Tag: Alienation

Reunion

They say blood is thicker than water
so I will build a bridge, a stunning

suspension of disbelief
spanning the oceans between us.

Blood will call to blood, a weaving
of broken strands. 25 is the magic

number. You will come to me, nameless
and lost but loved since always. Brother,

sister, can you hear me, can you feel me
twist in your heart, burn

in your bones, a splinter in your gut,
a memory of what might have been?

Do you dream of dark streets
in a northern city? Do you cry out

in your sleep? Are your eyes flecked
with gold like mine? Is there a gap

between your front teeth? Is your skin
smooth as avocado? Do you like cryptic

puzzles? I have a clue.  Together
we will find answers. Let us rendezvous

on the scarlet arc across the blue.
I have prepared a place and I’m waiting.

Note:- on average the amount of DNA shared between half-siblings is 25%

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Image created by the author

Melt Down

She drifted down Main Street,
shrunken and exposed
to the gaze of lacy twitchers.

She maintained a regal air,
head high, Liberty scarf fluttering.
Think panache, she thought.

Her expression was composed,
eyes cool as anthracite
and mouth dead as diamanté.

But sunbeams melted her frozen
cockles, dissolved her moody blues.
So why the tremor in her guts?

When she reached the Post Office
her feet puddled like jellyfish
and she slumped against the wall.

Her reflection in the window
was pale as January. Her face
had slipped to her waist.

With failing heart she understood.
The next day all that remained
was a dark stain and a scrap of Liberty.

 

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Photograph by the author

Moth Dance

Alone in my hospital room at night I watch tiny particles of dust and fluff swirl beneath the reading lamp.  They say dust comprises of dead skin cells, we sweep them away when we clean, removing all trace of our former selves.  Our cells are constantly reproducing and every seven years our bodies regenerate anew.  Your body is repeatedly recycling itself but not your mind.  Your mind is an entirely different story.  Our brains become less active, neural pathways die, our memories fade and disappear, we lose skills and alertness,  sometimes we even lose our sense of self.

But back in my mean small room, Ward 3A.  I’ve been here fourteen weeks now.  A reluctant patient, more like prisoner. So every night I sit, sleepless and thoughtless watching the dust  and wondering if these are particles of the old me, a shedding of  my past life. Occasionally moths enter through the open window and dance wildly in the pool of light, their fragile wings clinking against the electric bulb. Blinded and bewildered they circle.  In the morning I find their wispy bodies spent and shrivelled on my sheets.

 

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Self portrait by the author

 

 

 

The Hole

One morning, when you are least expecting you
wake up a hole
in your abdomen, a salivating
red circle, slap bang middle of the soft
flesh beneath your ribs,
big enough to fit two fingers.
You feel no pain, just uncomfortably numb.
There’s a hole and you can’t recall
what was there before. You try not to look,
put a sock in it and Elastoplast over the top.
After fruitless Googling you
ring in sick and visit the doctor.
She’s wearing lipstick and a feather boa.
She advises vitamin D and camomile tea.
Just one of those things, she smiles and hands you
a free whale music CD on your way out.
Next day, you wake feeling cold.
The ceiling is scabbed with mould.
There’s a strange smell in the room, like geraniums.
When you study the hole, it’s become a tunnel
and you cannot see the end.
You shine a torch and for a moment
glimpse the white shriek of an eyeball.
On the last day
you wake before dawn.
The cornflakes taste stale and you’re out of bread.
You worry about office dead
-lines and the state
of the carpet where the cat is digging for gold.
You take a hot bath and try not to look.
Through the opening you
hear the trill of bird song.

 

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Photo created by the author

Selling Sanctuary

I’m in a small cold place
perched on the edge, the solo late

night representative of Shell.
I’m researching the after

-life, heaven or hell, really can’t tell.
Muffled shadows shift beyond bullet

-proof glass, reveal inner
shit. Look away, look away.

Unleaded or diesel, Red Bull or Rizla,
Twix or a bit of smut, reformed

cheese sarnies, sausage rolls, Golden
Wonder or a pint full cream.

I don’t give a damn, all pie in the sky.
Make sure you buy before you die.

Dive in from the black
well into my bright, where pumped up

demons and angels self
-service, sniff hydro-carbon light.

It is the hour of the wolf,
and we are all overdue.

 

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Photo created by the author

 

 

Death Row Weekend

I SAY, I SAY, I SAY

Anyone here had a go at themselves
for a laugh? Anyone opened their wrists
with a blade in the bath? Those in the dark
at the back, listen hard. Those at the front
in the know, those of us who have, hands up,
let’s show that inch of lacerated skin
between the forearm and the fist. Let’s tell it
like it is: strong drink, a crimson tidemark
round the tub, a yard of lint, white towels
washed a dozen times, still pink. Tough luck.
A passion then for watches, bangles, cuffs.
A likely story: you were lashed by brambles
picking berries from the woods. Come clean, come good,
repeat with me the punch line ‘Just like blood’
when those at the back rush forward to say
how a little love goes a long long long way.

A hard hitting poem by English poet, Simon Armitage

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Fracture

stained glass mural at Raigmore Hospital, Inverness.
Photo by the author

“I seem to myself, as in a dream,
An accidental guest in this dreadful body.”
By Anna Akhmatova

I took this photo yesterday at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness where I’ve been incarcerated for several days after breaking my thigh bone and having surgery. The femur is the body’s largest bone.  During the op they inserted a titanium plate and screws.  There’s no point going on at length about the pain I’m in and the shocking inadequacy of the British Health Service which treats disabled patients as third class.  But I will have plenty more to say when I return to normal life and internet.

This stained glass mural is situated in the main entrance corridor of the hospital. One of the few good things here!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Destination

(after Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter)

I lie down in my little room,
my ghost limbs restless on stiff sheets.
Where the moonlight filters green,
I know he is waiting beneath the yew tree.
Through the small snowed-up window
I can see Cancer flicker in a crystal sky.
Neither the walls of the hut nor the roof
can keep out his fearsome spell or
can dispel my fancy that I am myself
no longer woman. No longer flesh but merely
moonlight, gliding along the spires and ridges
of rooftops towards a cold constellation, east
of the mountains, through the white valleys.

 

Note:- the lines in italics were written by Ritter, the rest by myself.  This is an example of a coupling poem where a section of prose is reworked into a new poem by responding/echoing each line. I wrote it as part of the NaPoWriMo challenge.  The aim is to write a poem every day in April, National Poetry Month.

 

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