Camels

On the 29 again,

Past the building with the corridors

and huge great door that belches out small figures

Onto the street by my windowseat.

Waifs and wonder-whys loom about,

Like bleached sails all puffed up and dancing in the wind-

Soon bent double in the driving rain,

Jerking up then down again.

Their battle rages on,

Summoning all power lost and nearly

- but not quite won,

Flickers of amber light make mockery of

eyes, wide and dull like dirty coppers.

Wretched pools of water form around creped soles-

sooty muck ponds sucking up the smoke

To stop them choking on their own syrupy nothingness.

Overhead, birds wheel

this way and that, cooing, cooing…

‘Smokers outside the hospital doors,

The saddest thing I ever saw.’

Unblackberrying

j

A blackberry lies quite whole in the flowerbed,

Wrenched from its stem by some unknowing force,

It is a fallen fruit, a berry stricken.

As yet unsullied by dank soil surrounding,

'Tis a mass of polyps purplish-black,

A minute cluster of burnished orbs fused

by sunlight and the nip of the wind.

A bush of unripe amaranth

obscures a lost portion of its crop,
From the tentative fingers of passers-by.

And so our berry lies unpunctured,

Whilst beneath its barbed surface,

Caustic juices are brimming silently.

But this one is not to be savoured.

Miserable juices ebb away...

Yet below its cobwebby film,

The earth is moistened once again.

The Human Anachronism

I do not fit a time, nor place.

I am suspended,

A haunting face.

I think not of my future years,

Far better wallowing in the tears

of yesterday.

Some say, 'an anachronism',

I follow not this human rhythm

as I ought.

I am a woman out of sync,

Forever on the brink

of being lost - tossed into oblivion...

These queer notions shall be stowed away,

All boxed up, eternal grey.

I belong to ne'er time nor place,

To be forgotten,

A nameless face.

Washing Lines

The past is not a foreign place,
But a washing line of pegged-up memories - a blur
of polaroids undated,
Rising in roseate hues and sinking in yellow candlelight
that was and was not there.

A silent gathering of wind shakes the images cruelly,
And rattling, rattling, one is pushed so far to the side of my head,
It seeps out like steam through my eyes and ears.
And then it envelops me
in a nauseous shroud of angst quelled, and love heightened
by time.

We stand before me now,
Unobserved,
On the edge of a wooded path,
The June air is so hot it stings my infant nose and ears,
and scorches the shingles to an angry dust cloud
of itch and grit.

You suck in breath over sharp teeth,
Bending terse on one knee to thumb
away the dirty droplets that streak like spiders' legs
down cheeks.
My cheeks,
Free from the slap of modernity,
Not knowing liqueur from lemonade.

That age of innocence will dissipate,
But there now,
Our blotting eyes show no sign of the future
and there is no past as yet to speak of.

Let it always be like this,
Just being, being
Daddy and me.

Driving at Night

j

The sky is almost fully dark now,
tinged with greyey-blue.
But the banks and bridges and trees
are silhouettes yet-
skeletal branches grasp and groan against the sky,
clinging to the last of the light
as the flailing arms of the damned did in the River Styx.
Black, doomed and black.
Void of flesh and blood and bones,
they are just shadows,
foretold beneath our eyes.

The Librarian

She never wears her name badge,
but I like it that way.
If she did,
it would be like her achilles heel
pinned to her breast
unnatural.
She has this sort of nonchalance about her,
eyes rest unblinking
on some far-away spot,
hidden but to her.
That stare in any others' eye
would be moronic,
but she moves hands across the counter,
adept.
Folding, typing, swiping, handing.
Her callous lips split into a smile
revealing pointed teeth
as smooth and pale as eggshells...

I keep my vigil,
peeping from between Flaubert and Flemming
catching my breath when she laughs,
as though gargling gravel.
A second,
then the stare again,
that confounded stare!
Folding, typing, swiping handing.
I wonder what she reads,
an accolyte of Plath, I reckon.
She's pensive too, just like Esther Greenwood
and a little bit cruel.
I want to nurse her,
to stroke her mousy hair
and clasp those bony fingers to my cheek,
'till warmed.
O! I'd be her Atlas
and bear her world as well as mine-
to press those lips to mine,
a second.

I know one day she'll see me here,
perhaps she will condede.
But for now my vigil must be kept
so I loom and watch,
unseen.

Thunder

Thunder sounds above,
Huge great claps that swallow us up.
Lightning scalds each pore,
Yet we're happy here in the drumming rain,
Biting the wind with our teeth.
You pass one cautious hand through the shadow
on my hipbone,
Sweeping the air to one side,
So you can reach the watery skin.
We tremble together,
Choking on each others' gasps,
Rubbing noses.
Swallowed, scalded, damp and cold...
Three hours 'till morning
So we dip our heavy heads
and pray that the sun lets us go.