Shocking Dance

(the 23rd of November, 2010, London)

If life knocks you off your feet
Then try drumming a different beat
Freedom isn't a tune set on "repeat".
Repent, prevent.
Potent ascent.
What won't be put right
Will stay bent.

I looked through my cupboard
Drawers were empty
Tangled bobbin threads
And needles aplenty.
Stitched up
That hole in my head
It's bad luck
But to my own pain I am wed.

Every now and again
I get lost from the world
I hold onto the lilo of life
With two fingers
Fold
Me into myself
Away from my need
Castigate my hunger
Lest it should breed
Greed.

And the seconds are tocking
And what I desperately want
Won't be laid by my bed
In a stocking.

So brokering my own frustration
I trade truth
And trample all over
Live's fragile plant.
In a self-mocking, self-blocking
Valiant shocking dance.

Creche

(the 4th of September)

Wet eyes begging at the door
Walled in
Castle of Innocence
Buldozered to a handful of
Play-blocks scattered on the floor

Good-byes plucked
Like scales off a dead trout
Limpid horse pulled away
From derailed cart
Love temporarily
Timed out

Left ghostly pending
With the tremor of a rootless tree
Neither living nor dead
Just surviving the calamity
Of ritual away-sending
Misery

Every second
Inward growing claw
A foolish monument
To the economy of trading
Contact flesh to flesh
For the cold roominess of
Growing-up crèche.

Native

(By Gub, the 3rd of October, Canada)

One eye
Blind

I see the native
Leaves fall upon the
Side walk

Of the not so native
City

Staring humbly
From the taxi

Misting rain
Curls web-like
Round the frame
That I have built
For you

In my mind

My other eye
Sees

Home

The whole
Vision configured

Two parts

The place I am
The place I dwell

Condensing
Like the rain
That runs
In veins
Across the
Windscreen of my
World

Wipers wince

Waters clear

And you are gone

In Grace Profusion

(the 24th of September, Spain)

Wake up to the
Mounting of the golden sail
Beyond our crib

Night is
The quiet spin
Before we are
Reunited
With the sun

In this country
They put “no access”
Signs
On beauty

Amidst
A half-built future
And a half-derelict past
We gypsies
Feast our eyes on
Waves
Slapping the sand
In frothy anger.

Light glints off
The skeletal scaffolding
Of a precarious bridge
Between
Today and tomorrow

My son believes
That tomorrow
Is sooner than
Later
That the future
Spreads ahead
Like peanut butter
On a slice of bread

I don't have the heart
To teach him
That now is already
Too late

Time Travels

(By Sil, the 27th of July, 2010, Romania)

Overlooked
Shifting luggage
Smuggled aboard
Overhanging hangover
Of a different ball
The door forced shut
Memory pound small

How eager Nostalgia
Irons out the
Creased, yellowed fabric
Of lived in life
Into a sensuous
Constructed shape
Not the dour Reality drape

No good
Measuring years by
Pounds gained
Or innocence lost
I tell myself
Lost in the innocence
Of the
Mirror-played
“I’m not growing up”
Game

Every now and again
I return
To a beach
Where love threw
Bitter-sweet apples
My way

I long to
Run fingers
Through Youth’s
Luscious mane
But as I watch my son
Refract
In the pierced
Water membrane

Abandoned by time,
And insane
I throw
Still many more seconds
Away

About Your Father

(By Sil, the 20th of June, 2010)

Father’s
Words
Are
Wheels
You can borrow
For the Long Ride

In exchange of
Propulsion
You won’t
Leave
Your identity
At the gate

But you will
Have to
Build
Your own frame
With
Your own tools

He holds you close
So you can learn
That
It is manly
To cradle

He cries
So you would see
Under
Permeable skin
He is vulnerable,
But not weak.

You know
That his door
May be closed
But never locked
So enter.

In his cave of wonders
He preserves
Traces of his past
So you can
Dare
To look
Into your future.

Beginnings

(By Sil, June, 2009, London)

Of beginnings without heartbeat:
I am thrust into motion
Cat yanked awake from drowsy stupor.
What shall I tell you?
How do we begin
When it feels like
Whenever our eyes lock in steel gaze
I rediscover you – a stranger

Are we just being born
Moment by moment
Each new task
A new entering into the world
Without a midwife

Choking on fluid fear
No wonder I don’t breathe
No wonder being with me
Feels like riding an underground train
Jerk. Speed up. Slow down. Stop. Wait.
Breath again.