Frances-Ann Norton: Poetry

Complicit My girl sleeps damp and pale How did this happen? The insides of her rebelled and fought against each other That week in hospital Drawn and withdrawn Silent days spent under Hospital blankets Me staring day after day At brick – the Leeds Look She – days and nights still under Unyielding white starched sheets Her veins pierced with a tube Her eyes blank, listlessly sketching Just absorbing it all As the rubbish compactor Grinds on day and night under the window. And days slip into a week And she slips into the nurses routines Four hourly obs Meds – doctors rounds. Lunch dinner and breakfast On a zoetrope of time Spinning so it appears we are moving But yet we lie in the silent room She on the high bed Me on the low bed We are united in our quiet Complicit in our endurance Ready Resigned For what is to come.

Childhood Bed I’ve just dropped off No not in my own bed But in my childhood bed This room once had bunk beds For me and sissy Me on the bottom She on the top This was the time of our ABBA tapes The cassette player played till we wore it through and sang ‘Take a Chance on Me’ no more And Girl’s World chatting away giving her rags and curly hair dos Hours of plaiting and painting faces Arms and legs too and once our whole bodies And we are us, here, now – a calm in the house Because of the missing person Without him There is peace, tranquillity, joy, happiness This peace could never have been Our holidays together Long breakfasts at the table would not have happened His thoughts were closed to me And when he left His presence remained in his Clothes Instruments Books Shoes But now a new allegiance reminding us of Triangular times. Mother myself I lie in my childhood bed And look out at the tree – always the...

Breathe  Not again I don’t  want to go through this again, I don’t want to, I don’t want it, I don’t want it Take it back to the kitchen this is not what I ordered This is not my life This is someone else’s I don’t want to go through This again I don’t want her To go through this again And not now when she will remember It was bad then But at least it was before her memory Remembered it all but now – she knows and understands with crystal clarity all it is that she will suffer Take it from her – give it to me Don’t make her suffer it breaks me. I am overwhelmed by my own emotions Fear,  But stop. I make a fist and inside the fear I open my palm and I give it I offer it I offer and surrender it Small as a hazelnut I offer it and let it go And I breathe I let it go with the breath of Ruah It lifts and floats off and Is hidden in Shaddi And I do not need to worry Or transmit I can Just Be ...

Blinkers Gaze  Shadow of the gantry-post against the tarmac, the black criss-crosses, cross-hatched lines slanted to the angle of the day, the angle of the sun as it moves across the sky. Lengthening perspectives, distorting images. How did the circus arrive at the Guggenhiem? All its Art Deco Modernism is nothing but a faded façade, the show-biz and razzle-dazzle of days-gone-by. All inside a ruin, of years neglected. Guttering making a messy, marshmallow, marshland of the walls, creating a vertical Bayou, a river-delta swamp of verdant green down the walls and I looking through the lenze of my camera seem to be missing all the action – distracted by the rectangular viewfinder, unable to see beyond the shutters-speed, so blind, my eyes are tightly jammed shut force of pure will, will not open them. Close my eyes, blinker my sight, distort my vision, restrict my look, redirect my gaze, now I see the blinkers, can I ca...

Black and White Photo Do I have to look at him again? With no clothes on? Do I? Again there he stands naked but for a small cloth, not that modest. But it’s ok because he is safely contained within the parameters of a life size black and white photograph. He’s behind the surface of the paper and he can’t hurt me. He’s  is locked behind the matt finish photographic paper and I never need to see him like this again, you are behind me I am in front of you. You are ash. You are ash like this black and white photograph made of tones and shades, that is what you are now. You are ash. You are in a box, that is buried under ground and I never have to look at that ash or touch it. Your flesh is like that photo, flat dead, mourner’s confetti, its safe now, its ok, you are gone. The feeling of malevolence the fear, the anxiety, the dread, it’s gone too. The flat photo is all that’s left and that’s safe too. You are locked away and will never ...

What About Father? From:  We Were the Mulvaneys, ( 2007) by Joyce Carol Oates, HarperPerrennial. P,232 “strange on her bloodless lips: Dad . Dad, Dad. Who is your Dad? Is a father a dad, always? Is Dad a father? Is Dad a dad, or just a father?” What About Father? And what about Dad? A year on, there are still people who don’t know he’s gone. Doesn’t choke me up – doesn’t make me cry. But why not? Tears are a gift, but I have not cried, not much anyway, not enough? The crying came on the day mum and I sat on the step and cried because he was just gone. It was fresh grief, a shock, and at the crematorium, but not since? No not at all. I’ll tell you what I do feel. I will tell you the story. Do you want to know? Are you sure? What about Father? His death, what it means to me? It’s a relief, a joy, a freedom, but not sad, no not at all. A good daughter would be disconsolate but I can’t make myself, why lie? I wear...

                           Bridge over Mill stream -  The Hollies    1925, leodis.com                                                                                              The Hollies                                                                        sad lives                                          staining the walk-ways and promenades         ...