Anatomy

Spring reaches into me
With mnemonic tendrils
That seek 
Never bloom
Milky reflection
The self-absorbed face 
Of the pound
shrinks 
expands
Spring reaches 
into me
With cold, 
double-jointed fingers
She knows 
My anatomy.
Knows that beyond 
The ribcage
She might still grab 
My heart
As it hangs 
An upside-down robin
Obstinate child 
She'll hide 
In the emptying well
Until time 
Has lost 
It's withered crown
Of bluebells

Back To The Start

(By Gub, the 21st of January, 2016)

I have a Coldplay track turning
in my head, along a pitted sunlicked road
with smatterings of shadow cast by trees and
leaves swept sleepily by breeze, and sun and cows
and coarse dark cigarette smoke
circling inside the cab of the car
and you stretched out in the passenger
seat;
asleep

and this track of contentment
playing through the heat of that
Romanian
summer

and a yearning
before it could
be yearned for

that this was how it would
it always be

how I would want this moment
to last forever

and never have to say
nor end up wishing:
‘take me back to the start’

Spanish Mode

(By Gub, 3rd of July, 2015, Leon)

There's no second
of life
Missed
In Leon

People throng
The urban pampas

Ramble their
Selves;
Erect.

Latin elves
(In fact)
With balance
Held; archers on
Tip-toe

Jousting in their
Chosen
Footfall

With bull-fighters'
spines flex'd

Nothing entirely
Natural
But that composure
Of crowd with such
Facile flow;

Conjugated,
Yet individual.

classic
Spanish mode...

Water Belongs To Water

The infant does not belong to the water
Water belongs to water
And water is a shapeshifter
It's truth is
ice and steam
stillness and torrent
Take the infant to the water
But don't build a nursery
in the middle of the lake

Water Is Still

(By Gub, the 2nd of May 2015)

Understand less
Magic
More mystery
Life closes round us fast - enemy troops
Circle
Chide the seconds and the hours fold in
Days sliced
Back
By snap and
Wail..

Where frog
Should spawn

Spring in the bullrushes

There is only the
Short flip
Of the tadpole tail

And then the water is
Still the infant
Gone...

Why Sing To A Song Bird

It's a beautiful song
But why sing to a song bird
The noise, the commotion
Is the meeting of wing and cage Hapless flapping where flight should be
You chide a child for its wants
But Want is the clamping down of life's mighty jaws
The preoccupied consumption
Of a blind giant
Push away the bowl
It chews its own fingers
And yours:
Caressing
slapping
feeding withdrawing

Worrior

(By Gub, the 1st of May, 2015)

Through the years that age devours
Boredom flowers
You alternate bait
With bruise

The cause is less about the wait
Than concentric rhyme, confused

When a single want is fulfilled
I become the wanton ache Of all your desires; refused.

A challenge, a fuss, an infinite harangue
Of ‘was it ever thus’

The tantrum
Child in you
Wails

Implacable
Billowing heaps
Of mopes and sulk filled Cheeks

Streaked with rage Strutting and fomenting Battled brow
War torn
Face

I know this warrior well I have faced
His axe
His mace

There is no refuge from
His storm; once unleashed
Brings rain
The sighing drops
Of sinking silver
That streak
Down
Down

From purple
Clouds

A bellicose wind
That blows in
(And out )

An origination
That forgets
Itself

No sooner
Started
Than
Expired

And another
Day is gone