Tag Archives: hope

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Reverb (Not Right Now – Right Now)

1. Right. Fine. I’ll just look at the sky then, I’ll just notice how the may tree berries echo the salmon shade of clouds. Soft charcoal trees on the Ridgeway where I used to walk. I know, I know – someone made it February. What can I do? 

2. Pale lime and almost moss green of the parsley into soft lemon, fading now. Bright spots of chrome, diamonds on my tap, underneath uncertain cloud. Strawberry pink plastic peg on the Delft flower pot like a boiled sweet, almost translucent, promise of a saccharin hit. Not right now. Nameless old lady walks Jasper. I know the Jack Russell’s name but not hers.

3. There’s too much sky to my left, in the place where the Medical Centre used to be. How the building site disturbs me, can’t they see what they’ve done. I’m there somewhere in the rubble and cement dust, somewhere in tiny pieces, as if to ram home the point under their bulldozers. The High Viz jackets upend me.

4. If I iron, if I ease out creases and watch the smoothness spread then I’ll be able to take deeper breaths, then there’ll be control, of sorts, even if it’s only control over fabric. It’s a start.  

5. Cursor flashing, marking time. Come on in, the keyboard’s lovely. You’ll be alright, I’ll take your hand, your tapping finger, the one with the Lapis Lazuli ring. You know the one, the one with the hidden depths.  

6. My body starts to regulate. I feel tears drop off my cheekbones. I focus on the sound of the heating creaking through the walls. I notice the cold slate sky but it still warms me. I wipe my eyes, the boiler clicks off. Round we go again. I will be fine. My breathing settles.

7. Shhh, I’m not really here right now, so I’ll be quiet. It’s a honed skill but one of which I’ve grown tired. Workmen are tearing up the street, new fibre optics coming in, territorial parking in dissary. They saunter with wheelbarrows, owning the day, smashing up the pavement where I used to walk. Shovels scrape. I might nod to them if I go out, might not. See how I feel.

8. Boiler firing up, pipes chuntering regardless of where I sit or what I do. Underneath it all, like Miles Davis in the background, softened but there, inescapable. And through windows Yesterday’s Girl catches my eye. I’m trying not to look at her but she’s coming close.

9. The radiator tries its hardest. Still fails to get through to me. For a while all it can do is watch me go into a flat spin.

10. Hello granite, it’s been a long time. I’ll just lie here then, I’ll just be smeared out under your might and grace. Don’t mind me. Do your worst. And then. Throat punch. I swallow down, gag on my words.

11. The reliable expansion of my ribcage, my diaphragm filling with air. And in the micro pause before the outbreath all the other worlds play out around me. The possibilities of all the lives not lived and all the moments of this one cascading, overlaid, looping in a numinous form, every second a symphony again and again and again. And then I breathe out. 

12. What do I do with this then? White lines on the window ledge almost as though it’s a bright day, almost like a reflection of the sun, as though spring is demanding of me. I have noticed. It’ll be Thursday soon then I’ll look. I mean it will be Friday. Friday, not Thursday. It’s Thursday I’m careening into. I stumble over words and thoughts. Fraying.

13. It rained today, of course. I fought it hard, did my best, even tried my salsa moves. But my body knows better, it takes me to the Relative’s Room, too much orange paint, I don’t like orange paint, not now. Why didn’t they paint it blue, something calming? I press my face up the window, it’s cold. Black buildings reflect back at me. Harsh, empty, soulless shapes. Rain smacks the glass. I push my forehead into the pane. I feel nothing. I try to breathe. Tomorrow’s coming.

14. Rooms. Faces. Magazines, low coffee table. Their soft sofa. More faces. Mouths move. I forgot to take the food out of the oven last night. Some things I forget. I make a fist with my small hand, neat nails digging into my palm. Little indents, tiny smiles. Fade. Repeat. The heat in my lower back, push against the radiator, bring me back to now. Branches tremble in the faint breeze. Yes, watch the branches. Faces. Mouths move. Repeat.

15. I don’t remember my shoes. I wonder what I wore, not that it matters. I remember my coat. Blue. Blue curtains. Flash frame, freeze frame. Repeat. And yet sound is distant, vague. Unsure shoes always walking corridors. Rooms. Faces. Words. Always words. Mouths telling me things. Moving mouths. Still, the berries have almost gone off the may tree outside my window and the starlings in my roof embrace the day. Berries drop, some get eaten, some rot. Some I brush out of the way. I make movements with my arms, hold the broom like an oar, heave myself through thick waters and remember I have a body. My body tries to come back to me, hesitant, fracturing. Leave my head with the berries. They roll around, relational, atomic. I notice crocus pushing through the lawn, hesitant, striving. I brush my thoughts into the road. Spring soon. Always flowers. So many flowers and scents and dancing to come. And music. And colours. My body starts to come back to me. Carry me back. Bring me back. Make me Now. Make it magnificent.

Repeat. Make it magnificent.

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Pockets (Underland #3)

I’m called to stand on my doorstep, I’m almost outside.

I need to feel the cold air bite my skin, the wind whip my hair, the rain brush the pavements as I feel my way to you.

There’s something about the blackout of early evening, something pulling at me to leave the house, escape the four walls that surround me.

And the rain shines the pavements as I puddle jump, rushing, a sense of hurrying to find you.

I’m wrapped up in red fleece, blown to kingdom come but I still know where I’m going.

The tall trees beyond my house twist and yearn like they know, like they truly understand despite the storm. I stand in the cold, hugging my earl grey. I crave this weather.

And if I’m still and listen, if I stop and feel then it’s almost as though there’s nothing inbetween us, no distance, no space and no time.

I shove my hands deep in my pockets, things rustle, like gifts, like precious moments to come. I hold tight to their promise.

Street lights, shop lights break the black, dazzle in the darkness, reflect up at me as I splash towards you. People blur, irrelevant.

And then later I’m there, shimmering, sparkling at your side.

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For Safe Keeping

Find her by the canal in her black and white skirt with bells. Find her navigating it all as she jingled, as she smiled.

And there under the August sky, find her leaning up the old Orion, in her black Mary Jane’s and her silk waistcoat.

Later, after chicken salad, no doubt, find her by her candlewick bedspread, chartreuse and tattered but perfect. The only way to end the day.

And in the morning, in the same skirt, find her smile at the bedroom door and make plans to carry her home.

Just find her. Over and over and over again. Always in August, to keep her safe.

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Beyond Glenfield Road

Breathe on me and I will vanish, I will disperse into the air taking my long thick dark brown hair away. And the red fleece of my jacket and the fluff in my pocket will be a memory on the wind.

But you will remain with your calcite core, with your compounds, your glinting similarities to my seashells and my pearls.

And I will shine near the summit looking out to Sabden and Padiham, holding tight to Colne.

While you nestle tucked away, carboniferous in russet, smooth in sandstone in my palm. And I will rub you while I crumble, I will feel the biting wind shriek up my hair.

There with my glacial tilt, my boulder clay which called me. Pick me up and hold me close and I did. I squeezed you in my pocket, I hid you out of sight.

While December chills took my left hand to my ear to keep out the gusts. And the smell of her perfumed cheek and thickness of her winter coat were shutter clicked and frozen to the bone.

We grinned in the cold.

But you will remain with your time smoothed angles, a permanence beyond my emphemeral form. So breathe on me and watch my smile flake to the clouds, watch me scatter in the hills.

And long after the imprint of my trainers has eroded, after my keratin has blown away, you will still feel me. The warmth of my hand embedded in your limestone and your limestone and my secret smile, a fossil of our day.

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Residue Theorem

Let me feel your bristles, firm against my form. Insistent, purposeful as though they’d never lived a day without motion.

Brush me from my hiding place, my quiet soft decay. Gather me up into your arms and lift me from my chill. Smother me in your hands and then release me.

But first stop. Pause.

Bring me to your face, your nose and mouth and breath me in. Long cool limitless breaths which remember me with calm, with the intricate scents of my form, with my rich bracken twisted broken core.

And inhale me deep, fill your gaps and crevices with my wisdom, my stench of a year gone by.

And then look up. Turn your face into the softened dusk, up to where the night moves in.

And then hurl.

Scatter me to the soil, to the dark places under the shrubs where the robin picks and pecks. And leave me warm, leave me replete with the hours, with the moments which slip away.

Like your hands as you release me.

And I sigh and rest my form, feel my edges crumble where your fingers traced. Feel the gladness of the earth and I will rostle and rustle into place and wait for the cold to take me home. Into my welcoming loam, mulched down soothings till the spring returns.

And it will.

And your fingers will find me once more as I dare to go around again, as I summon my courage and strength to raise my form up from the soil.

And you’ll be waiting.

Standing stoic, through the cutting winter until the light comes, until the hope will lead me back into your hands.

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Falling Teacup White Robe

Cushion pushing tight into the twists,

the rumbles. Shh, time to sleep

I said before ears came.

The night, perched on the bed edge,

minutes like breaths, squeezing me.

My foreign body. Pulsing.

Weight of silence, an endless open mouth.

Yawning, howling.

Wait in darkness.

Shoe-horned into the car

under my tree, its soft reassurance,

resolve. Battered power

of an injured tiger.

Here, take my body,

it’s yours now.

Pummel me with

your ice cold faceless faces.

Watch me like a cat pawing bird

as I jolt, ricochets up my spine.

I don’t recognise myself

as they trolley me to the new room

with endless breasts which smother me.

Suffocate me in starched white.

I lay still in-between judders

with their walls and wires, lights that beep.

Daylight, hopeful smile on a wheeled-in tray.

Entonox is my friend, it brings me echoes,

fractured words and giggles

as her fingers inch.

Searching for news

but there is none.

Try again tomorrow, they say.

And I search the ceiling for a way out.

I’ve grown used to their window

though I cannot see outside.

One day there’ll be flowers on that table.

Another face on the end of the nth syringe.

I laugh and cry at the same time.

My turquoise bag reminds me of home,

it jars me.

She’ll be back later

and she drops a smile by the door.

Later the ceiling mocks me,

while they swab me clean

and tidy me away to nothing.

I may watch these walls

for the rest of my life.

You know night, that space

where everything sinks?

It takes me, leaves me shaking

in their hard backed chair,

drunk on spasms, they roll me over

strip me bare.

There, they lock the medicine away.

Tight lipped, they make me wait

till morning.

In daylight, pethidine is my best friend.

I call for surgeons,

but their absent hands upset me.

They sip tea on Sundays

while I rock, ridiculous,

a wretched remnant desperate for a gown.

Somewhere a woman wails,

disembodied hollering.

I wonder if she has flowers in her room.

I have no limbs now,

no head to call my own.

My pupa waits, watches the clock

push the hours, breath by breath,

my shadow up their wall.

Till everything bustles, they rush and prod,

watch over me in their Petri dish.

They tut-tut and poke.

Their needles search and pierce,

severing my pain.

I am numbness on plastic sheets,

chrome glints at my feet,

lights wink at me.

They concentrate and congregate,

explore me until teatime.

I give it my best shot.

Then I concede, consent to them,

give up, give out and give in.

I am aware of my breath,

my lungs expanding and contracting

by their green scrubs.

Their scorching lights and tinkering.

Brush the hair out of my eyes.

And where my abdomen used to be

the world opens, lilies start to bloom.

Loud and excitable, like a new heart beat.

Ceilings come and go under the sheer love.

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Cradled

This, this right here, right now.

This face on the concrete, cool and rough, this tucked away under dried leaves, this attempt at shelter.

And yes the woodlice come but they don’t mind, they’ve seen me here before. Ants carry on regardless, always did, always will, while I curl up tight.

It’s ok, they nod as they pass by, shifting crumbs and sticks and broken things. But I can’t answer, not right now. I watch the woodlice trundle, legs rippling as if to say, there is movement, there is flow, although I can’t feel it.

And if I keep still long enough, my breathing will settle, will slow and the leaves will tremble on my back, will shudder just enough to show someone that I’m there.

And if I hold on, they might find me and lift me up and know I still belong. They might pluck me from the cracks in the patio and take me home, take me back indoors again.

And I would give my blessings to the woodlice as I leave them. And in someone’s hands I would be whole.

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And Everything Sparkled

There was a girl wandering round the town centre, yet not really a girl, more a young woman. And if you looked closely, there were sparkles left by her feet.

It would be late in the day on the eve, the eve of Christmas and she’d search. She’d search for the perfect gift and wishing the best of all things to every shopkeeper in her path, she would make her way out of the town.

And her father would have been waiting in the car at the base of the hill. She’d bundle herself back in, bags and boxes, packets and tales of her trip and they’d leave.

At home her mother was swaddled in the smell of baking and the pastry would melt in her mouth.

And this young women was the girl tucked up in bed, was the wide eyed child listening out for bells. And later she’d wait for the rustle of bin bags and her father laying out gifts.

It was this girl who’d push open the frosted lounge door on Christmas morning, to the settee packed, bursting with bright paper and symmetrical delights.

Years later that woman chewed on carrots and hid a sleigh bell under the tree. And their son would find it in the morning and his giggles filled their world.

And then now.

Now it’s the woman on the settee with a candle, holding tight to the girls in her mind. The carrots lie beneath a smaller tree, a motif tree, not the magnificent trees of childhood or marriage. But a just-enough-tree in the corner, still bringing light to her world.

It would be bedtime soon for the woman and the candle. Curling up once more, she’d hold all her Christmases tight in her arms.

And in the morning they’d parade around her, spinning, twirling, laughing in delight.

But for now she would blow out the candle, and watch the endless sky.

Maybe, just maybe she’d see something dart across it, a flash of light, a sparkle like the footprints that she left. The girls who lived in the woman, the woman who was made of the girls, who still believed.

Bed time, sleep time, they whispered to each other. Nearly time to put on the show again.

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Window World

And it became a birdsong kind of day. It opened and they woke to tiny throats vibrating, chirping louder than they’d heard before. And there it was, the sun beating brighter and sparrows hopped.

They paused on car roofs and looked around, then darted zig zags in the air and found a branch. Branches that quivered and they waited for the sounds.

But the sounds didn’t come. The rush grumble roar of wheels on road didn’t happen and blackbirds watched, they cocked their heads on one side and scoured the ground for food.

They found seeds in the un trampled grass and filled their bellies in the way they used to do before the people came, in the sweet silence before the muck and dust, and they sang out. Hard tallons scratted up and down the rooves, leaves stretched out, wet and new and morning opened.

The birds reclaimed the town, they darted, scattered in the photons, unhindered, untethered, their voices spiralled up in silent air.

There were faces at the grime stained windows but the birds still flew.