Felix, 5 years ago

It used to be such a hassle, to have to put my son on the toilet every night before going up to bed. I was usually tired by then, after a long day of work, and it seemed so much effort to wake him, half carry his floppy body to the bathroom, sit him on the toilet, making sure he didn’t fall off it or in it, guarding him so he wouldn’t trip as he hurried back to his bed.  But now I miss that.

Now, I like it when he sleeps in the bed with us, in the middle, nestled between our orthopaedic pillows. In the morning we have a special time, between seven and seven thirty, when his mum is already downstairs  getting the older ones ready. I get him his baby books from beside the bed, and he looks through them and makes all the noises while I dose, pressing snooze on my phone.

True story

When she woke up that morning,
she had holes in her body, and scars,
more than she could count.
For a long time she could not move.
There were two wooden sticks by the bed
and she could eventually get around,
just about, with a stick in each hand.
The mirror had stopped working
and showed someone different.
Her tongue no longer kept up with time,
though time was there, all around,
she just couldn’t catch it.
Her friends were kind.

Last time she had woken, rose petals
rained down on her bed,
and the world curled into a ball and purred
and was soft between her fingers.

Eight years

It had snowed all day.
The cold mist and frozen sky were lonely.
We made tracks in the snow
and sent flashes out into the fading light.
We snapped some instagrams.

When I look at the pictures,
yet eight years later,
the mist spills from my stomach
and the torchlight breaks my heart into sweet pieces.

The sea has swallowed so many

I’m going to swallow the sea.
Impossible! one said.
Another: Silly.
But I’ve been sweating for thirty years
and I’m thirsty and need salt.

I may not swallow the sea.
But the training will make me able.

Love (after Frank Herbert)

Love bids me closer still, yet as I turn away,
Revealing my redemption from a wasted day,
Love holds me tighter, yet as I lose my grip,
A rock upon which sits my sinking ship.

I say to Love, let go and let me drift away,
Deserve I not redemption on this wasteful day,
I say to Love, no sin if you should lose your grip,
It was a different rock that sank my listing ship.

Love answers, I could let you drift away,
Preserving the redemption for a different day,
Love answers, yes my hands will lose their grip,
To pluck your listless body from your sinking ship.

Acorn (a song after Jonny Cash)

I saw an acorn on the ground
I picked it up, turned it around
I put it in my pocket and I took it home with me.
I made a hole I made a mound
And laid it there all snug and sound
And then I covered it and watered it, you see.

I went to bed that night and wondered
What if I wake up from my slumber
To find an oak tree like no one has ever seen.
Then I would climb up it and wander
Amid the lightning bolts and thunder
And find a treasure that’s been waiting there for me.

But when I woke up in the morning
The sky was grey, the rain was pouring
And my oak was just a muddy patch upon the grass.
And my dream was just a child’s story
Which on the chilly wooden flooring
Lay scattered like so many beads of glass.

And then my parents moved around
To other streets, in other towns,
And I grew up and I left home to find my way.
And though my feet were on the ground
My head was always in those thunderclouds
And I knew I’d find my treasure there one day.

Well, you know that life is long
With twists and turns of rights and wrongs
And many happenings that wait around the bend.
But all these things only prolong
The culmination of each song
And every song must come home in the end.

And so one pretty summers day
I passed that town along the way
And went to look at where the old house stood.
The owners, seemed like they were out all day
So I went round back through the alleyway
And climbed over the fence into the yard.

And there, where the lawn had been
Grew an oak as big as I had ever seen
And I swear that it was where I’d made my mound.
So I climbed up and ripped my jeans
And I emerged out of that of green
To see the world beneath me spinning ’round.

So I just sat there for a while
Just looking out for miles and miles
Until the cool blue dusk began to settle in.
And on my face I wore a smile
For all that time of searching and denial
When this was where my treasure’s always been.

A note from me

Many of you have stuck with me despite my long silence and lack of anything decent…  thank you.  I don’t have many followers but you all mean a lot to me.

I have been writing, just never quite managing to complete.  Too many drafts, too many.  And work and family is where I’ve been focusing on in the last year or so.

So I’m catching up and closing loops.   I hope you like them.

Mother

Don’t look at this broken body.
It comes from a place where bodies get broken.
There are many others who are less intact.

Don’t look at the body, it is merely broken.
Just sit close and listen silently
to the resurrected stories.

Starlings reprise, two years on

When did the starlings fly?
I did not hear their sweet goodbyes.
Only the candy floss caught in the cypress trees
Tugs gently at my memories
Of festivals already come and gone.
Leave me to winter’s misty song.

My little starlings, close your eyes.
There’s time for one more lullaby
Before the dust from your impatient feet
Wells up among those cypress trees.
You will go forth to right our wrongs;
Leave us to winter’s lonely song.

Come darling there’s no need to cry.
Those simple truths are also lies
That tell us that they must be free.
That’s cotton wool up in those cypress trees.
Let others go to right their wrongs;
Leave us to winter’s bracing song.

Starlings

Where do the starlings fly,
When summer storms retreat to amber falls
And fields swelling in the salty breeze
Now harden into smokey stubble
Rough and familiar against your cheek?

Now that we’ve kissed our last goodbyes
Beneath a sky evaporating into grey
Beneath the final wishes of a feeble sun
When all the pretty days are gone,
Where do the starlings fly?