"mattresses" poems
There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.
And there are corpses,
feet made of cold and sticky clay,
death is inside the bones,
like a barking where there are no dogs,
coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,
growing in the damp air like tears of rain.
Sometimes I see alone
coffins under sail,
embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair,
with bakers who are as white as angels,
and pensive young girls married to notary publics,
caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,
the river of dark purple,
moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death,
filled by the sound of death which is silence.
Death arrives among all that sound
like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no
finger in it,
comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no
throat.
Nevertheless its steps can be heard
and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.
I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,
but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,
of violets that are at home in the earth,
because the face of death is green,
and the look death gives is green,
with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf
and the somber color of embittered winter.
But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,
lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies,
death is inside the broom,
the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses,
it is the needle of death looking for thread.
Death is inside the folding cots:
it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses,
in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out:
it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets,
and the beds go sailing toward a port
where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.
18.5k
I slip the straps and release the clasp
of your over-the-shoulder boulder holder.
Gravity asserts itself, and you sigh as
I wonder if I should get even bolder
because
The jaws of love masquerade
as petals of a flower
so
Just say if you want me to stop.
We are, after all, in the middle of a shop.
I was attracted when I saw you smile.
As we passed in the frozen food aisle.
Now people are staring though the window.
Shocked at my nonchalant innuendo.
And if your purse metaphor extends to this.
We can go to the Bank for a little kiss
though
I may not be able to afford
nine feather mattresses and a golden pea.
But if you could make do
with a lilo and a marble
then …
You've pulled Princess.
© Pagan Paul (30/05/17)
May 30, 2017
May 30, 2017 at 11:54 AM UTC
Your fingernails give away the debris you've collected
I've known you for a while but it feels like longer
feels like sunsets under my tongue
blue bruises behind my eyes
every skip of the needle brings back our old skins &
the hush-hush type of self worth,
keeping pens full of red ink so we can
play the demon in this one instead
of closing the door, we don't wanna gossip
at the edge of the room like strangers,
we wanna be in the center
and your fingerprints look a lot like mine sometimes, especially when we laugh and cry together
especially when you fall asleep and I watch
for soft signs of openmouthed breathing that signal
we are in deeper than we thought.
I can't stand the way you look at yourself though, sometimes I wanna
run away from everyone here
sometimes I wanna just up and leave it all
in a shallow grave where it belongs,
but the moments are softer when you slip my name onto your cotton tongue,
and I don't punch out a pattern for my self loathing quite as quickly when
we tally up our thread counts and what time we have left
together.
Inevitably, I still paint my teeth black,
because words about my future never felt right coming from my pink and purple mouth
but your lips could twist anything up into a lot of sense,
I could kiss you and **** time forever
in parking lots and on the edges of stained mattresses
I didn't ever want a home until I thought of hanging up your colors to dry
keep them here in the niches or
scrawled onto notepads I keep beside my bed,
put down your demon scripts and ask me in the morning
if it takes a while for seeds to grow,
I'll tell you to keep a can of water nearby
and to make sure it's somewhere sunny
I know there's something foreign growing in me and it's
bigger than I've ever been,
but I think maybe you know and
it's bigger than both of us, maybe
you know and
you've been doing some growing, too.
Jul 15, 2018
Jul 15, 2018 at 4:31 PM UTC
I keep telling myself that if I lay here long enough something's gonna swallow me and it's not because my heads been somewhere else lately it's because I sleep on the floor. Even when I don't. I sleep on the floor. The mattress has holes because mattresses get holes sometimes when you don't have blankets to cover them and you're too cold to put the cigarette out on anything other than yourself or what you have to sleep on now. Last year I'd spend every day in bed with a little bag full of drugs and a map to the bathtub just in case I forget what I took two seconds ago because I think it happened yesterday and I take more. And then I'm shaking, not because I'm cold this time. I'm seizing and nobody is home because everybody leaves me for preachers or church or a campfire or someone prettier. This part is foggy. I remember again a bathtub, an empty hotel bathtub and my mother and I say mama did you leave the door open on purpose and she says I went to church. She went to church. She went to church. Bathtub. I sleep there. Even though we are in a hotel I sleep in the bathtub because I like the way my anxiety sounds when it echoes. I like to hear it. Play it back. Memory. Back to the only house I've ever lived in alone. I'm seizing. I stop. I hear you. I somehow forget that it's 4 in the morning. It's my birthday now, nobody knows but it's my birthday now, teen years behind me but still a teen year drug addiction and you tell me to look out the window so I do. And the sky's on fire. I don't fall asleep again for three days but the sky's on fire. And so am I. And so are you. And I don't want to go back to the place I go to when I see the faces but I put myself here. I push and push and push and then I act surprised when something falls off the edge. I'm alone now. Even when I'm not. I'm alone.
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 9:14 PM UTC
His home is an orphanage
in downtown Belize.
Triple-decker bunk beds
topped with ***** stained mattresses
fill each room.
An abandoned 10 year old
lies paralyzed on the floor;
"Don't touch him. Nobody ever touches him."
A small child covered in sores
sleeps in a puddle of his own *****
I offer a container of pink Play-dough to a boy
who proceeds to sculpt me
changing the pink to brown
with his ***** hands.
When he is done,
it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
"What is your name?"
"I'm Allen"
He tells me about his dreams of leaving Belize
and becoming a U.S. soldier.
He tells me of how his mother,
a **** addict,
dropped him off at the doorstep when he was 8 years old
and how he remembers
the look of fear and disappointment in her eyes
every time she looked at him
and saw his father.
His favorite color is blue.
Together, we make bracelets with colorful beads,
and as I stand to leave
he hands me a pinkish-brown heart
warm and sweaty
from his ***** hands.
And in return
I hand Allen,
and every child like him,
my own heart
red and ******
dedicated and passionate,
foolishly and hopefully attempting
to change the world.
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 5:05 AM UTC
Once upon a time, a long time ago
There was a little boy with a grimy flow
I used to hear him rap in Chicago everyday
And this is what I heard him say…….
He say **** like, he be like….
Ah! and I'm a *********** biter
The size of the incises inside ya might surprise ya
You might need rewind to decipher my cyphers
Ain't nothing on this world worth more than my saliva
I go so hard when I'm flowing
So cold my flows frozen
I'm a rowboat rowing in an open ocean
And I'm hoping, to blow up with no promotion
But dam, those explosions are so slow motion
So, I need some honey bees to pollinate my money trees
Cause fuckery of companies, accompanies that come between
A couple bucks and me, turned my orange juice to Sunny-D
Hide the cash for food stamps, no way i'm funded publicly
I'm hungry, but not for sandwiches I'm ambitious
A panhandler with gram plans and last wishes
Ask for the last table scraps you can't finish
Sell em back when you digest, and I repackage it
Abracadabra, I'm an alchemist, my magic tricks are acting as contaminates
I damage this establishment
They enacted bans on urban camping
If you ask them how they sleep at night the answer is
Happily on mattresses
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 12:43 AM UTC
I think I love too easily.
I find it so simple to pick out the best traits in somebody.
I like to know what makes people tick and what makes their pupils dilate. I can fall in love with the way they talk about
their favorite shades of color
and the way they pick out groceries.
I am interested in the way people take their coffee
and if they prefer tea better.
and why
herbal
caffeinated
I find myself loving people for their laughter
and the crinkles beneath their eyes when they smile.
And I think it’s so cute whenever they suppress their grins
when they think of something funny or memorable.
I love the way people talk about life
and what’s on their mind;
it’s nice to know that there is more
more to discuss than the sounds on mattresses
and the type of plant they inhale.
You are beautiful.
I love the way people spill their hearts out when they’re happy
or when they’re sad.
Sometimes, when they don’t let me love them,
it makes me want to love them even more.
And even when they don’t love me back, I still continue to love.
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 3:01 AM UTC
There are tents with tubs
and tents with mattresses
for the girls and women
in the middle of the camp
behind the front
where they are buried alive
Buried who they were
Wishing to die
from the pain, out of the hell
of unknown soldiers
who are honoured, for
what they do does not happen
Because it's not allowed, so
they will get the flowers
which are not at the camp
that tomb
of the human dignity
of the snatched women
Mar 7, 2023
Mar 7, 2023 at 2:39 AM UTC
His home is an orphanage
in downtown Belize.
Triple-decker bunk beds
topped with ***** stained mattresses
fill each room.
An abandoned 10 year old
lies paralyzed on the floor;
"Don't touch him. Nobody ever touches him."
A small child covered in sores
sleeps in a puddle of his own *****
I offer a container of pink Play-dough to a boy
who proceeds to sculpt me
changing the pink to brown
with his ***** hands.
"What is your name?"
"I'm Allen"
He tells me about his dreams of leaving Belize
and becoming a U.S. soldier.
He tells me of how his mother,
a **** addict,
dropped him off at the doorstep when he was 8 years old
and how he remembers
the look of fear and disappointment in her eyes
every time she looked at him
and saw his father looking back.
His favorite color is blue.
Together, we make bracelets with colorful beads,
and as I stand to leave
he hands me a pinkish-brown heart
warm and sweaty
from his ***** hands.
And in return
I hand Allen,
and every child like him,
my own heart
red and ******
dedicated and passionate,
foolishly and hopefully attempting
to change the world.
Feb 27, 2013
Feb 27, 2013 at 3:51 PM UTC
To Marianna
When blue night mattresses
cover the city
Schizophrenia , depression , deception
they all cross the avenues
or rather swim in redness
the green rain stagnates
in the brothel's garden
the cat leaning on the stair
landing shuffles the deck of cards
a sweating Eros slides on a female
yet so manly river his signature
Monet .
Giorgos Vlachos
10.11.2008
Translation : Christos Rodoullas Tsiailis
Mar 21, 2015
Mar 21, 2015 at 2:04 PM UTC
dissuaded seamstresses seamlessly string
together thoughts throwing out convention
and convection ovens hold the bones of history
hot air blows through them and out
the mouths of bloated politicians red faced
with misplaced values and encouraging
a broken caste systems’ continuation
as classism hides beneath value menus
radically altering the fabric of not only society
but also the genetic code in which we all stem
wilted flower petals stick to flattened tires
wired children snorting Ritalin pick locks
placed by scared parents
frightened by Fox news and Vioxx side effects
stashed cash smashed in mattresses
waits for the next prescription election
Mar 5, 2014
Mar 5, 2014 at 11:49 AM UTC
meanwhile, at the capital...
streets lined with
mattresses like
piles of flesh
trees above
that shudder
like a final breath
a branch of cherry blossom
like baby pink fingertips
of limp forearms dangling off
edges of crinkled white mattresses,
a flower
Aug 21, 2018
Aug 21, 2018 at 8:07 PM UTC
He started feeling sorry for himself
long before he had seen his reflection
in shimmery linoleum tiles
that stretched into blind corners
before the snap of magnetic doors
woke melancholy macaroni people
strapped to rolling recliners
staring past Plexiglas TV's
He wore yesterday on his shirt
a step at a time...
one two, one two
felt breaths collectively stop
when he walked the halls...
one two, one two
like watching a one legged cricket
with your hand over your mouth
As cold as this place was
his head had been on fire
slammed into paper cups
filled with pastel colored
blues and pinks and
why pills
rattled at him like a baby
He fell face first into tomorrows
slobbered on wooden spoons
for vanilla ice cream
that he said tasted like Wednesday
He would get animated
when they ran out of Wednesday
and had many rattle cup nights
****** up through a syringe
hands and thumps
pressed him up against
heavy beds of oak bolted to the floor
gloves pulled his hair
when he smelled like yelling
into plastic mattresses
the same color as his *****
and no one wants him *******
while their eyes are closed
they want to see it
they want to say things like
"we'll talk about this later"
wrap his wrists in sheep's wool, in skin
from his ******* clasped by buckles, pulled
tight enough to close his eyes
He should have **** his pants
because chocolate doesn't have a taste
and neither did feeling sorry for himself
Sep 5, 2017
Sep 5, 2017 at 9:26 PM UTC
Customers have torn open the Christmas
chocolates. Shoving it in mouths,
shopping bags, children’s eyes.
Quiet. We are shopping. as. a. family.
Smoke accordions out of Santa’s mailbox. The sprinkler system
hisses stale air. Custodians ride by on their metal cart laughing,
sanitation chemicals flickering out of buckets.
The 80 year-old piano player is hammering out Schoenberg.
Customers shove lamps into their shopping bags, shove children
into them.
Turn on the light Jimmy.
The ninth floor is barricaded off by old woman. They
have turned the clearance divans on their sides
and are throwing toasters. Down in the basement,
the security staff have locked themselves into 2’ by 2’
cells. Fetally-positioned, their panting echoes off stone walls. Static
sizzles on the array of sixteen camera screens. Customers
have begin to bow in the reinforced door next to the two-way mirror.
A fat man is leaning against it. He has been dead
for over an hour. Restaurant staff are tearing
down the great tree. Ornaments funnel down pop-crashing
upwards from the floor. Three pound ceramic dinnerware crashes
into the walnut bar The customers are putting mattresses in their bags,
they are putting the offices in their bags. Human resources
are backed into the employee orientation computer lab. Customers
have poured Starbucks on the circuit-breakers. The lights are dimming,
Escalators are jamming. Children scream
I want to see Santa.
Santa is dead. Employees calmly walk over his protruding
belly. The velvet and fat feels good on tired
feet. An inhuman voice garbles
The store will be closing.
Families grab onto shelves, racks, other
families. Employees pick up the registers and slam
them on granite counters. Coins explode out like bells. The rotating
doors are not spinning. They are stuck, crunching on limbs.
Dec 27, 2010
Dec 27, 2010 at 5:16 PM UTC
This is a place on the way after the distances
can no longer be kept straight here in this dark corner
of the barn a mound of wheels has convened along
raveling courses to stop in a single moment
and lie down as still as the chariots of the Pharaohs
some in pairs that rolled as one over the same roads
to the end and never touched each other until they
arrived here some that broke by themselves and were left
until they could be repaired some that went only
to occasions before my time and some that have spun
across other countries through uncounted summers
now they go all the way back together the tall
cobweb-hung models of galaxies in their rings
of rust leaning against the stone hail from Rene's
manure cart the year he wanted to store them here
because there was nobody left who could make them like that
in case he should need them and there are the carriage wheels
that Merot said would be worth a lot some day
and the rim of the spare from bald Bleret's green Samson
that rose like Borobudur out of the high grass
behind the old house by the river where he stuffed
mattresses in the morning sunlight and the hens
scavenged around his shoes in the days when the black
top-hat sedan still towered outside Sandeau's cow barn
with velvet upholstery and sconces for flowers and room
for two calves instead of the back seat when their time came
2.7k
Under a large, round, yellow
Full November moon
The chill of the cold, dark night
Slips in through my window
It fights against the heating
To send a shuddering shiver down my spine
Under the full November moon
People spill out of noisy pubs
Leaving heat, light, music
A false, inebriated happiness
To stagger, swirling home
To warm beds of love
Or cold, empty houses
And late night T.V.
Under the full November moon
Teenager's breath leaves clouds in the air
Hanging heavy and mingling with smoke
From spliffs secretly held in cupped hands
Hanging around shops, parks
Even the disappearing phone boxes
Feeling the arrogance of youth
Course through their veins
Under the full November moon
The middle aged sit
In armchairs with tea mugs
T.V. droning as they dream of their youth
When they were slim and ****
Or hungry and virile
Before it all slipped so quickly away
Under the full November moon
Swingers swap flesh and fluids
In hotels and motels
With no more passion or emotion
Than passing the salt
Under the full November moon
Prostitutes haul their tired, aching bodies
From car to car for the price of a hit
The dealers swagger, stoked full of *******
With the power and arrogance of mediaeval lords
Under the full November moon
People sweat in police cells
Under grey, itchy blankets
On blue rubber mattresses
In a white - tiled nightmare
Under the full November moon
I think of them all
As I sir writing ideas
In a cheap, lined pad
Then turn off the lights
As the full November moon
Bids goodnight
To us all
Nov 25, 2017
Nov 25, 2017 at 4:06 PM UTC
They'll use Martin Luther King day to sell anything from mattresses to cars.
Even he has been ripped up and replanted,
capitalized, like Christmas or Easter,
by the people who give us images of a white Jesus,
but you bet they don't pay everyone equal.
We have boulevards, schools, and libraries named after King,
but streets over, we have Confederate soldiers carved into a mountain,
we call 'em heroes, that's what I was taught,
the ones who fought, the ones who ate lead,
But, they aren't talking about who really put a bullet in Dr. King's head.
What the **** is wrong with us?
America will go see Selma in millions,
this weekend, go back home to their all white neighborhoods,
thinking about how it was bad then, but now, it's all good.
Who are we really trying to fool?
Stand up for the pledge in school
Put your hand over your heart and forget
all this country denies you
telling you that there isn't a heart of a human beating inside you
because you're gay, you're black, you're not like that,
She was a flirt, she wore a short skirt,
Every day you try to heal the hurt
Justice for all? Like are you kidding me?
There ain't such a thing here as liberty
Do you know where you stand
was Native American land?
Ripped from their bleeding hands
And don't even get me started on Iraq and Iran.
You know that mountaintop?
The one I was talking about,
Did they tell you it was a KKK meeting spot?
Bet not.
I wonder, is the clay here red from all the blood?
We hide our history,
sing promises of liberty,
say that racism ended with slavery,
and it's Stonewall Jackson, he's a hero, they say
but never speak of Stonewall Riots any day
and I'm afraid for our children and what they will learn,
in classrooms, will they be silenced?
Come here kids, let me tell you a story,
of Ferguson, New York, Hong Kong,
about how people will look back and see they were wrong,
But some never did, some died with hatred,
some died because of it,
Let me tell you about homeless LGBT youth
Let me tell you about all these issues
Let me tell you the truth
And there are different ways of seeing it,
but only one way to say it,
you and I both know,
You just have to listen for it.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 11:41 PM UTC
-
Why can’t I see past the buildings,
skylines obstructing my view,
collecting on the curb
with doorways and steps
inviting to someone else I suppose
Still I push past,
hugging the shoulder
of a rush hour highway
Staring into windows
as they pass, staring back
Exits signs point at me
but I can’t listen
Their warnings make no difference
in cloverleaf grumblings
and exhaust fume skywriting
One foot in front of the other,
worn converse high tops
gray, the greens are lost
with the sunset that breathes down my neck
reaching for one more moon rise
No rest, still creeping alongside
sleeping 18 wheelers purring
on their asphalt mattresses,
straddling yellow lines
leading to the bathrooms…not a chance
27 miles the sign reads
in reflective lettering calling out to me
It seems like nothing,
compared to what is behind me now…
My life or what it was
But that is no longer my concern,
my future is now 22 miles away
Where your arms are waiting,
holding my future…open, warm
and I begin running faster
Another 10 to go, down main streets
with coffee shops and beauty parlours,
one traffic light and a train station
a kid on a bike delivering newspapers offers me a ride
No need, it’s just around this corner…
On the lawn is a flamingo,
plastic and pink behind a white picket fence
with a gate that creaks and a porch light comes on…
illuminating my dream…as I see you,
it has finally come true
Jun 22, 2015
Jun 22, 2015 at 11:12 AM UTC
You were sap on my fingertips.
Amusing,
but tiresome.
I always did like sticky situations.
One must keep things interesting,
you know.
Our romance was
utterly cliché;
with the class
of the ****
you used to make.
Circa 1975.
Your capricious nature
was infectious.
And lucky for you,
the ****** had already
eradicated any morsel
of logic or reason
that should have been in attendance.
I was ripe for the picking.
With unfaltering,
unwavering decadence
you won
a child's heart,
but not without
stealing the body too.
Heartless ******* people everywhere.
Shoving young girls
flat on their taut tummkes
for better access
on beds, ***** mattresses and floors
everywhere.
I can still recall
the scent of your pillowcase
as your hand pressed,
hard,
my head to the center of the bed.
I'm sure you remember,
you know,
the way my heroin-soaked body
flopped,
nearly lifeless,
as you took
and took
and took
what you saw to be yours.
I hope I haunt
some frequented
highway of your psyche.
Walking the wet roads,
thumb extended at my side.
You know me
by the switch of my hips,
the curve of my ***
and the smell
of naive innocence.
I feel you behind me;
I always feel you behind me.
"Need a ride, kitten?"
Glorious evil pulses through me.
You're a sucker.
You'd pick me up everytime.
Jun 3, 2014
Jun 3, 2014 at 12:27 PM UTC
In the freshly seared hours of the morning
there's a hot, bothered growling
coming from beyond
the rose-studded chipping fence posts,
sick with the stench of stained mattresses
and mounds of cage-less garbage-
tossed willy-nilly
into a smoldering, contorted
**** of stacks.
Here,
in this spot of dawn
-in today's un-showered
moist enclave-
I find, syncopated
by the vrooooming scooters
and gassy buses,
a fresh hope diffusing faster
than the steam from drains,
-subtler than the soft soju snores
of last night's curb cuddlers-
slinking up, down, around convenient stores' corners
past every security camera,
bouncing off rib cages,
tickling the barbules of the songbird
perched in my utility wires
in a nest neater than my bed.
This is summer, Korea.
This is Korea in the summer.
Aug 9, 2012
Aug 9, 2012 at 10:59 PM UTC
Can you solve me?
unfold me expose my problems.maybe not. a simple bow slowly becoming a masterpiece of interwoven components. pick up sticks. twister. limbo. on the brink of collapse. One. two. three strikes your out. those are the rules, are you ready? go! drugs. depression. disability.drinking. abuse. blasting any sound to keep out the shouts. deceit. lies. regret. curses spewed out. careful you might trip. Or maybe you already are. like I said a bow, so easy to undo, so simplistic, internally it becomes equivalent to rocket science. Where's the key to success? the missing puzzle piece? buried in as-seen-on-tv purchases and old moldy mattresses children's toys and croc pots. smothering the pain of a loved one passed. is he dead or alive?who knows. Is she going to make it to 50?unlikely. suicide just in time for a birthday. unfair exchange. continuing pattern. someone has to make up the hoi palloi no one can or will solve it. you can take that to the bank...just wait a couple weeks.
May 28, 2013
May 28, 2013 at 3:31 AM UTC
Lisa looks like she’s stood a little too close
To Dante’s Fireplace
A *** soaked ham left in the dirt
Small crust spots where the skin broke
She’s stopped wearing her dentures
Looks like her face is sinking inside of itself
I was napping
Dreaming about a rock on a hill
That overlooks my city
Was dreaming about what the gun said to the mouth
About how the bullet wanted a kiss
Found her lying in a window
Like a fish whose bowl has just shattered
A bowl that has been ***** for too long
It’s a mixed blessing
The glass bubble burst
The blood
I keep my window shut
The smell of the *** I dumped into the earth
Creeps in
Juicy apple pie smoke fingertips calling
Lisa’s kids
They don’t understand the anger
Don’t feel the neglect until it’s too late
I patch up her face
As she begs
Just don’t call the police
Don’t call anybody
I’m okay
She passes out
On a ***** couch
The kids crowd their mattresses
So they can sleep near her
I think about something I read once
About a company called LifeGem
And how for a small fee
They can turn your ashes into diamonds
Enough for a necklace
Or two bracelets
Several sets of earrings
Even when you’re worthless
You’re worth something
I buy dinner before work
Something fatty and saltier than their tears
She would always say things like
YOLO
You only live once
And then have a drink
Or hang up on a police officer
Or shut a door
YODO
You only die once too
I know how I want to be remembered
Aug 3, 2012
Aug 3, 2012 at 2:51 PM UTC
She was old when I first knew her
To an infant, parents are timeless;
Fairy aunts are just… old.
A tiny scarecrow of a thing,
Her eyes glittered; her mouth
Never offered an ill word of anyone.
She was a good woman. She never tired
Of talking about blind Jim – a good man –
With girlish love in her face;
One man, one love, one life
He wove wicker and filled mattresses
And listened to the wireless in the evening.
Her constant thought companion
As so many might-have-been heroes –
Gone, before I could know him.
Christmas would wend round each year,
With Meg as star guest,
Tipsy before the Queen’s Speech,
Whisky rouging her cheeks; fairy lights
Made envious by her laughter,
My mother, and hers, basking in gleelight.
I grew up there, every other Sunday,
Overlooking the Hospital and the Tay
From the safety of her living-room window,
Inventing spaceships and spies,
Dreaming of who I would be,
As my mother and Meg made small-talk.
Month by month, her daylight dimmed.
I never saw it. She was only ever her;
Happy, constant and true.

Afterwards, I learned about the
Vying accountants and surgeons,
Postponing, year and again,
The procedure. She told me, when finally
Her appointment was confirmed,
That when the cataracts were gone,
She was going to buy a ticket
For the number nine circular
And spend all day upstairs,
Just looking out of the window
At the city she’d lived in
For nigh-on ninety years
A week before the operation
Her home-help found her in bed, with Jim;
Smiling as they danced through the daisies.
She seemed no older when she died
Than when I first knew her.
A good innings, they all said.
Not enough.
If only by the length of a bus ticket –
not enough.
Feb 26, 2013
Feb 26, 2013 at 5:27 AM UTC