SNOW FALLS

She wakes to a morning
with no reason for living

cries in the mirror
to be forgiven.

Puts on her make-up
takes off her clothes

sits there & bleeds
until she can’t feel

the blood in her veins
...runs cold.

The razorblade
bleeds...bleeds.

The cat cries
to be fed.

The batteries in her Walkman
go dead.

The Rachmaninov stops.

A letter she will never read
drops on the Welcome mat.

A mobile rings & rings &...stops.

A member of a minor political party
looking for her vote

rings the doorbell twice
slips on the ice    &   ruins his coat.

Curses.

A man laughs at another man’s joke.
It’s a big laugh...he’s a big bloke.

Laughter invades the square.

There’s a chill in the air.

A friend calls for her
(to go on a blind date)  

...she doesn’t hear.

Snow...
...snow...
...snow falls.

MUSIC HEARD FAINTLY ON THE EDGE OF SOUND

The air looked
startled by the thunder

lightning ripped
the sky apart

easy as paper.

Later the evening
wore an ugly bruise

as if Heaven
had been badly beaten up

& left for dead.

The horizon remained
tight lipped

even the crows
refused to caw.

The trees said nothing.

The man
nursed his pain

like a drunk
over a slow gin

retracing his footsteps
to the car

sat inside
as darkness fell

& cried
softly to himself.  

*


A friend of mine who's wife was killed in a car crash( he survived but didn't want to)drove to a secluded spot to commit suicide. He stood in the storm that broke upon him when suddenly he heard singing down in the valley...invisible singing. It was a woman's voice singing in Gaelic and he didn't know what it was she was singing...but it was spookily beautiful. He never found out who it was either...the voice walked across the thick trees below him and finally out of reach and so...he determined...not to...take his life. He regarded it as a sign from his dead wife but of course it was just some hiker singing to her self as she trekked across the valley totally unaware of his troubles and singing to her self because she thought she was on her own and singing just...for the joy ...of singing!

His story always reminded me of Wordsworth's THE SOLITARY REAPER....will no one tell me what she sings?"

In this case she sang to ward off death

CREATING YOU

The seconds flock
about me

nibbling at the Who I Am
time devouring my existence.

My dreams walk around
naked.

A sky lies asleep
in a window.

My shadow crawls
up the walls

as if it longed
to escape  me.

The mirror shows a stranger
wearing my face.

In the candle's flicker I
live frame by frame

in a black and white
celluloid  world.

I can only touch you
with language

hold you
with words

create you time
and time again

as you come alive
walk about in my sentences.

As long as I write
you are living.

I dreading the final
full stop.

I see you
walk away

into an ellipsis'
footsteps

you fading into
its dot dot dot

on the snow drift
of a page

THE TELLER OF TALES

Fragile as a little bird
you alight on my lap

weighing no more

than a dream
or a wonder would.

You adjust your bony ***
perch & command me to begin:

“Say... the story! ”

This is how the story
always begins

eyelash to eyelash
chin to chin.

You gaze into my eyes
as if the story already

exists there
and my voice just colours it in.

Whether it be Grimm
or Hans Christian Andersen

you never take
your eyes

off of
my eyes.

Your little hands
hold the sides of my face

So(you say)
you can feel

“The way the words move! ”

And night after night
to your and my
ever greater delight

You say: “Say... the story! ”
And the night listens

as the big human
weaves a world

for the little human
to get lost in

& find herself
again.

Precious as water
little daughter

I carry your sleeping
& put your dreams

to bed.

TEARING TIME APART

There's that same old
sun hung up in the sky

my my how
time goes by

he can only just
catch sight of

his dead wife's smile

as the earth treks
around that same old

star
the exact timbre

of her
voice

lost to him now
as galaxies revolve

the days torn away
from the fabric of time

the 1963
gas station calendar

with a bikini'd girl
smiling in Kodachrome

the dates
in bright red

telling it how
it is

63 days to be
exact

since she fell
off the edge of the earth

into the infinity
of death.

The dawn
inches up the lawn

like some wounded
creature.

Cartoon music
from a too loud

television
in another room.

He calls her name:
"June...June...June!"

INTERFACE

My reflection
looks back at me

from the winter
darkened window

every now &
then - borrowing a bus

or a passing truck
to use for a brain

& then: the emptiness
of night flooding

in again or
a clutch of pedestrians

huddle against
the driving rain

drifting through my face
like long lost ghosts.

Rain
turning to sleet.

"So..?" my reflections
enquires of me

"...what are we
going to do then?"

A BMW
its accusing eyes

I watch the traffic
of its thoughts

having to admit
that it hurt more

than a
bit

that, I "...just
don't know..?"

Some crazy zombie leaves
throw themselves at the window

as if trying to
devour my face.

I hope the glass
will hold.

My reflection saying
nothing, but:

I could see it
thought I was

a disgrace
as to the who

the hell
I thought

I was

a police siren
screaming through the smile

I had nailed on

I could feel
I was not

going to
like me

for a long, long
time.

SCATTERED DREAMS

whenever I fell
asleep
my father came

cupped me in his hands
carried me to bed
as if I were as precious

as water
in a hot dry land or
draped like discarded clothing


on a couch...in a garden
on a bench or a beach
I would be gathered up

& awake to find myself
back in the safety
of my own bed

and I would have
thought
I had flown

or being magically
transported by
a spell

but it was only
the ordinary
magic of my father

cradling me
in his arms
gathering up the littlest

of my scattered dreams
stroking my hair
& tip-toeing backwards

out of the room
his voice
full of tenderness

casting a spell
“Good night son...
goodnight...goodnight.”