Here Here in this place Heels kick and beats brew Here in this place Language spoken time and true.
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Stinking Hot Summer NC: In my mirror is me My Mexican mirror In America once I was soft and sweaty Soaked in humidity Pools forming in my shoes From rivulets Coursing silently, invisibly From my neck, under my sports top Down my stomach And pants and inside thigh Accumulating As it ran sometimes dammed By waist-band and seam Gently absorbing until all Became damp And the only cure Was a luke warm shower.
Iron shoes The guns in the gun-rack Signify a beautiful day ruined again. Smooth shiny barrels in gun metal grey Wooden or plastic stocks Packs of BB pellets. But do tell – why are they here in my wardrobe? Along with the net dress I bought in Stoke PVC bodice, boned and zipped plastic leather skirt. Unwise choices slotted together In their bungalow of belligerence. My stance with my two strong feet planted Is firmly against. Against these guns And the violent potential lying submerged, Latent, haunting, threatening Unspoken violence. Against him The unwanted advances he takes advantage of When I’m asleep The cigarettes and beers The maudlin obsessions:- Serial killers, Survivalists, Vietnam, Army outfits - Multifarious camouflage patterns. All these things I am against His shiftlessness His lack of ambition. Irresponsible Sackless Selfish malingerer. His arsenal of guns Bought in my name With my
Richmond Hill: Down the clouds, across the way Washing streaming and steaming Hanging across flats only window Sadly sagging the line drooping down No breeze even to float dry These flats many many Close knit, tight knit communities Kids Dad’s on strike from the mines For months and months food banking before it was trendy How did the mums survive on this windy hill? Looking down over River and canal Barges up and down To and fro. Strangely silent, up here. The long haul of shopping bag trudgery From the echoing, noisy, humidity of the market To this high rise separation Wind rattling the taut plastic.
Trial by Space: Mount Sinai and Mourning Lace. Centre stone, Pendulum, Down, down, down. Think, imagine, centre Concentrate, reach, reach out. I am standing in a room. It is a physical room. It is a remembered room. In this room is a life-times worth of memory – not mine. Striped silk bustle skirt, pink kid dance slippers, fans with petals missing. Petticoats, bloomers, chemises, camisoles, gloves, bags, top hats, cloaks, boaters, and beaver furs. Draws of mourning lace, cards of buttons, reams of tapestry wool and embroidery threads in rainbows of colour. Fountain pens from the 1940’s, fencing foils, tankards, Kafka novels, portraits of Louis Armstrong. Each object shouts for attention and significance. Yet as I stand in the only space there is a small corner next to a four-foot crucifix in the room, it is empty and it is dark. Dillon’s room was also dark and memory bound. His thoughts have shifted and sifted and s
I have made my nest in Flats, tree houses, old offices Crumbling mills I have made my home With enemies and disinterested disregarders Alienating some Infuriating others Misunderstood and mistreated my garden a concrete yard A brick wall, the street A roof, a carpark, acres of forest The living only makes sense With the loving Otherwise it’s just another set of keys.
Number One, Back Mount The bannisters up How interesting it is that They are the same at number one, number three and number five. So old and black with thick, thick carving. Here at number one, Piles of children’s clothes covered in a dust-sheet lie like a library of children’s lives. Folded neatly, sorted by age, on each landing of each of the four floors. Children that come and go quickly, children that stay for a while and the ones that live here. Stationed around the landings of each floor are weird locked wardrobes with padlocks on the front. In the front room – not the best-front-room but the every-day-back, front-room Gas fire on full Stifling, dusty and winter-time-hot. Richard sits scissors in hand. He is perhaps six or seven years old A small thin pale boy, quiet and watchful with wild curly red hair He’s off school for the day – enviable position especially if you are not that sick. He has taken all of the dolls And
Poniard: A double edged thrusting dagger, continuously tapering to a thin point, used in France, Switzerland and Italy. Why this, why now, what’s changed? The word for dagger comes to me in a dream. And I have to look it up. Shakespearean overtones of Macbeth. It comes to me that this sharp tool Has a metaphorical job to do. It used to be that I lied to myself I snuck around truth, morality, right judgement I cheated myself. The poniard Pierced my bravado and deflated it slowly Leaving my ego holey and tatty Exactly as it should have been. No more lies.
The great curve All the poems and all the straight lines can I re-use these fragments and make a new name? Diffidence and radiance, sighs and sobs Encouragement and management, a clock on a fob Cover my shame with curtains of blue snakes in the bedroom, spiders in the loo and all the straight lines seen from a far make a pattern and rhythm an elegance and simplicity. once assembled they are no longer straight but create a greater curve of heart haunting beauty that could be created no other way.
Post Industrial; Mill kitchen, part of The postindustrial landscape I see every day But not the miserable 1980’s mills Crumbling, on fire, deep depths. This Mill, Long gone are the workers their time here just a memory. A remembered scar where a touch calls to mind A shuttle piercing the two bones of the forearm A momentary call of attention to Another’s voice. Family, that’s what it was here in The 1940’s. Tea dances on a Friday night At Pudsey Baths Covering the turquoise freshness with Boards and a Big-Band, feverish, fervent dancers Desperadoes and double-crossers Two timing two steppers Ardent looks, firm thighs Hands… But yes the past is part of the present and who would have it any other way?
Ode to String: What is the string for? To tie my shoe To secure my sleeping bag A guy rope A piece if square lashing To carry my keys To thread a rosary That silly string that’s in space and its expandable in my hand To fasten up a curtain rail To tie a roast chicken leg To hang a bunch of thyme to dry To hitch a pair of trousers Or a horse To make a telephone with a tin Can car phone string Computer string Machine string with plug Crochet string for waistcoats and bed spreads Macramé string for hanging plant pots String that connects us all together String that unites us all Dust string Of shared ancestry String connected community String connected relationships String of time String of washing and notes on a stave String of life String of heaven String of death O death, where is thy string?
Smash this puny existence? I don’t think so – this is our one shot. This is now Now and eternity Together Telescoping out and then in again. So high we can’t get over it, So low we can’t get under it. Smash each other’s puny existence? No not that either – not polite, not done What arrogance, what superiority What macho dominance No How can I hope How can I be what I am meant to be? Oh Listen – Oh discern - Oh breathe Then act And pray I’ve heard right.
Web Heart His and my souls are made of the same stuff Drop soul Drop And find your plumb weight Your level line Your weighted thread From heaven to his heart. He The one that I am together with Our souls must be created from the same dust. Attracted to each other Like iron filings on a magnet. Our heart strings In an invisible web Connecting us all. The vibrations on my Heart string The reverberations on his Heart strings somehow Some way Resonated. A beautiful Painfully lovely Discord, so close it Almost clashes in discordance Analogous harmonies Next to, yet a step apart Connected.
Underground Carpark What I’d like is to Hide in an underground car park, To lie hidden and sleeping, My body in a car parking space. At the centre of everything Nothing is important Except to be and to love I can drift I can strive I can work really hard every day Driving, eating, teaching, researching What does it mean? It may mean nothing It may mean everything I want to listen more Give me ears to hear. Be calm Be still Rest It has been a long year A recovery year A year of bright buds of hope A year of finishing things I give thanks for the year that has been I ask again – every step, every breath Every heart-beat, be with me. And now let me sleep again In my car parking space Deep underground.
Valentine’s Day Twice: That Valentine’s day I woke up Knowing that you were across the road. The evening to come did not go to my plan. My plan was not to see you at all. I had sensibly and sincerely Pushed all obsession Into the arena of phantasy. You were not interested or so it seemed And I was married And there it could have remained Impasse. But that evening You arrived at my door and I Opened to your face – touched By your thoughtful bottle of Red and bottle of white. Who would have thought we’d drink both Make love on the front room floor This really was not my plan. We talked About unwanted letters Who knew he liked them? He never replied and I gave up Sending them. Somehow we kissed This was a turning point This was the end of one marriage And the beginning of another Turning on a sixpence. The next year we awoke On Valentine’s morning In each other’s arms Wondering what came
Free to a good home, one ironing board. My ironing board enacts strange rituals Away from his friend the iron. Always so firm, so seemingly solid. Yet when the legs are kicked out He collapses – folds in on himself. Oh ironing board You are redundant in my hands I’d rather use the table Than a rickety, untrustworthy, Flimsy Ironing board. Never quite The right height, width or use. I’ll take my chances without you With my new friend, Kitchen Table. Far more solid and reliable. Multi-use object.
Dream Poem 14: Flamenco Nurse. At s hospital in S_borough I was in and out I was a visitor I was a patient I was a nurse Flamenco Day. Everyone was getting dressed up in the hospital. I didn’t have any shoes to dance in So I decided to go up to the hospital to buy some Just then a nurse arrived at mum’s house She was a tiny lady, her hair was in a blond bun, in one of those doughnut hair things, but it was a huge one, so her bun was out sized, bigger than her head, she had on a tight white uniform With white leather cork wedge sling-back heels I looked, and though “Those aren’t very Spanish Or Flamenco”.
Dream Poem 5 I have to go to fulfil a task My task is to collect a poem on a post-card and Perform a piece of ballet. I’m in the rag and bone shop to collect my poem from the Irish trader men. It was very difficult to get the poem right. My ballet performance was not well received. “who does she think she is? You can’t expect to do a performance when you’ve only just started. We’ve been doing this since we were children.”
Just Time On the shelf in my room, in boxes and bags Books and books of drawings Notes Poems Diaries What does it all mean in the end? Is this material immaterial? I could leave, set the house on fire Who would care? Mine is merely another life Another soul Living out their time on earth Like a cricket or a cicada I chirrup my unintelligible nonsense That is of no consequence to anyone And then I’m gone And no-one cares I don’t even care It’s just time And gone And its ok – it’s all ok.
The mess of living Now the bleakness of the ‘Veil and the Wheel’ Surprises me Frightens me How could that depth of darkness Come out of my heart Isn’t it all washed away Forgetful distance makes sharp memory Faded like sun-bleached silks56 People say “you forget” I wanted to remember Why should birth and death be forgotten Soft focus – photo-shopped out? Birth and death two things I will never forget Times to be completely present to the moment To be alert, awake, ready to act. How can I be awake when the epidural, The pethidine, the gas all alter my reality And make this important entrance Distorted, dream-like, unreal Twisting, shouting, writhing Bloody mess This is birth – this was my birth Coffee, cigarettes, chocolate and crisps. That was him, one after another. My life – left alone to live I thank you I have it. My toes unpainted My arms full of my children My legs strong for running My eyes see thr