Did you prefer me in a mask
or with my lived-in face revealed?
My hooded eye, my crooked nose
cracked lips and worn down snaggled teeth
Was it better with illusion?
Would you choose and even covet
views of artful, crafted fabric –
or touch reality’s drab shades?
His eyes disquiet us.
Affectionate, devoted, eager
and intent, attempting to
ingratiate himself – or spring
But veiled with the suspicion
that would flare without warning
into defence, into attack, a flash
that bared those teeth in anger,
unprovoked; to bite the hand
that fed, that cared for him…
Blood and bruises, tetanus and shock.
The curtains draw a few more times,
drawn closed on tenterhooks and lies
by us who know, on him – oblivious –
who blindly licked and sprang. Or snapped.
Eyes wide. Days short. Disquieting.
A little, light and fragile thing,
but fierce, is coming to an end
Someone I encountered:
tall, austere and somewhat gaunt,
stern and awkward, with a side of anger;
thin-souled, though woven from the threads
of everyday humanity
Words were disconnected.
They had been finely drawn –
perhaps by longing’s subtleties,
perhaps by isolation’s anguish –
but certainly by fitting in (best efforts made)
while never in conformity
A lifetime. Of all that.
He was puzzled by another:
by someone else’s self-imposed constraints
that cut across her own interests (unvoiced),
while all she saw of him – outlined –
was jagged spars and black rigging, tangled
Without apparent reason.
The best girl kept her brother safe;
reached out and protected him –
the sea-green incorruptible –
shielded mainly from himself
She crossed the shallow, sandbanked sea
despite scant means, her narrow funds;
they tore at the weave of Christmas
so their elders’ fabric grew dark
The finest girl, as always –
ever, ever and always –
acted for the best reasons
to do what she thought was right
Merry Christmas time
‘Be quiet, old man’ he said
“Tears of rage” played on
Long journeys by rail
far from instant growth online;
Hope lies close, spellbound
We sang Auld Lang Syne
You smiled, and drank her poison
I never left you
Mean and tawdry town
shorn of money and purpose;
always in my blood
I could die today.
I’ve thought that many times
since I was a troubled person
in my teenage years –
before the suicide attempt –
but less and less once I took my life
in hand,
to simplify and move it forward…
So it was a shock to realise in A&E
that it was your life that’s hanging
by a thread more slender than my own.
Don’t go. Not yet. Not yet a while….
One is at a party on old streets in Amsterdam,
her face highlit in glitter mask;
rousing with her friends, the gloaming laced by lamps, their
glows like candles lit to joy
One is in those Wembley crowds – to celebrate
and sing, to roar our tribe’s return;
he shares a bond through harmony, an affirmation
of this autumn’s coming home
One is scouting puffins on the Orkneys’ outer rocks
where they built and reeled at festival; stepped back
since cycling down the Danube from its sources to the sea –
on their way to somewhere new
Move on up…
Maintain the Advance! 