Dutifully muted we wait in our bubbles, looking at ourselves looking at ourselves smiling, looking for clues in book shelves, potted plants, interiors.
Sid’s iPad is a shadow. Patrick props a stepladder. Magi’s tablet belongs to a Ragdoll with blue eyes. The third row shows bearded minimalists in grey.
The cool ones are sipping tea from chunky mugs. The patient ones are still holding hands raised while their rictus grins slip off screen to scream.
Three minutes to write a poem about the sea. Try to recall how the sea looks, sounds, smells. Time rubs out. One by one our bubbles turn black.
Something is wrong. A grey fog stinking of wet wool hovers above my bed when I wake. I hit reset and instantly a citrus glow permeates the Sense-o-Net. Lemon scent cuts through the fug. Bitter-sweet, my six naked limbs dissolve like butter on hot toast. I hit open and the view unreels; a newborn sun rising from the sea, a debonair yacht with a white sail, a labrador chasing a beach ball. Let’s get this show on the road, I hit extraterrestrial to transcode.
What if each breath was a cloud, each tear -drop a rainstorm, each word forked lightning and eyelids conjured hurricanes, would your world be desert or ocean?
Like many others stuck at home since the start of the Covid Pandemic I have taken comfort from my garden. There’s a special healing energy in the natural world which we all need at the moment. Just a few minutes outdoors can reset my mood. Today was a particularly grim British October day with non-stop rain and dark overcast skies. So it was lovely to look through some of my flower photos to remind myself how beautiful life can be. Here’s my favourite one of a white hydrangea like a cascade of starlight.
“The poet’s job is to translate unspeakable things on to the page…”
“Poets don’t get into poetry for money, they do it for vocation – I feel like that anyway. Poets can touch hearts and minds; they can translate trauma into something people can face. Sometimes there’s a cost for the poet to do that as it takes looking at the trauma right in the face and then allowing others to bear the idea of trauma safely. That’s why I write poetry. Poems are empathy machines.
Racism is a system that keeps propagating itself. It wasn’t the bankers, millionaires or computer magnates we turned to in the crisis – it was the nurses, garbage cleaners, supermarket workers; I hope those people will be valued more.”
She has never seen so many of them, diving in ribbons, mercurial as the heart of a virgin. She opens her mouth to cry out, joyful her hot mouth expects a fierce Atlantic roar.
She taps an elegant rhythm as the rocks tease. Not surprised, they reflect the enduring equivalence of a human. Five liquid bodies hurl into the waves. She’s eager to slip
a knot around her waist, slide into the silver gaping mouth. She believes she will fly underwater, melding like angler fish, one into a luminous other. Love lingers
under the scalloped tongue and her smile disappears into a cave. Words are the agony of a different folly, wafer thin, hankering for the heavenly parts of this world.
My therapist’s room has lofty ceilings and a view across rooftops to the sea. A row of potted geraniums line the sill and a tribal mask hangs over his desk. My therapist says I must remember.
My therapist likes to shop. He’s a snappy dresser. Today he wears orange trousers with a button down shirt in lemon. He sips tea from a turquoise mug. My therapist says I remind him of his dead grandfather.
My therapist composes poetry in his head as he walks along the seafront. He recites a poem about a man sleeping rough outside Habitat. My therapist suggests a poem about planting a seed of anger.
My therapist has green fingers growing houseplants with pink flowers. He displays a cactus with fuschia spikes that remind me of my dead mother. My therapist says I am a rose without thorns.
My therapist has cold sores and doesn’t feel like talking. He missed his train, feels stressed. I suggest homeopathy. He asks how I feel about him. I say he is amazing. We are both wearing yellow jumpers. My therapist says
we are synchronised and sends photos of tulips. My therapist suggests letting go, forgiveness and voluntary work. He says my perception is flawed like rippled glass in a old window pane. My therapist asks, are they out to get you?
Our last session he complains of food poisoning and a dodgy meal in Chinatown. I suggest ginger. My therapist says I have too much empty space in my head, sniggers at my leopard print hoodie. Perhaps you’ve shot yourself in the foot?
The Purple Hermit 