kinda like marshmallow but spread and grew like mycelium out from the coach but i was able to roll it up like a carpet - and something to do with mountains and giraffes... i think it was giraffes, not sure now. The good news is that H didn't die in the dream - when i looked in another direction some guy had him lifted up out of the water and he was alive and quite unperturbed.

THIS is why i have to write- the other option is to become certifiable.

butters said:

the dreams were worse crazy shit.
plenty of other stuff, too, but they haven't found their way into poems yet.

that serenity piece? the imagery was just a moment inbetween some insane stuff that included a dropped suitcase on a coach and the stuff that spilled from it was kinda like marshmallow but spread and grew like mycelium out from the coach but i was able to roll it up like a carpet - and something to do with mountains and giraffes... i think it was giraffes, not sure now. The good news is that H didn't die in the dream - when i looked in another direction some guy had him lifted up out of the water and he was alive and quite unperturbed.

THIS is why i have to write- the other option is to become certifiable.

Click to expand...

Serenity made me think of when I was a kid and we'd go ice fishing. I was always afraid of falling through the ice, but at the same time, it seemed like it would be so peaceful down there.

butters said:

THIS is why i have to write- the other option is to become certifiable.

Click to expand...

Writing My Fall and Rise was an emotional purge for me. Every word I wrote felt like a step away from the troubles of the past. I still carry all my baggage with me, but it is truly baggage, stored in containers that I can carry.

MelissaBaby said:

Writing My Fall and Rise was an emotional purge for me. Every word I wrote felt like a step away from the troubles of the past. I still carry all my baggage with me, but it is truly baggage, stored in containers that I can carry.

Click to expand...

something i've learned the wisdom of (and generally live by, now):

why carry the baggage? no-one is making you except yourself. put down the bags. walk forward.

this isn't to say you won't regret things, have times of guilt and remorse, shame even. i know, my own baggage was pretty weighty. then i realised there was no more need to carry it like some self-induced penance. you cannot alter the past, only act to help shape the future. using hindsight is good. weighing yourself down with all that emotional load is detrimental to your physical and mental health. you are allowed to be happy!

don't know where to start - these are strong, professional poems - evocative and skin-tearing

JCSTREET said:

don't know where to start - these are strong, professional poems - evocative and skin-tearing

Click to expand...

thankyou for reading

these span 15+ years now, i think, and many are in need of work they'll never get. i keep them here just as another backup - lost too many when the last pc crashed and I'd only a few printed out.

i'm glad you had a connection with some. that's music to any writer's ears.

for the love of...

...partners, children, pets,
we learn
the art of pretzel--
all convoluted twists
salt, spice, no ends--
attempt to quantify the spaces
we wrap ourselves around.

perhaps it is the shape of water
we should seek to emulate--
happiest when we fit our niches
or, when frozen,
carving new shapes of our own,
moving boulders,
till a warming in our lives
allows fresh flows,
the spill of white waters,
the turmoil of plunge-pools,
a depositing of gold in hidden tracts.

"you'll miss the bluebells' haze on woodland floor
the sigh of summer breeze across the waves
and let me tell you, watcher, what is more
you'll miss the cider-light of autumn days
their crisper air and sensual delights
their tart perfume and subtle, russet glaze -
you'll miss them, craving only winter's ice"

exceptional

and much of "And you, and you, and you" is by turns, lilting and jolting

Christmas is a great opportunity to catch up with people who've been out of mind as the year has whizzed by so fast. it gives us a few days to slow down, take stock and catch up.

This is especially true in the UK where they start getting drunk in early December, close down generally the day before Christmas Eve and don't step near the office till some time after New Year's Day.

If you're a freelance writer in the UK, you'll be lucky if your November invoices are paid by mid-January

JCSTREET said:

"you'll miss the bluebells' haze on woodland floor
the sigh of summer breeze across the waves
and let me tell you, watcher, what is more
you'll miss the cider-light of autumn days
their crisper air and sensual delights
their tart perfume and subtle, russet glaze -
you'll miss them, craving only winter's ice"

exceptional

and much of "And you, and you, and you" is by turns, lilting and jolting

Click to expand...

i'm happy you found something to please, lilt, or jolt you - thankyou

on passing the Double-D white-railed auto lot

no more the steel-shod tethered beasts
of burden, crook-legged and saddled in their wait;
the stamp, the swish, the rippled flesh
to keep the biting flies at bay...

now candy-coloured bubble heads
bob in frantic horse-powered roars
that call to heedless static steeds
corralled and branded "Dollars Down!"

the day's stampede:

the nose-to-tail grinding herd-mentality--
all brittle shards of light;
glass-glitter, glint of chrome,
hot paint-jobs; hotter, yet,
mechanical blue-plumed toxic breath
a-tremble over the five-lane blacktop
sticky in the wall-eyed glare of a crazy sun.

butters said:

on passing the Double-D white-railed auto lot

no more the steel-shod tethered beasts
of burden, crook-legged and saddled in their wait;
the stamp, the swish, the rippled flesh
to keep the biting flies at bay...

now candy-coloured bubble heads
bob in frantic horse-powered roars
that call to heedless static steeds
corralled and branded "Dollars Down!"

the day's stampede:

the nose-to-tail grinding herd-mentality--
all brittle shards of light;
glass-glitter, glint of chrome,
hot paint-jobs; hotter, yet,
mechanical blue-plumed toxic breath
a-tremble over the five-lane blacktop
sticky in the wall-eyed glare of a crazy sun.

Click to expand...

You are turning into an American.

MelissaBaby said:

You are turning into an American.

Click to expand...

noooooooooooooooooooooooo way

i call it my "homage to the american highway"

give me horses any day. those balloons were insane!

i need those horses nodding in that first bit

PART ONE:

the poetry of cows

there's alchemy
an act of science over faith
that transmutes god's greens

cloven-hooved beasts
work bovine methodology
step: tear: chew: swallow

they don't question the grass
or concern themselves with formulae
eat: chew cud: shit: repeat

what occurs between molars and sphincter
cares nothing for gender or breed
grass cares even less - universally ingested

but between lips and tail
the magic happens
in marbled slabs and sweet fresh milk



PART TWO:

the science of the lambs


"But but but," you claim
"no cow am I but Wolf,
render of flesh, lapper of blood,
no grass for this wild poet!"

i say this to you:

without the cow
its cavernous gut
to render greens red
all patience and flatulence
you'd have no flesh to rip and flense
you'd starve
you lack the nascent poetry of cows
your ribs would poke through tattered pelt
your canines obsolete

"I'd eat the lambs instead," you leer,
"more tender and more timid
than those uppity goats
with their gruff butt butts."

then pity lies with you, my brother wolf
for the lion lies down with the lamb
and even lambs know the greening of the grass

when all is said and done...


...there's poetry
always
poetry
for what else is a broken heart
if not cupped repository
of the red that waits
on sorrow's sharpened quill

they're back
those nightmares i've not seen for years
they lack their old power
but disturb me nonetheless
break hard in the night
their shadows dim a bright day

tired
but unwilling to sleep
in case...

eyes of the dead

let's not pretend:
we don't close the eyes of the dead
to seal out visions from their gaze--
fixed, uncompromised,
oblivious to flies that
buzz, feed, shit, breed,
to grit, pollen, rain, or light.

pennies, laid, add weight;
some pray, to bolster hope
for sensibilities demand
they stay that way.

should cold eyes remain unveiled,
we are compelled:
imagine,
consider possibilities.

eye to eye we are
connected.
we are exposed.

it's not to protect the dead
that we close their eyes.