Tuesday 17 May 2016
Freed From Distance
My new collection of poetry, spanning ten years of writing, performance & life experience.
Click on the page link for more information!
Monday 9 May 2016
We all were Young
For my sister Kay, on her birthday.
We all were young & it was a shining time
Of
freedom & adventures we sought
The
meaning of the meaning in everything, everything
Holding
hands we entered the playground of the gods.
Moon
through window glass
Shell
pale in the morning sky
Some
time in the Spring
Mounded
clouds piled high were our relatives
In
that corner of the field where I sang to myself
Above
that small room where I sang to you;
Memories
of skies, the same but different
Cloud
my vision now as I walk down my street.
We
are little birds
Sparrows
in a sycamore
Me
& my sister
We
all were young yet felt such nostalgia
For
what? For when? & how could we feel that?
I
favoured the many-worlds hypothesis
Even
then, age seven, all those lifetimes were plain to see
Spread
out more like a map than a river-arrow's flight & I knew that I
was dreaming
“Where
do stones come from?”
I
went to ask me Mam
“Underground,”
she said
Dear
Kay I'm holding your hand in a field by a stile in a wall
By a
tree in a Summer of birds & flowers & sea
Every
stone looks up at us with envy
For
we can walk & they are stuck with geology.
It
rained all day long
Nose
against the window pane
Frogs
in the garden
We
are not aliens, our bodies are made of bread
Bread
of the fields, meat of the blood of our kin
Teeth
& gut & taste; hunger & fullness are stanzas & verses
In
some secret song of days coming & going &
Land
& sky were a state of being rather than a spatial structure.
Dipping
ginger snaps
Into
cups of morning tea
At
Mrs. Turnbull's
I was a loner, less so than you & more afraid
I hardly knew you, nor you me we kept our secrets
I
cried all the way home because I couldn't understand human cruelty
I
lacked nothing but still I yearned for I didn't know what;
Something
invisible, I know that you did too
&
that now you have seen it, but I am fortunate;
I
didn't have to die.
The
three legged tank
Where
Grandma boiled laundry
The
smell of fruit pies
&
we could see & sing & hear the song that left our throats
To
fly to Heaven & we walked & ran & jumped up & down
&
danced about all over the place being ourselves
Because
we belonged to no-one
&
the universe had many eyes & a kind face & tret us gently.
The
crisp, bright pages
Of
a yet unopened book
A
secret moment
You
jumped from the roundabout
Straight
into Mam's arms.
I
was afraid of banana slides
&
dreamed about bridges.
The
Fairy Folk showed me that
Every
boundary is a place & every place is a boundary;
There
is a mountain in the middle with three peaks
& a wind, a wind, a wind that carries our voices
& a wind, a wind, a wind that carries our voices
Further
than we can imagine.
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