Friday 26 February 2016

To a bouy

Displayed in ThornFest: Turning Tides.

I’ve been thinking I wanted to kiss you,
old friend,
and your laugh is the sand in my shoes.
It’s been too long for me to still miss you,
they said,
and spend salt on the paths that we choose.

Yet I still wish that I had been braver
back then,
when we really had nothing to lose,
except some subtle pride
and the call of the tide
was eternally prying us loose,

when I was like the lapping wave
of a trembling, two-tone tide
caught inbetween
the advance and retreat
with the moonlight on my side,

but you were not the cavern’s mouth
and I could not come inside.
Composed and pristine,
you were calm and complete
and repelled me every time.

And it might be then or never
now I’m rolling out to sea;
and we both might wait forever
until we can finally be;

but I’m giving my all
to a foreign shore
where you can never follow;
and they say it is easy
like giving in
to the cold dream of tomorrow.

Breakers will break us
and old bouys will save us
now that you are a Lenten dream;
and the children will make us
for the cold sea to take us
as we wait for the tide to come in.

Saturday 13 February 2016

If You Want Me


For my Valentine

Swell then, heart,
You rattling thimble!
Balloons may burst
Before they pass the clouds.
If feet shake and flesh prickles
With every step
That could be the last,
Then why should we walk?
If every syllable will float
Unprotected in the air
That waxes with our words,
Then why should we talk?
Happiness haunts with subtle dread.
You know, if you want me you should have just said.


Monday 8 February 2016

Happiness

Monday. 8th February. Durham.

I found solitude where the hours expand
In the stale blood stains of coffee cups.
As when the pendulum
Swings past perpendicular
My increase was exponential.

Then the City
Opened its jaws
In a long, contented sigh,
And I walked in the valleys of its molars,
And I felt the warmth of its tongue.

And you know
That this cathedral
Is false hope.
Its tyrannical spires
Stretching everywhere higher.

On the way back down we passed the graveyard
And talked about death in eager voices.
You know rotting's such a bore
I’ll stain the air with dust.
But what to choose?
A bench?
A tree?
A black smear in the sea?
'Twere now to be most happy.

‘I am happy’ is always a quotation.

The word arose
Before the cold stone
Of St. Mary’s College.
Before I was:
Giddy?
Emotional?
Not particularly sad?
But then:
Happ-eee.
So now that’s done.

But all happy families
Are not alike,
And you are not
That lost Venetian girl.

Today I wanted to ask
If you trust me.
I wonder if you know
I am of those
Too happy in their happiness
That monster their peace
With full-throated ease—
'Twere now to be most happy,

Like a train on a track,
Like a roofless room,
No turning back,
Or halting soon.
'Twere now to be most happy?

When you walk out in the morning with the sun beams on your back

And the dawn says you’re not breaking yet you still detect a crack.

And here's a performance of an earlier version of the poem (with a heavy cold!):