Birthday Girl

(By Sil, the 15th of May, 2011, London)

“But I didn’t choose to be”
A refrain to my mother
Carolled spitefully
By a whinging, raging child:
“So why did you have me?”

A mistake
Still counts as a choice
It’s a bird deaf
To the effect
Of its own trilling voice

Side-by-side
In matching holiday skirts
She said: “You’re part of me”.
Later,
Her skirt left on the beach
Flailing in the wind
Like the parachute crown
Of a born-again dandelion

The insistent,
Unbearable itch
In my chest
Grasping that she could feel whole
Without me
For attempting a climb
Would the hiker leave something
As vital as a limb behind?

Left to the comfort of thumbs:
One rubbing the velvety bottom
Of Tom-Tom
The other - a fool’s breast
To suckle on with a sore gum

Five, eighteen, twenty-five
Thirty-one
Every birthday marks
The growing jaw of separation
Between that mother and this child

And a contradiction:
I didn’t choose to be
Yet I don’t stop counting.

Heraldry

(By Sil, the 5th of May, London)

On my shield
I drew a peacock feather
A butterfly and
Woodbine leaves

When fear
Obliterates the nest of memory
When adornment
Can no longer conceal
The true state of me

I place power and knowledge
In beauty
I forgive Psyche
Her brittle wings
Pray that
My love will not injure
Those to whom it clings.

Swallow
The putrid apple of shame
But never
Become a hate recruit.

After all,
Don’t butterflies too
Feed on rotten fruit?

Until the End of the World

(By Sil, the 15th of March, London)

We’re here to build
Castles in the sand
To bestow wings on angels
To dabble in the puzzle
Of reality
Tugging hard
At the fraying seam of
Human certainty

Absorbed by wonders
Encoded in divine slang
Our brief existence
Is the window
Through which
A mourning Universe
Catches reflections of
Its lost symmetry
Before the Bang.

We’re starspit.
Unholy because
Nothing holds
This world;
A rubber-band jerked skip
Between too hot
And too cold.

In the galactic
Delayed backstory
We saw our future.

A true prophecy:
When the warped Alchemist
Is done transforming
Gold into Lead
When the stellar fire is out
Then
The End will come
Chilled unhingement from
Quantum attraction
Welcome respite
A licence to surrender
The rock of
Perpetual reaction.

Last Night I knew...

(By Gub, the 13th of March, Toronto)

Last night I knew what faith was.
It’s a dream you never wake from.
I saw an x-ray of a human shoulder-blade, taken of a young boy.
The blade had the distinct ossification of a wing bone.
It was so clear to see.
In that moment I knew I was looking at the x-ray of an angel.
A manifestation of divine purpose.

In my dream I felt the ecstasy of absolute knowledge –
It was total and blinding.

The Space Where Heaven Closes...

(By Gub, Toronto, the 13th of March)

...the dark arc of the firmament
This edge of fire,
Burns like phosphorous

Against a flotilla of stars.

Circle back
Through breathes
Of time

Capture each second of
Wakefulness,
Each nuance
Missed,

A child’s cough, a
Chuckle of laughter

Those red rose petals
Crushed flat by a kiss.

The shift in your gown,
As Love opens
That draft of bliss.

Drift through heaven
Alone,
The past
Behind me closes,

Home seems hopeless
And far

Ridiculous

Your closeness in my heart.

Time and space form a celestial
Body,

An unholy bar.

3 Minute Poem

(By Gub, the 3rd of March, Toronto)

I'm drifting in
And out
Of this meeting
And wishing I
Could leave

My body,
My mind
Depart please
Now
Over
The sea

It's 4pm in my world and
Midnight in yours.

The women are droning
Horse-voiced
Wraiths
Dry and sharp

Arid
Humorless

I yearn
To laugh
Flex ribs
Around a
Funny cotton-reel
Wound tight around a
rubber band and a pencil

Play tanks across the grass

See you smile, watch our son
Roll down the bank
Our dog dive in and out
Of the daisies and butterflies
Flirt free....

Spring Chorale

(the 2nd of March, 2011, London)

Just a little sunshine
Just a little push
A child's
Rhymed promise that
Crocuses will show
And leaves unfurl
Lush
Hailed freedom from
Basement entrapment
And straggled
Sofa encampment
A spirited stride
Into spring's
Chorale
To crush
The bitter seeds
Of winter
Exile