NOW, WE IS: 60!

a Year 8 child
enquires
how old I be?

"I be
just...60!"
he gasps

"My God...you're very
active
for 60!"

60 for him is
a distant planet
in a galaxy far far

from here
yea...another
dimension

I smile
my 60 year old smile
perfected by now

I am starlight
that will only reach him
when he is 60 himself

if he ever
remembers what he has
long ago forgotten

*

Now We Are Six is a book of thirty-five children's verses by A. A. Milne, with illustrations by E. H. Shepard. It was first published in 1927. My title is of course a corruption of that as I begin the slow decay into the nothing at all.

WAS THAT THE TIME?

the town was exhausted.
now all the humans
were dreaming dreams

the town
could relax
into the darkness

tomorrow had come
without their knowing it
yet here it was

as if it had
crept up on them
the future ready to pounce

the early risers
yawned into the dawn
switching on their minds

with a click
the birds woke up
the day.

and the town
the town got on
with the business of being

the town
doing what
it had to do

the humans leaving
their dreams
scattered across pillows

spat into the sink
yelling: "Ohh....
is that the time!"

and
it was
it was

BIG SISTER

you were older than me
now I am older
than you

can ever be
(forever 18 &
forever dead) .

I felt so guilty
when I passed
that age

wishing
I could exchange
some of the life I had

so that you could
experience
the life you never knew

I used to talk to
your grave
as if it were you...

always
beginning:
“Hiya, kid...”

now I find you
everywhere
instead

the sunlight
on the garden
smiles like you did

the ladybird
stumbling
over the furrows of my fingerprint

has the same graceful
awkwardness
your body lent to every movement

you are younger
than me
& will always be

and I am older
than you
...will ever know


* * * * * *


The sound of my sister's voice.  We lived in a house not made of books.  The only  texts existed in the texture of the telling...my sister finecombing my hair and soothing the pain with...shussh...stories.

'The little toy soldier is covered with dust...'

...exists only in my mind and the vague trellised traces of Junie's voice.  It is here breath against my skin as I fall asleep. It has never entered my mind through print yet it is printed irredeemably...indelibly in my mind.

'What is it again? '

I am following my father...gogging my Dad doggedly for the words of a song.  I scrawl the words across the page of my mind as exasperated his patience explodes:

'As down the ****** glen one ****** Easter morn...how many times do I have to tell you! '

My sister Moira is slightly tipsy.  I glow with pleasure as the pattern unfolds.  When she is more that slightly tipsy she will softly and sadly sing.

'I know my love by his way of walking and I know my love by his way of talking and I know my love by his eyes so blue and if my love left me what would I do...? '

I am drunk with her words.  There is a slight smell of loneliness off her breath.  I hang   on   her   every    breath.

I have had four teeth pulled and my world fevers and frets. The smell of sausages sidles up the stairs and seduces me to the top of the stairs.  When I am safely ion danger the smelly magic no longer supports me.  I fall and float down the stairs.  Junie comforts  and croons.  I am lying in her arms in her bed.  Again she sings.  'Again! ' I plead.  She sings again.

'Black is the colour of my true love's hair...her lips are like...'

Her body vibrates with sound and the words echo through me and echo through the memory of me.  For a long long time
the only way these words were written down ws in the breath entering and leaving her body.

When I remember to write...

I write to remember I write to forget.

I write to recover what has never left me but exists in a someplace of my mind.  I write to find out who I am and if I ever was. I write to discover where I went when the wordl went away.

As the bus crashes the book is torn and burning.  The world dies.  A child cries.  I WRITE TO REMEMBER I WRITE TO FORGET.  The book leies strewn across the motorway.  It's spine is broken and its leaves flutter away in dismay.  The book is burning.  It is unreadable as it reads itself to the night's wind. It is an image torn from a dream that is really real.  Its spine is broken and pages turn themselves over and over in the night.

I write...to remember...I write...to forget.

Sunlight streams through the bedroom window...sculpts a sister.  Creates Junie.  She is telling me the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.  Every time I cry.  She says she will not tell me again because it always me makes me cry.  I promise not to cry if she promises to tell me again.  She tells me again.  I cry  every time.  She is not dead.  She is telling me the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.  She is created of sunlight.  Dust motes dance in attendance.  It can not be...more real than this. I write to remember...I write...to forget.  I write to recover the times of her not dying...when she is sunlight and breath.  When she was my book.  When the sound of her was all...around me.  Writing to remember...I forget so much.  I write because I am - lost.  I write to find an exit door in my mind.  The book is broken.  The book is burning.  Pages...fiery pages flutter like lost souls escaping into the darkness.  I write to reach the light.  I write to enter the darkness.  I write to escape the sound of the book burning. I write to forget...I...write to...not forget.                             Remember.

* * * * *

FALLING ASLEEP WITH MY BIG SISTER - TANKA
  
  5 half-moons rising
on the hand that strokes my hair
bracelets like music
whispering softly in my ear
“Shhhshhh...therethere...shush... shush...there! ”

THE SAXOPHONE GOING CRAZY

the smoke appears
to fall up
to the ceiling and then

languidly
down blue
it dances to

the shiny saxophone
as if it drunk in
jazz

the cigarette smoke
music made visible
here it is

a spiral staircase
the going up and going down
the one and the same

now here
a dissolving double
helix

now again
a sudden sketch
of how naked

we will come
to be
entwined with the music

with bodies of smoke
the making and un-making
of us

our laughter and words
floating up to the ceiling
frozen in the air

clinging there
for all to see
our love written

in music and smoke
the saxophone going
crazy

FELINE FRIENDS

curled up on the couch
with a curled up kitten
cradled in your lap

both of you
(totally)
out of this world

I smile
at such
a lovely double take

tiptoe 'round
the flat
(afraid that you should wake)

I kiss both your noses
& you both sniff & shift
adopt new synchronised poses

I can only
love 'n' sit 'n' watch
as one of you makes a move

that
the the other
will match

I take a Polaroid
as I am leaving
place it between

your toes
where
(on awakening)

it will be seen
to show you
how

very
beautiful
you've been

"SPRING IS HERE, I HEAR. . ."

I carry the sky
across the street

stumble under
its weight.

Now I carry the buildings
and finally some trees and a dog.

The dog barks
at itself.

I look like a mirror
with legs.

A mirror walking
down the street.

We, dance partners
it & I.

I all huff & puff
the mirror calm as anything.

The edges of the mirror
bite deep into my palms.

I am tired of carrying the sky
place it against a red-bricked wall.

Finally the mirror
half cracked at the top

has time to
reflect upon its new home.

I have saved it from a fate worse than
a skip.

It gives my little room
an extra dimension.

A room that isn't
there that I am

always walking in( ouch! )to.

Sometimes I talk to
the me in the other room.

I paint my room bright
bright yellow

fill it with jonquils
and daffodils.

A red skirting board
runs around the room.

The flowers rejoice.
Spring, it appears, is:

here.

There is no you nor
ever will be

again.

I sit with my reflection.

Both of us say nothing.

We have
nothing

to say.

& AGAIN: "YES!"

He stepped out of
the photo

stretched and
gave a great yawn.

He had been standing by that
wall it seemed forever.

The sun shone
in black&white.;

Outside it was
night.

He had never seen  his grandson
who lived in colour

on the mantlepiece just
newly born.

He strode out boldly
in 3-D

with the strange gait of a 2-D'er
trying to put his best foot forward.

It was a long long way to
the photo of Tipperary

and the smiling newborn boy
but by God he made it.

His grandson lay smiling
in a shaft of sunlight

that rocked him gently
and gently.

He stepped into the colour
and turned into a nice sepia.

He held his grandson
against his chest

smiling
in Kodachrome.

Then put him back
in the frame.

He managed to return
to his own black& white

as headlights travelled
across the ceiling

before the telephone rang
and the morning awoke

and sleepy feet from above
went to answer it with a yawn:

"Yes...yes. . ."

& again:
"YES!"