Poems

It wasn’t
the new hat & coat
that I objected to
it was the newspaper
the welfare officer
dropped
my other clothes onto

That’s the trouble with love
It changes shape
when you get close
the trouble with love is
the closer you get
the farther away it goes
that’s the trouble with love
It fades like an old photograph
The smile droops like a full washing-line
It simply gets
too heavy

Last night I stayed awake
and wrote poetry
and when I closed my book
Daylight crept through my window
bringing with it
sounds of early rising birds
and shapes of gently swaying branches
Then I knew for sure
words are subversive
they eat hours
while you retreat inside your head
for what seems like a moment

I said hey poet
slide your words over here
one by one
like shiny glass beads
on a silk thread
Hey poet, I said
show me your words
and I’ll show you mine

I asked her once, what he was really like:
a smoothie, a cad, bit of a lad-you know,
twinkle in the eye, promising smile.

“Your father boasted the biggest cock in the army”
she replied, teeth clenched - no sign of a smile,
“In fact he ruined me you know”
– nod of the head, two tuts-eyes shifting, -
“down below”

“The doctor,”
she said - adding more to the tale than I really wanted to know,
“told me it was like raping a small child;
that first night was such a shock - I was horrified
when I knew what he thought he could shove
in my insides.

"And you, - well, giving birth to you ruined me for life,
spoilt any chance I might have had for the son I really craved;
a disappointment I’ll take to my grave”

I had wanted to know the colour of his eyes,
his favourite food, his height, his size,
his birthplace and his raison d’etre,
his hopes, his dreams, his loves, his hates.
I never asked again.

It’s part of the process
she said
As she pushed
her bloody red
fingers
further
into the shredder

The smile stayed
fixed with Araldyte
earlier on that night
It’s part of the process
she said
waving her
torn flesh
in his face.

And one day
she will ride through the forest
and bring home a wild boar
and skin it, dissect it and cook it
over a blazing open fire, laid out and sparked by him
and she’ll set the table,
put out the plates
light the candles
bake a cake
put baby to bed
tell a story to Ed
sweep the mats and tidy the pantry
And one day, she will ride out into the forest
and…never come back.

I know a man
Who fans my creativity
likes me exactly
the way I want to be
I’m very lucky
that he nurtures me
and I say
it was a hell of a journey.

He thought his smile
Would disarm her, charm her
In fact it made her feel
as though she were
falling down a lift shaft
very, very fast.

When I remove my clothes
there is less of me
than one expects
there to be
there is no mystery
with major surgery
neither is there
any longer
a sense of sorrow
or misery
I love my body
as it is
and never hanker
for the way it used to be