limp lettuce

tipping

2010-10-13T07:56:00.003+01:00

as summer tips over
tiptoe
toppling

headlong into autumn

the timeless pause before

my heart

tips over

into missing you

and over
again

horse chestnut

2010-04-27T12:51:00.001+01:00

languid droop of leaves
belies the time of year

glove-like
abandoned in the street
unfeasibly green
against the grey

waiting

like wing-fold of newborn moth

stillness
belies the rushing surge of sap
the coming stretch and flex

awaking

flight

Lemon meringue pie

2010-01-01T00:15:00.006Z

We'd known it was the last time
though no one said

this task you'd set upon
with borrowed help
in borrowed hours and days
determined to do this for us
one last time.

It was triumphant.
As ever.

Soft and moussey melting whiteness
snow inside only on our tongues
soft with crunch on top, exquisitely browning crystal edges
gone in one's mouth
gone to nothing

the taste of childhood
and treats
little meringues drying in the airing cupboard
to be sandwiched with cream
not-quite-too-sweet

they were like nothing else.

Lemon layered like fresh spring
the bite beneath the sweet
always my favourite

- and in the kitchen salvage of skins and pips
squeezing soaking out the dregs of final flavour
an after-life of sorts
a frugal faith in the future
born in wartime
and outliving that and you.

Finally and perfectly beneath the velvet luxury
beneath those strata of bright yellow and white
(colour of primrose may when you died)
prosaic pastry
perfectly reassuring
grounded and balancing
plain comfort.

All of a piece.
A simple richness.
fragrantly redolent
childhood
family
carefulness.

We ate it without you while you rested in another room
close
far away and journeying
relishing flavours spoons scraping
laughing family trivialities
finding comfort around the gaping hole in our midst.

And now today who would have guessed at yet another goodbye
waiting in this other pastry case?

I was waylaid
ambushed by the dessert.
poleaxed by the pudding.

Savour.
Swallow.
the lump in my throat melts in sweet sharpness

I'd sooner never wash it down
not with anything

It will not last

It will linger

until the next time

tidal

2009-07-10T15:05:00.000+01:00

it has a rhythm and pattern all its own
grief

hidden and unpredictable
it catches offbalance
shifts pebbles underfoot
transforms the landscape

it ebbs and flows
grief
set not by the moon but in its own secret particular irregularity

it waves and washes
grief
crashing and seeping
changing everything

and withdraws
leaving shine,
patterns,
and sometimes treasures
carefully cast up on the wet shifting shingle

sussex walk

2009-06-09T14:50:00.000+01:00

shocking yellow shine clamours behind the treeline
beyond our cool damp tunnel between fields

its only prosaic dusty bramble and elder
transformed by buttery hot sunshine
loud, lime and glowing beyond this compost corridor
this lengthening world of mulch and hush

shadowed and silent
sole interruptions insistent repetitive bird demands
conducting untranslated business above beyond the stretching reach of root and hedgerow

sudden panic of unseen pheasant

the grey-green whiskery silver softness of wheats subverted too by yellowapplegreen shafts
sharp sun giving edge to blade and ear
the secret spider's web another precarious world transfixed by light

on a secretly discovered pond
one downy duckling scurries out of sight
posturing unicyclist jetski-propelled
zipping skimming like the not-quite-settling light
hovering untouching
over the water's placid solidity

swathes of disco-ball dappling
sweep
seep
scattering through the shade
puddling like rain in discs and drops of light
shimmer in the dim dankness

sifting the leaves
shifting the shadows

bluebells

2009-04-04T05:06:00.000+01:00

spring's painful loveliness splinters

the dry

sticky dark

softly insinuates betwixt the cracks of winter

charming its forceful gentleness into the heart of things

audacious

unstoppable

predictable and quiet

wiggles and stretches uncurling inchoate

half born

brashly and tentative

slowly rushing and stamps its way breath held

or is it my breath?

held

laid

resting.

brave

fool-hardy

exquisitely frangibly tough

the bluebells break my heart

standing

2008-09-10T06:09:00.000+01:00

if i look back
regret still waits there

with its dark yowling hungry mouth

abysmal gorgon stone transfixing paralysing saltbound breath

the past is ruined now
ravaged by understanding

the light of all those painful conversations casts its dark
and i can't see the landscape any more

I do not know it
do not recognise and
cannot own it

where is there to stand
except the present?

nowhere else to look but forward

silver

2008-02-10T16:35:00.000Z

paper
cotton
leather

linen
lace

teeth (skin)
and fingernails

scraping teetering on the sharpest edge
of hope and disappointment
ground(?) which bears no comfortable weight

no time to rest
no
none
at all
who could have guessed?

if we had forseen
what would we be, now?
- how would we have done it, then?
how?
how would we?

would we?

willow is in there somewhere
famed for bending without breaking

if green
or living
or wet through

roped one to the other by shared regret
disputed memories
climbing side by side
scarcely together

our clumsy feet dislodging arguments like rocks
worn smooth with handling
compulsive handling
smooth
still heavy weights

your face reflecting distance and uncertain
in the uneven patina of hurt

i could go on,
pursue the tiresome metaphor of compasses
stuck
and maps
tattered muddied and torn

or lost

i could go on
if i had the heart for it

we could

if we had

16 to 19 have no name
likewise 21 to 24

faceless or familiar

the photographs cannot be trusted
unreliable signposts
to dubious destinations

and there i go again
poetic detours slyly round the swamp
slipping eliding
swerving to miss
the sticky mud
the persistently massing bruise

i could give names to those anonymous years
if i had the heart for it

i could
if i did

we could
if we had

All Days Lost Days

2008-01-29T06:32:00.000Z

by carol ann duffy

All Days Lost Days

Living
in and out of the past,
inexplicably
so many things have died
in me.

In and out like a tide,
each tear
holds a tiny hologram.
Even this early
I am full of years.

Here are the little gravestones
where memory
stands in the wild grass,
watching the future
arrive in a line of big black cars.

All days
lost days, in and out of themselves
between dreaming
and dreaming again and half-
remembering

carol ann duffy, new selected poems 1984-2004, Picador 2004

wet rag

2008-01-24T15:52:00.000Z

wrung out
misery welling up secretly liquid

seeping sodden
creeping sudden shadowing

oozing in fibre and pore

heavy and cold
limpen and leaden

scrap of enormity

looking

2008-01-09T17:36:00.000Z

i keep looking for your brief blurry outline through the front door glass

hurrying ahead to be first arrived, for hugs, smiles, bringing little gifts, giving the kitchen sink a "proper"clean

tea and talks and walks

your little shape, too small to be hugged too hard

i keep thinking of you in charity shops

this and that you'd like, but would it fit you now?
our history could be traced through our charity shopping

i keep wanting you

i keep listening for the sound of you

but i'm not sure i remember your voice

bravery

2007-12-28T13:36:00.000Z

your absence pulls like a sore tooth

crowding out the doings of the day
persistent disconcerting deafening silence

filling the edges of consciousness
the corners of the room
the gap on the sofa

an aching gap disproportionate to the size of you
who are no longer here

The mundane transformed by loss
into feats of overwhelming bravery

like taking toddler steps without a hand to hold

sleeping in a single bed
preparing a meal for one
making mince pies
shopping, signing cards
returning to an empty silent 'home'

the pain of remembering is better than the fear of forgetting

but we don't speak your name enough

dark luxuries

2007-10-07T05:49:00.001+01:00

loss
sometimes demands to be recognised

wallowed bathed submerged in
indulged

Felt

A friend of a friend described it as the "dark luxury"

Here are some luxuries so dark and rich and beautiful and bitter that I need to share them.

It may be self-indulgent, but thats partly the point.

redemption

2007-09-10T20:01:00.000+01:00

secretly
and in the silent sticky dark

spring prepares
waiting bated breathless

tiniest emergent growth
searing splitting seed

casting off
wriggling out

tentative roots
searching through cold compacted earth

silently
in the secret stifling dark

tendrils
curling

imperceptibly
fighting fingering up to sunshine

featherlight
unfurling

stretching awake
numb with anticipation

stifling

in the silently patient dark

something

or nothing

This emerged - to do with my life, my heart just now - but also after seeing the film of Ian McEwan's Atonement. So much .... feeling... to do with guilt and forgiveness, regret, remorse, loss, the need for hope, how to move from the past into the future... And winter approaches.

words

2007-08-28T15:41:00.000+01:00

not so lost for words these days

pouring spewing out in jumbles
inspiration of desperation

I was not so wordy before

nor ever so deeply silent

and never so lost

widget

2007-07-23T06:06:00.000+01:00

Some internal widget

automatic overflow
esoteric unsuspected
ticks away

internal
monitoring ups and downs
highs and low

is there a ratio?
some quota I don't understand?

that the process
- random beyond control -
must have some balance?

Is there a secret waterline?
normality functionality only bearable so long
an unused muscle
easily strained
reaches capacity, some predetermined scope

mettle fatigue gives way to overflow.

Is there a rule?
every twenty-first, thirteenth, eighth hour?
an optimum interval for respite and recovery?

there is no recovery
only absence

overflow trickles into awareness
pulsing
prickling at my eyelids

triggered by nothing at all
emotional cramp seizing out of nowhere

the widget
a trembling compass point
hair trigger fault line

grief like a thirst not to be met by salty tears
nor without

they come again.
simply because.

they're there.
they must be cried
and no one else can do it for me.

drips

2007-07-09T16:35:00.000+01:00

the days drip by

at some distance

distances
distancing
doling out their separate continuities

pooling into patterns, welling up

strange familiar currents
ripples
depths and calms
dreamlike surreal

a drip at a time
wearing new grooves into resistant stone
eroding the ground under my feet
layering ugly limescale like a scar

what will i do?

feeble fickle attention snags briefly on some drifting interest

swirls and eddies
caught between extremes of drought and drowning
out of my depth

what do these drips and drabs of time have to do with me?

body

2007-07-01T02:24:00.000+01:00

There wasn't nearly enough holding
kissing cuddling stroking

she became so fragile by the end
it felt as if she'd break if squeezed too tight

I washed her failing body more than once
almost unbearable
handle with care
cautious of crushing
painfully precious solid heavy distorted frangible flesh

clumsy as clay
precious as porcelain

It wasn't enough

there was a once
a moment
eternity of months ago
i kneeled and buried my face in her poor dear stomach

we wept
she stroked my hair
i can still feel her fingers

If only i could be back there still
not present in this here and now

she should be here to hold me

excision

2007-06-17T07:15:00.000+01:00

it hurts me how readily the words come:

dad
dad's house
to see my father
dad will be here

my father

tidy the spare room
single sheets for a single bed
2 pillows
1 towel

i don't want it to be easy.

how is it possible so quickly to adapt?
to move from plural to singular?
we to me?
they to he?
a pair to alone?

suggesting at some level
(though I don't see where or how)
i know she's not returning

ellision excision
swift surgical
pain

the precision
of a moment

an extraction
completed, final, done.

now you see her
now you don't

My vocabulary has adapted
- healed -

but

i can't stop scratching at the scar

symptomatic

2007-06-08T17:23:00.000+01:00

who could predict the symptoms?

not the theoretical expectable unsurprising numbness, anger, denial, pain
familiar presences old friends

- but who could predict loss of memory?
failure of concentration?
incidental distractable inattention ?

is memory is too painful, precious, precarious to be risked even on little things?
too busy cataloguing hoarding gloating

preoccupied with its irreplaceable nonrenewable resources

burying away for winter sustenance
lying in wait, preparing to halt my tracks with some long-forgotten newly precious treasure

why does the mind shy away from the routine, trivial, predictable?
childlike refusing responsibility?
wouldn't you think the small and everyday would be escape from the large and uncontainable?

and of course it is.

sometimes.

and then it isn't any more.

The mind feelings faculties shut down
an automatic trigger somewhere toggles offline
clicking imperceptibly intooutof place
simply blankly refusing to deal with the everyday
the banal
the trivial
the vital inescapable unassailable fact of it

evading past - future - moment

lethargy apathy
blank blank blank
how long will the day take to pass if i just sit here?

Panic
- now where does that come from?

unexpected unsettling
urgent desolation bewildered like a small small lost child

bereft of consoling horizons
facing the newly-strange without a compass
or a hand to hold
or a place to go

Emotions ambush
assailed on the sudden by tears painful distress
in the midst of the okay getting on keeping busy enjoying forgetting living life

suddenly the hole is there
and i am in it.¹

Sleep calls constantly
not recovery, recuperation, rejuvenation
but still respite recoil reclusion unravelling

refuge
resistance to reality
relinquishment

Except that there is then the waking
the return

which sometimes is fine.
Okay.
No, really.
Who could predict?

and then when it hits, the blow hits harder.

loss all over again

Who knows whats possible any more?
who could predict?

¹ a perfect phrase from paula, thankyou.

silence

2007-06-01T15:49:00.000+01:00

we sat around her bed

talking laughing crying
listening in the silence to her complicated breathing

holding her hands
2 on each side

as if to tether her

and then she stopped
and there was silence

And now everything is different

rain

2007-05-25T01:40:00.000+01:00

it rained the day you died

did you know?

teardrops on the glass
raindrops on our faces

i wanted to push your bed into the garden

cool refreshing gentle fall on your hot hot parched skin
sweet rain in your dry dry mouth

and then the sky cleared
and the sun set

she

2007-05-17T01:08:00.000+01:00

no more difficult steps

no more tortuous excursions to the window, the toilet, the door

no more strong determined fragile tired tired smiles

her life has shrunk to this room
this bed

absorbed now in the process of each breath
she is so preoccupied with the business of dying
she is too busy for living

she

the primary she
my beginning and ending

waiting

2007-05-17T01:07:00.000+01:00

like a Belsen survivor
life stripped away to the bare bones

gaunt, yellow, stretched
the hollow people stumbling out into life
blinking in the light

You will not return from wherever it is that you are
not into this life, this world
your eyes sealed, unseeing

what do you see? wherever you are?
what do you hear?
what do you know?

do you know our voices?
whispering murmurings love and loss chit and chat trivial exchanges crisp packet rustlings rememberings hello-farewells laughter and tears tea-drinking planning silences

do you know us?

you will not survive and see the sun again
in this world

so very very far from being who you are

still yourself
precious fragile tenuous

but you are not retrievable

her slippers

2007-05-13T01:55:00.000+01:00

have become heartbreaking

playground

2007-04-19T05:40:00.000+01:00

up and down
round and about
rollercoaster speed lurching heart-in-the-mouth

reality the whooshing sensation
giddy speed

clarity reality sharp detail in the moment
time suspended

still silence of experience
muffling the blurry busy noise otherness out there

at a different pace
in another place

swings and roundabouts

backwards and forwards

up and down
back and round again

here we go

hang on

smile
scream

hard to relax when holding on for dear life

hard to smile

holding on to

dear
life

Haiku

2007-03-27T10:37:00.000+01:00

sleep

The sound of her breathing

too intimate
to share

Nursery rhymes

2007-03-23T16:26:00.000Z

Each peach pear plum
A few things about my mum.

Heavy-hearted, what to say?
will she live another day?

Little Mrs. Pepperpot, shrinking to doll size
Bitzer Maloney, all skinny and boney

except her dear hateful belly, humpty-dumpty like

Walking on knives smiling through the laceration
telling stories in the face of the dark

a sea of tears
all those lost mothers and motherless children
a needle of ice in the heart
the nightingale singing, bleeding into the rose

white to red

Sweetness and horror
Comfort and loss
Joy and pain
Growth
Life
Death
Redemption

the fairy stories helped us learn when we were little
and then we learn all over again

Like the Cheshire Cat
- there's not much left of her except her smile.

Where to stop? heavy hearted
How soon will we be parted?

pocket

2007-03-08T16:19:00.000Z

her head is so small

like an old old person
or a child

i could put her in my pocket
and bring her home

heartbreak

2007-03-08T16:18:00.000Z

the way she smiles at him

could break and heal your heart

in a long instant

spirit and matter

2007-02-22T07:12:00.000Z

How is the spirit connected to this gristly bloody network of sinew and bone?

or am I my body?

i ask because it hurts so much, this ache in my chest

How can longing be felt by tissue and muscle, flesh and blood?
How does regret render the palate deaf dumb and blind to taste?

the dull weight of misery pulls like a stone in the lungs and stomach

grief constraining breath

the body bears what we can't express
expresses what we can't bear

Laundry

2007-02-06T07:54:00.000Z

(Dirty linen in public)

Baggy saggy slack elastic.

No give or bounce or spring left.

All stretched out

thin

worn out with tension

Grey with fatigue
and too much washing

Surfaces

2006-09-20T05:59:00.000+01:00

Coping.

On the face of it.

Living the day to day.
Calm, composed.
On the surface.

Defying gravity and possibility
Learning to float, to skate, to walk on water

treading softly, scared to break the surface tension
taut and fragile, bearing implausible weight.

What lies beneath the surface?
behind the eyes?
beyond the horizon?

Unexplored secret depths
How is that inkly silent world connected with
sparkling reflection? on the surface?

Splashing sometimes, paddling, playing at the edges
testing the water, deliberately unthinking
sinking toes into the squelchy squaggy softness
sinking
not-so-given, not-so solid underfoot.

Imponderable slogging of treading water
water like mud

Surfing sometimes
inappropriate exhilaration, flying racing height fleeting illusion of weightlessness
fleeing the mundane
moments of happiness, forgetfulness, shallow triviality
timeless superficial detachment a moment in space
speed and balance fend off instability and danger

the up and down
crashing
febrile with hints of unseen depths
pull of the undertow

returning

salt water on my face again.

head up, chin up
keep busy
keep afloat
keep above the surface
on the surface

Cinqain

2006-08-17T03:40:00.000+01:00

Cinquain - inspired by this.

Journey
Here to somewhere
Facing changing landscapes
Shifting lost security bewilders
Passage

Thesaurus of loss

2006-07-11T06:21:00.000+01:00

Bereavement
reaving
bereft

Mistakenly I thought reaving meant tearing
ripping, sundering

apt for the torn ache in my chest.

It means robbery, plunder, deprivation, carrying off
theft, violence, ravaging

Ravage, damage, devastation

Also apt.

Words can't describe the searing sweet sadness of the weeks, days, hours

A common experience
commonplace and extraordinary
mundane routine unique and indescribable

plain and uncomplicated also incomprehensible.

I'm speechless and full of words.
Mute and verbose.

This is the hardest thing I have ever done.

I keep checking on you, like a child, watching your breathing.

Trying to fill a gaping chasm with paltries, trivialities, carings,
motherings, little offerings, show-and-tellings, trying to please,
a child myself

your child.

I want to snuggle up in your bed in the mornings
put my head in your lap in the afternoons

hold your shoulders while you vomit in the toilet
mix your pills with honey

Its ugly, it isn't poetic
It sure as hell isn't justice

I don't want to go through your wardrobe.
I don't want your little and generous bequests.

I want to bring you flowers every ~~day~~ hour
buy you clothes to fit your hatefully growing stomach
stroke your hair
hold your hand.

Hold tight, don't let go.

Swelling stomach and swollen legs
The fecundity of disease
Death mimics life.

Ugly beautiful
honey bitter
sharp and soft

grief cocoons and numbs, deadening
sensitizes, abrasive and raw
oxymoronic.

So much the hardest thing

Watching you
Dying while living
living while dying.

Grief

2006-05-26T07:32:00.000+01:00

I sense my mind skirting around it
devious in its deflections
deftly stepping aside
out of the path of an oncoming pain

Holding my breath
Will I make it past?
through over out beyond the insurmountable
implacable, impervious unavoidable fact of it

Fate. Fact.
The elephant in the room.
Its going nowhere.
It can't be tiptoed round forever.
Footprints in the butter
Unavoidable evidence.

grief gravity greaving grave grevious

I sense my mind returning to it
compulsively instinctively tonguing the cavity
probing the depth of pain
exploring the enormous shape and dimensions of absence

veer away, swerve
can't go there yet
ever

the mind shuts down
shies away
refuses the fence

diversionary tactics
distractions
denials

Don't stop to think
eyes shut
keep moving, don't look down
Balance depends on speed

Sisyphus (unfinished)

2006-04-22T06:52:00.000+01:00

Sisyphus (unfinished)

She grits her teeth
mouth-ful of sharp sand
muscle solid heft against the dead-weight of effort

Resolute
corrugated brow,
traces of bitter sweat
squinting ahead
impossible to see beyond or through the dense grey hugeness
massive concretion of rock
hard to guage distances ahead

Onwards
Upwards
Inch by tortuous inch

Neck, back, body taut and straining, shouldering the boulder
knotted in spasm

She finds brief respite in fantasies of weightlessness
of flight and freedom
- hollow bones, feathery wings, soaring in clear blue sky
- swift silvery fish gliding cool in silky water

Could she simply step aside, leave the boulder crashing down alone?

Would she be crushed in its path, left damaged incomplete?

Should they ever reach the top, then what? how would it be?

Views from a summit, at rest.
slack, relaxed, gazing at distant horizons?
a stable place to lean her back?
safe refuge?

Some build on rocks
Some are crushed by them.

Nesting

2006-04-01T15:25:00.000+01:00

I see them everywhere

cradling in the still bare wintry branches of the trees
complicating the stark simple lines and angles

Precarious, bleak, risky lattices of twig

nestling exposed
balancing reckless so high above the ground

tenuous fragility of interlacing branches
skeletal leaves
breathtaking even at such a distance

foolhardy

dangerous

brave

necessary

They raise a chord of identification in me
a pang of painful recognition

unfeasible, extraordinary they have survived the winds and blasts of winter

They must be sturdier than they look

tenacious

Will the shoots, leaves, growth, verdure of spring and summer shield and protect them?

Hide from prying eyes like mine
buffer from wind and weather

secure, fix and fasten

grow into a green cocoon-womb of warmth and safety
private, intimate, shared refuge

flesh and blood on bare rib and bone

home

life enclosing nurturing life?

One can only hope

ADDENDUM
Some of these trees have just been brutally pollarded.
Defoliated.
Mutilated knucklebones gesturing obscenely into the sky.
Empty. Bereft.

The hounds of love

2006-03-20T19:11:00.000Z

Limp version:
(click here for crisp version)(probably preferable)

1. Name of band/musician
Kate Bush
2. Are you male or female?
This Woman’s work
3. Describe yourself
Running up that hill
4. How do you feel about yourself?
The hounds of love are after me
5. Describe your ex-girlfriend/boyfriend
In search of Peter Pan
6. Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend
The man with the child in his eyes
7. Describe where you want to be
Under Ice
8. Describe how you live
Watching you without me
9. Describe how you love
Sexual healing
10. What would you wish for if you had one wish?
Deeper understanding
11. Share a few words of wisdom.
Don’t push your foot on the heartbrake
12. Now say goodbye.
Get out of my house.

not for too long

2006-03-06T07:08:00.000Z

Things I think (at the moment) that I can't go on doing for too much longer:

being positive

crying in the shower (it still makes your eyes red, eventually)

needing a long hug from someone other than (as well as) my daughter

hoping

saying "I love you" when I know the answer will be "I know". Full stop.

waiting

But maybe I'll feel better tomorrow