 IN THE GOLDEN CHAMBER OF ST. URSULA
Bones spiral outward drenched in gold small and thin, chicken or child
Golden chrysalis of pain a stillness unbroken by waves of thunder
That last night of Mary’s month the sky dripped fire and eleven thousand
Stars burned in the wayward streets men phosphorescent turned to little lumps of clay
In our hour of need, O Princess did you spread wide your ermine cloak?
* BUTCHER BOY
Watch him wield that cleaver he’ll cut you open quickly lay your several parts bleeding on the clean white counter remove your heart and hand it back to you with a smile ‘Thank you Madame for your business Next!’
* GHOST
If you think that you can’t still hurt me If you think that you can’t still hurt me If you think the very fact of your existence doesn’t still hurt me
then you know nothing at all
The colour of your eyes still hurts me The sound of your voice still hurts me The way you look round a room still hurts me The clothes you wear the things you say Your smile the shadows hiding in your eyes All of these things hurt me
Until I want to scream Stop! you are killing me…
And my happiness would not be complete without this neverending sorrow
*
Hearts come in all sizes the biggest are also the easiest to break like giant eggs poised on the rim of steep infinity
* WINTER JOURNEY
If I come will you open once more your dark heart to me
Will we walk again with swans beside a black canal (the sky is falling)
and drink the wine of coal dust and decay (the sky is falling)
Will we lie awake the night long as we used to do
dreaming of forests where it is always winter (we have lost our way…)
A single step and I’m there light as bird upon snow
and whatever you wanted to know will be clear at last
If I come
* I DON’T WANT TO WRITE A LOVE POEM
I don’t want to write a love poem to your eyes and to your mouth (although they are beautiful)
I don’t want to write a love poem to your body (although I kneel down to worship it)
I don’t want to write a poem with words at all but with soft white wings
My poem is nestling at your heart wordless in silken feathers now stroke me
* SPRING NIGHT
There’s a forty-foot woman in white satin outside my window waving her arms at the moon.
*
CHRISTMAS SONNET
Night and day I thought of it that one face in a billion dearer to me than worlds and time more beautiful than every sweet perfection. So the blue years rolled deep at my door Still I never lost sight of you – wrought as we are together heart sinew and soul What matter whether near or far? Now on this holy night I stand ready, my lamp burning in my hand, with the light from your eyes still yearning And the one gift is to know you safe and good and one last look to reach me here on the dark road through the wood across worlds and time in all your sweet perfection.
* SEEING ANGELS
a line of light at the horizon something gold at the bottom of a glass a feather found a stillness on the ground a girl in white with dirty hands
*
HAPPINESS
Tonight my heart is full and all my angels are smiling
Sometimes grace amazes me hands me happiness on a plate just like that
* SONNET CONTRAFACTUAL
If you had not been, then was I also nothing If you had not come into the silent world bringing me this bright delirious dream I half-made should refuse to be born at all Not enough room between us to get so much as a fingernail Is there, my darling? Oh you have battered this heart of ours till it bleeds You have written my name in heart’s blood in letters a thousand miles high I have written your name and still I love you more and more and evermore
*
Soon the summer light sighs once again soft skin opens to the sun again and so we smile…
* SONNET FOR ISABELLA
A one-eyed butterfly fell from the Hammersmith flyover crumpled on broken knees crawled away - a tale for gondoliers to warble on lurid nights once the money’s gone nicrophorus vespillo a parasitic beastie feeds on the bodies of others flies towards the light - Impact! right into a truck but now it seems she’s still breathing through those red lips exotic fruit beginning to rot badly moulting bird a few parts broken DRINK ME – it says on the label DRINK ME for the funeral the lady shall have a new hat
* SONNET – FOR SEMIMARU
Twin blossoms bowed by the weight of white beauty upon a single stem twilight whispered secrets songs that any small harsh wind might shake break upon the concrete ground brother and sister unblemished chalices to the glass brim our still thoughts dreaming two blossoms seeming but one heart
*
COSIMA
What I liked about him was his large square head where gods’ own orchestras fought it out in gold-lined waistcoats and armour he was also rather good in bed
*
‘Starry Night’ (Van Gogh)
Ocean of stars caught in the sleeping mermaid’s hair
* DONNA CAMILLA
They say she once hit a man who dared speak to her in the street that she loved opera and hated my grandmother a fisherman’s daughter who married her son
You are just like Donna Camilla said my grandmother and laughed and patted my head but I never met her
Was it a good thing? Bella, bella ragazza! said my grandmother She called me a black witch she said She was much too good for me too high, oh she was high!
Am I high then? I’m only six and don’t feel high my grandmother buys me a cannoli
*
Topic: Schooldays
If only I had a pair of white wings young escape artist
*
Topic: literary festivals
A festival of poetry inside my head night and day how exhausting!
* MITTELPUNKT
The middle of the world begins with ‘W’ is a still green point where pear blossoms drop one by one into my drugged heart as I remember your sweet crazy promises sung in another tongue the middle of the world is right here and nowhere else this small pure heaven where we might have kissed once under those trees kisses that tasted of childhood and stolen pears
*
CANOE
small boat of dreams over deep water singing
*
BEGGAR GIRL ON HORSEBACK
‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.’ – English proverb
Laughing she clings to his blue mane as together they cleave the air
Little beggar girl dressed in bright dreams come true
* THREE SEASONS
between the apple blossom and the cypress just enough room for a naked lily
*
THE BICYCLE
bluebird waits at the door for my quick feet let’s dance!
*
THE WEATHER IN BERLIN
Sunny today with only a few small clouds hotter tomorrow when the roses will begin to wilt towards late afternoon will you sit on the terrace a slim volume of poetry in your hand and fall asleep thinking of me?
* BREAKFAST AT TEN (Sapphic)
Still under morning sky two books one coffee small of silver porcelain shaded in ivy shadows an airplane roars through clouds overhead swallows are diving
* NIGHT FOX
Little fox-claws tear at my heart try to unravel happiness
Only stand guard over me a palace or a garden or a much-injured princess that fox may get tired and just slink away
*
‘ROUND MIDNIGHT
Curled in the warm corner of your lap girl cat in love with you
*
ROSES
real roses are blooming in imaginary gardens come and play
*
ANGEL
The shadow of an angel once seen and never forgotten
* ATLANTIS
Under the glassy green translucent dream Is a castle hoarded from rococo shells Where mermaids softly sing of bartered love And weave their garlands out of dead men’s eyes.
This is my home, and I am Princess here This my kingdom of bright melancholy Where every salt wave is mine and every hour A new baptism among fallen stars.
The fish, my courtiers, dance in golden rings While seahorses perform their subtle tricks And in the garden pink and orange flowers Open living mouths and sing my praise.
This is the place I live and breathe and move No other needed to attend to my love.
* FAME
Most found where most sought Hardly earned and cheaply bought Even harder to keep than youth Unless you ‘re really good Now that’s the truth.
* A HOMECOMING
That Christmas night we walked all the way from Bethnal Green to mass at Moorfields Side by side for the first time in so many years
Some of these poems first appeared in The Smoking Poet, Litteratour, Snakeskin, Caper Literary Journal, Wilderness House Literary Review, Pen Pusher and the Guardian. |
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