In The Palms Of Our Hands

Poems
2009-10-21, 2:02 p.m.

Dear Diary,

Gosh 3rd entry of the day! But it was also two years yesterday when my mother died, so to commemorate I think I'm going to post some of her poems:

If Time Were Turned

If Time were turned and paths remained
Un-travelled but still beckoning,
would wary feet choose them again
if they knew their reckoning?

Would tender soles assess each step
more cautiously for hidden shale
then creep around what once they leapt,
convinced that haste was why they failed?

Perhaps they'd shuffle reticent,
scuff sulkily with pointed toe;
erase the path where they once went
and find another route to go.

Or, wiser, would they simply wrap
themselves in harder, thicker skin
and from old blisters draw a map
to guide their way ensconced within?

********

Spherical

Experience taught you caution.
Revolutions are not for week days
Yet the unpredictable creativity
of you...bound me.

Passion is twisted, curled at the edges.
It overgrows the corners of its containment
Puncturing and pushing. Gaining velocity
in an undeniable return to you

Let it come.
Let it lead you onwards

Past the lines you constantly coloured over
past the dimensions of square to round
to continuity and cohesion
and of old skin to new.

Shed those sharp edges,
smooth out those scales
allow yourself to become perfect:

Spherical.

********

Alloyed

My day world is white;
your night time black
taps at my window
and in the blending of bodies,
our world becomes grey

Grey love like metal unbending

In the cool light of morning
night-forged we lie coiled;
our lips taste of metal
as we uncurl to a smile

*********

Deliverers

They cut the chord to the sound of screaming
Grief and freedom thrown careless to the wall
They cut the chord but as it lay there bleeding
They told us it was nothing, nothing at all.

*******

Raindancer

The rain ran down my breasts,
(cool, soothing;)
I lifted my head to the skies,
(mouth open, expecting)
I spun, giddy with the joy of being,
(I felt you, watching)

*******

Daw Haul ar Fryn
(May 2001)

Home lay hidden in the southward curve
of a heathered hill and summer smelled of wormwood
bunched high to keep flies from our kitchen.

At dawn we scrambled down the crooked path
to the creft where angelica grew in tangled stems
and light, muted and inconsistent, rippled in that rooted place.

Dares would spiral then-
like smoke above the fernline, as we slithered,
elbows to earth , to the dark dens of foxes
where the soil felt moist and mysterious
beneath our reaching fingers.

By midday we became magpies;
stealing quartz from the creek and catching
'skaters with stockings that had been left to dry in the sun

With twig swords and berry blood
we battled until all trace of light had gone
and against the chill of a night time breeze
we raced headlong through the twisted trees

*********

Skyward

The words are lost in translation;
spoken in a tongue not used by mouth
but beaten in the pulse and thump
of our music.

You are the note that lingers;
rising beyond the confines
of skin that my hand touches

Too afraid to fly, I can only watch
as you unfold wings of your own making;
draining the landscape of colour
as you reach skyward,
using my breath for your freedom.

********

Bedside Etiquette

Don't think about the shaking;
uncontrollable in the car park.
Or the horrors of the hallway
Run now, run screaming.

Don't think about the jars,
needled to arms, his arm
Or the acrid smell of cleanliness
washing away death daily.

Don't think about the bed;
who lay there last?
Or the soft sound of weeping
Who's next? Am I?

Be amusing with conversation
He's dying, Christ, dying
Try hard to laugh.

********

Rattle

My mortality rattles
in the handbag space
reserved for tissues;
next to cancelled tickets
and half-price fast food vouchers.
I try not to listen to its nagging;
put my cigarettes in another place
where impulse is not a perfume
and lipstick comes in shades of red
not blue

*******

Nain Pines

Nain did not look up but forwards
to a place where her eyes did not focus;
beyond the wall where the children played
black on grey in the smoky distance
skipping to the slap, crack, drag
of the frayed hemp rope that still beat
in time to the bounce of their braids

Her lips form the shapes of their chanting;
tongue against yellowed teeth, tapping in time
to the thud and thump of distant jumping.

Had Nain been here she would've noticed,
wiped away the spittle and smiled
at the lunacy of her silent singing.
But so far away all she could wipe
was the rain off her wet, white legs
or the mud off her bare feet, freezing.

The rope turns faster,
the sound of laughter
an incentive to keep skipping;
though her breath comes in gasps
and her heart hurts through pounding.

(Don't miss the step Nain or you'll keep on falling)

at the turn of each handle, she watches
waiting for the hiss as it flips overhead.
and counting in time to avoid the sting
of rope against ankle

Dusk is coming,
and as shadows draw masks
on the faces of the children
a solemn eye watches for the misstep;
waits for the tumble
but the rope keeps on turning

With the first clap of thunder
the rope stops beating; children
fade with the mist, their absent voices
rising to the sound of a siren
from a place where the ears still focus
beyond the smoky distance,
to just behind the wall

*******

MCT (20 Aug 1971 - 20 Oct 2007). My mother was an amazing poet. These are only a few I've managed to dig up - there are so many more. Some day I'm going to get them published for her.

love
anempath

last - next

Calm and Vivid - 2009-11-17
Nutso - 2009-11-08
Social Life? Me? - 2009-11-08
Going Out! - 2009-10-23
Poems - 2009-10-21