Wednesday 30 December 2009

New Year

Here we are,
Ouroboros,
spitting out serpent tails
to begin again.
Banking resolutions in armoured vaults,
casting scaled skin aside,
swearing the past into its grave.
Every time surprised when January bites back,
a sting in its December.

Resolutions

Resolutions

I’ll run a mile every day,
I’ll learn to speak Chinese,
I’ll eat a healthy diet, and
I’ll hug the local trees.

I’ll drink a lot of water,
And file the post away,
I’ll keep a clean and tidy home,
And read a book a day.

I’ll start first thing tomorrow,
But first I’ll have a break.
I’ll crash out on the sofa
And finish off the cake.

Monday 28 December 2009

Christmas Day

I tidied up the living room,
I tinselled up the hall,
balanced light-decked Christmas tree
and hoped it wouldn't fall.

Presents neatly wrapped, I stacked -
artistically I'm sure -
and just when I had got it right,
my husband found some more.

Eventually I got to sleep,
the buzzing in my brain
shuffled off to slumber land.
Recharge... and breathe again...

Then up again before the dawn
and ever since, I'm sure
I haven't stopped to draw a breath,
I haven't seen the floor.

The living room was tidy,
the house was dusted through,
but what with paper, boxes, toys,
there's such a lot to do.

I think next year I'll leave it.
We'll all go far away -
and mess up someone else's house.
Hoorah for Christmas day.

Wednesday 23 December 2009

Morning

I fought all night with sleep –
or it with me.
It was a dance through burning dreams
into waking worries
that seemed like nightmares.
Then, about an hour ago,
I drifted into deep,
fur-lined,
feather-down sleep
that loved me,
nursed me,
molly-coddled me,
until the alarm clock,
like Jonah’s giant fish,
plucked me from the deep
and spat me into morning.
It’s a beautiful, golden morning,
but it’s cold and demanding
and I want to go back to sleep.

Bed Time

It’s time to climb the stairs again,
Up the cotton wool stairs to cloud cuckoo land.
(Or, probably, a nightmare land where
nothing as nice as cuckoos nest,
or cuckoos, yes,
but the real kind,
that boot the babies out to dash their brains
on the far off ground.)
Time for bed, sleepyhead.
Lullaby time,
Kiss good night and tuck-in time.
(And tucked in so tight under that suffocating sleep,
that sits like Huple’s cat on my face
so that I wake screaming in the small hours.)
And so to sleep.
(Yes, here I could quote Hamlet’s
what dreams may come, but here,
in this mortal coil,
my dreams throw tantrums already,
not waiting, respectful, like Hamlet’s,
for me to shuffle it off.)
To dream.

Promise

Through Time’s arches,
Tomorrow beckons
clean and pure.
It shimmers and shifts,
Nothing set in stone and
All is promises and suggestions of
What ifs.
Its mother of pearl luminescence
Moves,
Slippery and scattering fragments of reflected today
Into confusion.
It is not yet concrete.
Not yet weighty Now.
It is merely the ghost of future memories
Mirrored in yesterday’s dreams.

Old Age

Existence trembles
In shadows of laughter and life’s left-overs
Until Death’s indifference
Dances her away.

Where Your Treasure is

The shadows flicker gold-laced on the wall,
And firelight dances crimson in the grate.
The season’s frost is banished from the hall,
Despite the dark, and though the hour is late,
When icy gales cause temperatures to fall,
The knife-edged Winter is compelled to wait,
For in the warm embrace of gathered friends,
The steely season for a while ends.

In company of strangers, though the sun
Shines warm in summer-saturated sky,
And though the birdsong-dawns their courses run
Ecstatic, and the meadows flower-decked lie,
No heart could feel as warmed as mine has done
In depth of winter, loved ones closely by
And so, above the summer’s golden kiss,
Which still I treasure, I will treasure this.

Friday 18 December 2009

Winter Solstice

Lullabies laced with ice slice into hibernating ears and fears of slipping away before day returns slip too in dream-filled solitude.

Bright clear sky scythes sleep like diamond knife through velvet and soft snow swaddles granite ground kissing world to winter with every falling flake.

Dark descends before Day's done ushers Night untimely borne on whispering winds scuttling frozen through naked trees.

Christmas Presence

Behind the red-wrapped presents

a swaddled presence,

womb-red lies.

Light-bedecked trees,

home-warm inside

hide

Light of the World

hung up to die

on the cast-out,

outside-the-city hillside.

Wednesday 16 December 2009

Archaeologist

Little jars of things you found
under the surface

sit, quietly shelved.

Here we see

a potted history
of a whole village worth of lives.
Here, a few beads,

still blue,

lie beside a bit of brooch.

Who wore you?

Was she like me?

Did she have off days,

crazy days,

days when blue beads

were just what she needed,

when only blue beads would do?

That pile of pieces of pots

once held perfume,

dinner,

water,

oil.

Now, carefully cleaned of soil,

it waits where it’s put

and holds nothing but

the past.

Abigail

Abigail


Every so often, Abigail thinks that she should feel at least a little bit guilty.

(It's hard to be repentant when you're married to the king

and the husband who passed away to make it possible

was horrible.)

Still, it niggles

just a little.

She remembers,

(day time, a lingering glow of satisfaction,

night time 3 am, a blush of guilt,)

how, maddened by horrible husband's outrageous,

(and dangerous)

discourteous behaviour,

she nicked the week's supplies from his bleating pantry

and whisked them to David in the desert.

It was a thrill, (though scary.)

Still, when that oaf of a husband was blotto (again) on her return,

it eased any potential remorse.

He died of a hard heart a week later.

No, Abigail, it wasn't your fault.

Enjoy.

Tuesday 15 December 2009

Season’s Greetings

Here I am again,

the dark would-be-day

folded like midnight around me,

curling into my thoughts like smoke.

I remember when

this time was day time,

and we sat in long-shadowed evenings,

sun-warmed and pensive,

gnat-gnawed, summer days stretched like elastic

to trespass on night’s turf.

Suddenly over stretched,

they snapped back to where winter waited,

stung the season’s hand,

frost biting the fast-fading skin.

Here I am again,

wrapped in season’s greetings,

holding out for spring.

O little town

Look where little Bethlehem lies.

Not sleeping but seething.

Swarms of rest-seekers

begging inn-keepers

for a bed.

Look where little Bethlehem lies.

No silent night.

Streets lined with Roman soldiers

and criminals on crosses,

hung as gasping warnings

to the passing throng.

Look where little Bethlehem lies,

between sheep on the hillsides

and star in the east.

Occupied territory

teeming with lost souls

far from home.

Look where in a manger lies

- hay scratching new-born flesh,

nuzzled by flea-ridden beasts,

the everlasting arms

bound by swaddling bands -

Hope of the nations,

Wonderful Counsellor

And Prince of Peace.




Funambulist

Whatever we do, we humans, we are all walking on ropes.

High ropes, pulled tight between left and right, wrong and right, ethics and human rights,

suspended on a knife edge on the edge of reason.

Complicated

knotted ropes,

struggling to find

beginnings

and ends.

Ropes

to

swing

from,

hang

from,

bind

ourselves

and

beat

ourselves.

Half way between Time and Eternity, we step out boldly,

Picking a path on personalised strands of this tangled web.

Christmas Carols

Christmas Carols

Was it bleak?

Possibly for Mary,

Weak and heavy-laden every labour-inducing step

to Bethlehem.

Not winter though –

not with Passover lambs on the hillside –

and definitely not white.

(In Palestine snow would have been yet one more

miracle that holy, but probably noisily-not-silent night.)

No snow.

Dusty streets and maybe some green hills for the sheep.

Could the beasts in the smelly stable know

their maker lay

mewling in the hay?

Doubtful. Even his mother was confused.

Who wasn’t? (The angels were at an advantage, being celestial.)

The shepherds believed, and did what they were told,

but did they wonder

ever after

what exactly had gone on?

Even we,

with two thousand years discussing history,

still spread the rumour

it was all about babies and the bleak mid winter,

ignoring what we know (about the baby growing up, beaten up and dying.)

There was no tinsel in the manger.

Just two tired refugees

huddled in the hay,

hoping the birth would be ok.

Boxes for God

Whose idea was it,

to keep the king of Heaven in expensive buildings?

Perhaps whoever it was

forgot that he’s gone home to his throne

and left the poor and suffering

representing him here.

Strange, building ornamental houses inside his footstool,

when he’s made his home in people

who have no homes to put a footstool in.

The Hands of God

The Hands of God

They must be huge,

the hands that hold the world.

Hands that set planets spinning like gyroscopes,

and threw stars so hard

they stayed where they were put.


They must be strong hands,

to hang on nails,

and still support

the weight of humankind,

without dropping a single soul.


They must be huge, strong hands,

where the bruised reed of my life

lies like a baby,

curled into the nail marks,

Knowing it won’t be broken.

Monday 14 December 2009

The Sadness

The Sadness


It is not that the

sun stopped shining,

that the earth grew dark and cold,

it is not that the

clouds moved nearer,

that the days shrank withered, old.

It is not that the

crown of darkness

was placed on Winter’s brow,

it is not that the sun’s stopped shining

in the frosty heavens now,

it is not that the earth is silent and lies as hard as stone,

but that I in my pale, cold prison,

am held here all alone.

In the darkness of all my loathing

my heart beats captive to flesh.

It is not that the nights grow darker

but that Dark is withholding Death.

It is not that the sunlight has vanished,

that the earth is cold and grey,

it is only myself captive, waiting

for Death to take me away.

But Death is held by the winter

as helpless and silent as I,

til my spirit returns to my body

and the sun shines again in the sky.

The Rooks

A thunder cloud,

the midnight crowd

converge.

Black as whirlwind’s

inner eye,

drawn magnetic

from the day-bright heavens,

scavengers settle

restless.

Seasonal rite and

season’s rights

perform,

tarmac-black leaves

flung outwards

from the stripped naked tree

to return,

instinctive to its

telepathic touch.

Veni Vidi Vici


It is cold.

The rain that strikes the earth

like a thousand spears,

like the tears of an angry god,

is a frosted passion.

The once warm breeze

is wrapped around

with ice-bound love

that freezes with each kiss.

Flesh and blood resist the chill

until

the hungry bone is touched

and all is lost to Winter’s game.

It is cold and all is held

in the season’s silver clasp.

Consolidation

Consolidation

Winter, you are not dead nor old,

you are not the almanac’s diseased remains,

the corpse of calendar’s out of date days.

In your silent, frosted spirit dwells

the sum and crown of all the seasons’ joy

and pain.


Winter soft, your darkened days

are not shrunk youths grown old and grey and failing,

but cradled in your arms they sleep

and heal.

Yours hours, sequestered twilight, yield

to velvet shadows’ soft caress

and know the gentle passion of their touch.


You are not the shroud that

suffocates my hopes,

the icy flow that floods my passion’s fire.

You are not the frost that claims my heart,

the scythe that strikes the substance of desire.


I know you now,

Winter who I saw unseeing, cruel,

was my illusion,

my own fear of what I thought I knew.

Winter, still those fears that haunt me still.


All the seasons meet in you

to know their essence in your own.

Your place within the season’s restless,

turning tide is right

and true.

Expectation

Expectation

Mist settles like spectres
in the sepulcral hills.
Where the ghosts of spiralling seasons
linger in the fallen leaves
and pine cone-carpeted earth,
it nestles silent as solitude.
Winter wrapped in ghost-bandaged air
where scent of summer lingers still
on the damp moss
and deep, deep down
spring sleeps.
There is life here.
Cradled in the frost hard kernel
of winter's womb
the seeds of summer
grow in the grave of the year.