With Wood

(the 3rd of August, HBC)

Not every day
I slow down enough
To notice my heart
Confused
By a clock ticking too fast
Against a lazy jazz beat
I rest my cheek on the table
If could be pinned down like this

Locked into the warm contact
With wood
And my arms, the colour
Of unseasoned pine
Could grow out into planks -
Better - into ships,
I’d dream of fantastical figureheads
Swallowed by wild waters
I’d wake up – wood grain
Tattooed into my skin -
Into the same evening prayer:
Please don’t stop
Please don’t stop
Please don’t stop

Home is only...

(By Gub, July 27th, 2012, HBC)

Home is only this

an abundance of definitions

Character references

both good and bad

History

and the marks on the wall

of height

regarded...

Of siblings and children

If you look carefully you can see

that life passes

A silent force

The jugular of this essence

in transit

is where we dwell

Where our memories are spun

We are molluscs and our shells

are more than houses

They are an outer skin

shedding them is painful

The loss of weight in outer orbit makes us spin

Sideways

Into the next galaxy....

Walls

(London, the 15th of July, 2012)

A day will come
A day of walls
Voices will echo - empty glasses
And sound will carry back
Some insect-like feeling that wants
To burrow under my skin

Home is
Waiting outside a locked gate
With the last of the dinner ladies
Kicking dust in the early hours
At the bus stop

Home is
A priest’s mantle
Kittens in bags
Couches on concrete
The railway line

Home is
The extraction
An empty wall inside
Where a heart should be.

A Fork In The Wood

(By Gub, the 7th of July, 2012, London)

Ahead the verdant valley
Behind us, the ‘hood.

Sheeps’ bleats for sirens now
Street lights – withstood.

Oak trunks
And cud
Tarmac banished
By rain, by mud
Will our lives
Ever be the same?

Hearts waiver
Waiver again.
Choice and reason
Reasons with gain.
Losses?
Partings In the main.

Yet change is a must,
Tomorrow’s
Bites back the dust.

The places missed
Most – are warmed
By faces,
Yesterdays
Filled with kindness.

Our new landfall ?
The hang’d bank
Portent hope
Friends will not
Forget us

Even absent hearts
Need a stall.

Migrations

(London, the 4th of June, 2012)

I watch swallows
Flitting past, diving low
My eye shutters to slow
And break
The movement
Folding unfolding p
Penknives
They disappear
Under the roof
Of my grandfather’s shed
Out of reach
I hear
The begging of hungry chicks
Well tucked away in dried mud nests
Relentless on hot summer afternoons
Does their mother think them pests?
Grapes ripen
The great migration beckons
One fallen mignon
Wide gaping yellow beak
Wrestles inept against the dust
A cavity of hunger, surviving streak
I pray
Tatal nostru, care esti in ceruri 
Save this chick
My grandmother
High priestess of the burning matchstick
Extinguished in water
Does not pray,
For prayer is a balm to soothe
A child’s unrest
Birds feather, follow the heat, or die
In God they rest
No qualms,
No questions
And no quest

Grenouille

(the 11th of April, 2012, HBC)

Do I play the seductress?
Sprawled out on paper
I must appear
Exciting, vibrant
On stage
I burn
I dazzle
Make a mess
Collector of
Pretty things –
Painted silks, butterflies, violets
Killer and poet
I want to know
Where memory lives
Stalk and capture
This shy beast
In love, yes
Shamefully obsessed
With what I can never possess:
The propensity,
The soaring
Yearning souls
Of the barefoot beggars
All those cut deep

At Times You Play the Lover

(By Gub, the 11th of April, 2012, HBC)

At times you play the lover
Occasional wife
Most times it's the mother;

A cloak of first resort
To hide from unwelcome visits,
Retire to early bed,
With a warmer thought,
Than marital consumption
- or tedious rendition
Of 'thank you' for the most
Basic partner function
Like :- is the dog fed?
Are the lights off?

Are we dead?

Am I your soul mate,
Your husband,
Your chauffeur
Or fortunes' croupier
Raking chips
Across the green baize ?

Are we passing roles
Or passing out ?

The red light flashes at the
End of the Causeway
The oceans cavernous reach
A Perplex of white and dark creases

Never ending questions
Never ending
Waves

Such tension -

Ascend, descend,
Unceasing,

Life may be tedious - yes
But death is permanent
And dull.