Dwellers in a chalk and limestone country,
We never knew the well-watered valleys of Eden,
Whose Four Streams never ran dry,
The freshets and the fountains of that garden.
For long, it is said, we wandered in the desert
Where all the streams ran darkening into sand.
For survival, we ****** the damp grit
And in the dry storms held each other’s hand.
Faithful we may have been, yet had no faith
To smite the living granite with a staff.
We were not the kind for miracles.
It was enough sometimes to hear you laugh.
And now we have come to our own territory,
No Eden, but the pastureland is good.
The waters flow here unpredictably,
But here at least is neither sand nor flood.
And we, the fallen lovers, knowing thirst,
Learned long ago to play the waiting part,
And have most joy in knowing after cloudburst
The winterbournes and swallets of the heart.
Sep 20, 2024
Sep 20, 2024 at 12:36 PM UTC
On our horizon there is a silent field;
dark, but becoming white and gentler.
Light is still unknown.
It has learnt the lover's caress of falling snow.
The snow will not know it is white until our torches look-
but the stars wink down knowingly.
To the left of our field is hot cocoa and the hallway light under the door.
To the right of our field is Ali Baba's lantern and a thousand spangles on the sod.
The snow feels for our faces, each step offering no forgiveness.
Look- there is the nursery chair! and the solidness of the linen cupboard;
an owl screams his warning of dawn breaking.
To be loved is to be made warm;
to feel a fire in the grate.
To gaze through the panes at a silent field, and not yet know
the cold of freshly settled snow.
Sep 16, 2024
Sep 16, 2024 at 7:19 PM UTC
I cried as the stars bore low, a listening ceiling of silver rips and pins. There was no moon and they pressed lower and lower still.
And all that could be heard was the ebb and flow of one creaking
breath, one and then another,
going, going;
I was surprised that they were mine.
I pushed myself forth and away from the horror of your love in that coffin of a room.
An epithelalium, a dirge and a hymnal came to me at dawn. It was a birth into a clean white winter.
There is a bright place on the frosted pane where my salt water has melted through;
Though I falter in my steps I know my legs will carry me far away.
Nov 26, 2021
Nov 26, 2021 at 9:11 PM UTC
Her love spills out like scarlet seeds,
and red wine rolled on jealous tongues,
and gold leaves nestled in her hair.
It feathers during secret deeds
whilst breath is passed between two lungs.
Rubies cluster at her throat
like blood clots that her flesh forgot.
She draws him to her, limb in limb,
a desperate love dressed up in quilts.
The seeds that bloomed may sometime rot,
and candles die, and lust grow dim,
but I dreamt that he'll still gasp her name,
and she wish to be close to him.
Jul 22, 2021
Jul 22, 2021 at 6:13 PM UTC
I would like to walk under the sun, and in the shade where it is cooler,
where the woodland floor isn't all dry leaf anymore,
just purple and blue, waving a little, like a great sea.
To drag my pale white hand in the waters, to bring it out cold and soft as a feather,
and hear a blackbird and a thrush pass the time of day.
To turn down the road and wade into the creek, instead of walking on by,
To look upon the green green face of spring.
Mar 18, 2021
Mar 18, 2021 at 6:13 PM UTC
I've forgotten what it feels like to walk on cobbles,
Forgotten the smell of life, vanilla from the bakery, coffee in the morning,
Warm air and leaves blowing. I've forgotten the sun, that the planets still turn, how other people say my name,
What it's like to hug a friend in passing.
Forgotten standing in a butterfly house in the summer and smiling, couples sleeping like lazy housecats on the grass in the park,
The lives of strangers. 18
and now soon to be 19, too young to have no memories of summer, on the verge of leaving myself behind forever. I think that soon the world will forget me too.
Jan 5, 2021
Jan 5, 2021 at 4:59 PM UTC
We all went down to the river early one Saturday,
along the main road, cold hands in pockets,
walked through the park and stopped to hear the happy shouts of children playing on the swings.
I'd forgotten what it was like to play.
And into the river they all went, leaping and splashing like otters
in the cold November water; churning and frothing, sending dazzling light everywhere. I saw the black branches of the trees
shooting up every which way, impossibly high,
wise and old and solid, against the endless white of the sky.
I sat on the bank with the towels and stroked a little dog that walked by.
That night I looked a little longer at the leaves blowing on the quad;
the mist swirling on the grass and
lights blinking off and on in windows with the curtains open-
I saw life reflected there.
Nov 29, 2020
Nov 29, 2020 at 8:47 AM UTC
The wintering started on a dark December eve; slowly and silently,
it numbed me through the window panes.
I dove off into the wine dark sea.
As cold as death, as cold as resignation.
The sickle moon smiled placidly down as I melted into sea foam.
Aug 23, 2020
Aug 23, 2020 at 12:10 PM UTC
Do you remember that night when
the pines thrashed their poor limbs
in the dark,
And the moon slipped away unnoticed
as though it was a ghosting?
Spun from spider's silk, it darted shyly behind the comforting skirt of a cloud:
that was the first dream.
And do you remember
how I tightroped along the silver trail of foam where the lake lapped at the cold rock, imagined myself
a creature native and indued unto that element?
I've heard that Nymphs bleed a certain colour-
When I slipped and fell
my blood was the royalest blue,
I swear it.
Jun 28, 2020
Jun 28, 2020 at 9:52 AM UTC