caroline-spooner
New Zealander
Live in a small country, drive a bus in a nice little city, write poems when I have a few minutes at each terminus. See a lot going on as I drive around town in all weathers, seasons, times of day. I see a lot of life being lived. I read a lot too. Describing life in a poem is rewarding.
words can sear and brand
leaving scars
the shape of bad memories
the marks are read each day
scrutinized in the hope
they've been misread
a spelling mistake
the wrong pronoun
anything different to what was said
Oct 4, 2013
Oct 4, 2013 at 4:36 AM UTC
I miss your parti-coloured waters mixing it up
and tumbling through the fruit bearing gorge,
a force to be reckoned with
and reckon with you they did.
You've middle-aged spread into a behaved oversized pond,
your energy channelled to serve others,
mannered and within bounds.
Oct 4, 2013
Oct 4, 2013 at 4:33 AM UTC
When did I become my mother?
I didn't see her coming.
I just stopped short one day after delivering
a dose of contempt and derision
and there she was
hovering in the corners of my mouth
keeping the world at bay.
Oct 4, 2013
Oct 4, 2013 at 4:25 AM UTC
I'll lie here a little longer
let the waves lap my legs
the water run over my hips and hug my shoulders.
In a while I'll lift my head and look around.
I'll see where I am
get my bearings.
In a while.
I'm beached
I'm resting
I'm tired
I'm sore
I'm shaky from a rough storm
Now I'm anchored on the wet sand.
In a moment I'll push myself up with my hands.
When I'm ready.
Oct 4, 2013
Oct 4, 2013 at 4:16 AM UTC
You sank into the chair, eyes red,
misery leaking from every pore,
boxed in, nowhere to go, dying inside ...
this is the price of another's cruel love.
It demands, not deserves,
eats, not eases,
relentless in its appetite
and still it is love ...
Oct 4, 2013
Oct 4, 2013 at 4:10 AM UTC
lodged in my attention span like
a noisy commercial, I was sold affection
with no guarantee of love
lying in my bed as if you didn't fit it
the sheets seemed to hover uncertainly
over your bullet body and baby bird kisses
unbalanced by uneven understanding
we straggle along a wet sandy slope
in the distance nothing gets closer
Oct 3, 2013
Oct 3, 2013 at 4:06 PM UTC
Is it your choice you're dying?
Maybe the element securing your life force is sick and tainted
Maybe the cat pee's ammonia overwhelms you
Or maybe the gods that send you food and water have abandoned you.
Do you feel abandoned?
Left to struggle in a plastic-bounded island?
Outside you'd have natural light rain dew mist
Inside you're at the mercy of human forgetfulness
human ignorance
human casualness
a casualty of casualness.
In the end, dying isn't a choice for you.
Just do your best.
Oct 3, 2013
Oct 3, 2013 at 3:59 PM UTC
Ordinarily I would
dance for joy. This time I'll
etch joy in words.
Oct 3, 2013
Oct 3, 2013 at 3:55 PM UTC
squinting in the glare of the sun
avoiding the krill lined beach -
a crunchy layer of red skeletons
I paddled in the harbour
the salt water licking the burn on my leg
kissed that morning
by the exhaust pipe of your toppled Honda
the burn shrank to a memory
buried with the bones of your life
Oct 3, 2013
Oct 3, 2013 at 3:54 PM UTC