In this division both sides look to
the other for blame, on the edge
it circles and swoops while you both
turn and loop, pacing and waiting for
the other's craving for normality to
outweigh your own. I'm sure though
that the blame rests squarely on the
door that you found yourselves
either side of. Strange how that white
rectangle drove a barrier of metaphor
and silence between you; an obelisk
that still stands even though the door
is long open and one of you is no
longer even in the room.
Thursday 25 June 2009
Roses
Standing in her garden as a boy
collecting blackberries in plastic
pots from overgrown and
interwoven thorns I turned and
saw a small pink rose, its petals
tightly wound yet breaking open
slightly to reveal a secret held
within. She turned and said that's
almost worth getting married for,
that flower, and I remember thinking
then that perhaps she wasn't happy,
in her garden there, married and old
with permed white hair and perhaps
she had wanted more, to be given
roses and to wear them in her hair,
to keep canaries and go out dancing
and not to bruise quite so easily. But
together we turned and went back to
the berries and the brambles and left
the rose and its secret silently sitting there.
collecting blackberries in plastic
pots from overgrown and
interwoven thorns I turned and
saw a small pink rose, its petals
tightly wound yet breaking open
slightly to reveal a secret held
within. She turned and said that's
almost worth getting married for,
that flower, and I remember thinking
then that perhaps she wasn't happy,
in her garden there, married and old
with permed white hair and perhaps
she had wanted more, to be given
roses and to wear them in her hair,
to keep canaries and go out dancing
and not to bruise quite so easily. But
together we turned and went back to
the berries and the brambles and left
the rose and its secret silently sitting there.
Birthday Wishes
I'll never understand the sentiment-
June seems to me far crueller-a yellow
promise of summer that never comes.
It's not that I wish to seem ungrateful
I simply question this parade of gifts,
thoughtfully given, and ask what it is
we're celebrating? Each year I look down
at this fresh gut, with more blood on my
neck than before and wonder what I
did to warrant the attention? The coarse
hair is already breaking through my
skin again and the milk in the fridge
has started to turn, it made my cereal
taste of lemons-citrus is more my mother's
thing, not mine; even kettle chips can't
scratch the itch at the back of my throat.
This morning I showered with a fly and a
brown moth; the fat spider that sits in the
corner fell, weighed down by condensation,
into the bathtub and played dead at my feet
before drowning for real in the pool he'd created.
I guess I'll never understand the sentiment.
June seems to me far crueller-a yellow
promise of summer that never comes.
It's not that I wish to seem ungrateful
I simply question this parade of gifts,
thoughtfully given, and ask what it is
we're celebrating? Each year I look down
at this fresh gut, with more blood on my
neck than before and wonder what I
did to warrant the attention? The coarse
hair is already breaking through my
skin again and the milk in the fridge
has started to turn, it made my cereal
taste of lemons-citrus is more my mother's
thing, not mine; even kettle chips can't
scratch the itch at the back of my throat.
This morning I showered with a fly and a
brown moth; the fat spider that sits in the
corner fell, weighed down by condensation,
into the bathtub and played dead at my feet
before drowning for real in the pool he'd created.
I guess I'll never understand the sentiment.
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