(For Martin Emmett)

I write your name
on window panes

I clap out its five syllables
for the five fingers of my hand

and the five senses
lost and abandoned

I see deep white snow
and signposts buried in the drifts

I hear the jet black engine
running under my sternum

I touch the mirrored stillness
You still, me still here

I smell the red raw emptiness
bloodied, ***** and free

I taste the green of bitterness
acid etching ulcers in a stomach wall

I trace the ink of your signature
follow each loop and dot of the ‘i’

that ‘i’ Martin
that has been erased forever.

The jet- black, coal-smeared dawn
of days afterwards
of starless nights
and moon less nights
of deep dark darkness
thick and sticky
pitch and oil
***** days of charred wood
and ash.                              

That scouring whiteness
that etching acid purity
of white heat metal days
The crisp starched sun-scented
wind sail sheet
smoothed flat peace flag days.
That white marble slab cool  
blanched forensic world
of questions and answers.

The sunset rusty reddening
pain deadening
leeching of the scarlet wash
crimson and vermilion
ruby berries and rose blush
blood tear letting
letting go.

No lead for gold - no alchemy here
No runes or trickery - no book of spells
No steady path of transformation
Just the heavy hollowed wreath
that black, white and red tricolour
of grief.

© M.L.Emmett

This carpet - a Turkish Smyrna -
is made with Gordian knots,
tied by the fine fingers of a child
tied to a loom
by a thin, pale leg.

Every centimetre - a hundred knots
This carpet - two and a half million knots
all Gordian  
tied tightly
by the fine fingers of a child.

Each thread is dyed
with plants
picked by nomad hands
from shifting lands
Henna oranges and Madder reds
Saffron yellows and Indigo blues
Colours bloom and fade
with the change of seasons.

Patterns are centuries old,
never drawn or sketched,
only sung to the young
by the old blind weavers,
who walk the workshops
and the aisles of looms.

In this shadow world
of soured and fetid air
dreamless children
live threadbare under a black sun.

Wide borders holding everything in place
no figures or stories, just a labyrinth
of abstract shape and colour
drawing you in to the treasure
at the centre of the rug.

And the knowledge of the knots
the Gordion knots
tied by the fine fingers of a child
tied to a loom
by a thin, pale leg.

You're only seventeen -
the light seems to shine
right through you,
peach-furred skin
dessicated
drawn in upon itself
- and old.

Your moisture-dewed youth
has evaporated.
It’s been emptied
****** clean
dried and drained.

You reach out
with snappable wrists
Your brittle bones
bulge and bow.

Your ribs vibrate
with every breath
air thrills and ripples
the whole chest cavity.

Your hands and feet
Minnie Mouse big
too big
for the fragile framed
tiny dancer.

Your hips have become
pelvic bone butterflies
that arch and flare out
from your sunken abdomen
concave
and strangely hung
with loose folds of skin.

Your eyes like oases
in the desert of you
cartoon-cute big
but sunken deep
into your head
as if drawing away
from the sight of you.

Just a few more Kilos
and you’ll be gone.

© M.L.Emmett

for Tor Ulven


If you never existed
you wouldn’t be here
reading this poem
it would make no difference
to your life.


When you cease to exist
it will be like you never
heard this poem
it would make no difference
to your death.


Now, while you’re reading
it happens
it snatches a few seconds -
a tiny grasping, clawing animal
furry with letters
sleek with syllables
blocking the way
standing between you
and the next minute.
You can never get it back.

(inspired by Robert Pinsky)
              
 Morning sun on his face
steady motor murmur
vibrating the hose

Bluebells clamber
over the hill’s top -
nothing to remember

only the same engine noise
that keeps making the same sounds
under his head poised

and pulsing the same beat
no-one to say his name,
no need, no-one to praise him

only the engine’s voice - over
and over, running under him.

© M.L.Emmett

Dead voices in the head
of a frightened madman

starts humming like electric wires
in wild winter storms.

bursting and cracking like melting ice
in a warm spring thaw

insistent, pollen-drunk bees
buzzing round hot summer hives

grumbling and gathering
swirling eddies of autumn leaves

dancing schizophrenic death
in the breath of city streets.

© M.L.Emmett

I walk these roads as
if I had known that
letter boxes are more like
an ice-box for transplant hearts-
you must move quickly or else
time tames the rest.

Words were like the map of veins drawn
on the back of my hands; I
thought that maybe if I
keep on walking
my heartbeat like a siren beating very fast
could guide me home.

And I am home.