Caught

CAUGHT

I saw a moment caught

and thought of you

A spider's thread holds fast 

and true

A leaf does not let go

And such is love 

at times 

maybe

 

Why put it out there?

I find myself writing poetry again just now - once more in a situation of grief, pain and anxiety. The words just come, the poems form themselves and edit themselves in my brain. Its mysterious to me, but omehow it happens, and somehow it helps.

So why do I 'put it out' here in this place?  Why not just keep a journal, as a not-so recent commenter asked?

I really don't know. But it makes a difference to me.

Maybe its something to do with making this somehow part of a larger reality, and not only a feeling and emotion within my own head and heart...

Maybe because I've found writing in other online places that has resonated, moved me, helped somehow, comforted, inspired.  In which case its about sparking connections, which matters to me - even when I'm not aware of how or when such connections might occur....

Whatever the reason, the words that have emerged from my currently rather distracted, bruised, struggling mind, are likely to find themselves here before long.

And maybe, one day, I'll find myself writing less limp and more cheerful crispy words!

I found you

sitting
in a folder
in my hard drive

external
seldom visited

and there you were
a small still ghost in my technology

sitting

still

waiting


And here it comes again.
drenching
wrenching
missing


:
A little (?) black hole in my machine.
absorbed, absorbing

that peculiar separateness,
caught up in the business of dying.
transfixed


But how should I know, I didn't ask you

I was transfixed
busy
caught helpless in the business of losing you

I fixed you there and it breaks my heart
all over again

tipping

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

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

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

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

outliving that and you.

Finally and perfectly beneath the velvet luxury

beneath those strata of yellow bight 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?

Waylaid

ambushed by a dessert

poleaxed by a 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

CC BY-NC 2.0 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cookingforgeeks/4101519280/

tidal

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 moon but in its own secret particular irregularity

it waves and washes

grief

crashing and seeping

changing everything

and withdraws

leaving shine, 

patterns, 

sometimes treasures 

carefully cast up on the wet shifting shingle

© Sally Alsford 2009

sussex walk

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 precarious worlds 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

© Sally Alsford 2009

bluebells

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?