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The moon was curious so
she donned a bobble hat and,
gathering her galaxy into a shopping trolley,
trailed along the grit street,
the wheels of her milky way wobbling
a little…
Face round and smooth, she
shone out among the crowd,
despite the woolly hat
and the trolley.
When I learned to speak
I spoke working class.
Don’t misunderstand me.
It’s not an accent, it’s
a position.
I can adopt it still.
When the old ones are chuckling on the bus,
when the builder is pricing the job,
when the craic sours around
cracked mirrors and lairy sinks.
Sometimes it claims me
when I least want to own it
but there is no one else
to walk me home.
Lately I grow tired,
teetering on this tightrope
between form and expression and
knowing the abyss
could swallow me whole.
Don’t be tempted to think
the perfect scarlet drop
of blood in the photo
belongs to that dead songthrush.
When it thudded sudden
into my window, the
glass didn’t shatter. That
was me.
History won’t recall how he was untalented
yet free, whilst his brother was gifted and caged.
How it wasn’t death by ambition but
death by adoration. And the irony
of the salt bleached bones, the burned feather stumps.
Unworkable.
And who doesn’t want to mimic their older sibling?
Too blessed for this world, Iapyx.
Kept all that time,
in the dark.
Like the winds, he would wreak havoc
just by his presence.
Unacceptable.
In the end, all their father’s skill and craft
made only labyrinths of torment.
It is magpie o’clock and I am still
a Henry Moore. On the next pillow
you, a Giacometti playing
Philip Glass on your nose flute.
In this way time has passed.
Having no one to come out to
the lonely man spent
his Saturday shopping for all things
rainbow.
Or failing that, pink.
Monday announces
rainbow trainers, rainbow socks,
beige trousers (a stumbling block),
rainbow t-shirt, pink hoodie and
pink backpack.
And as he walks to the Park and Ride,
Grindr in hand,
he momentarily aligns
with the lonely businesswoman —
all overtime sober in serious cuts —
their progress smashing genders
like avocados.
There is no entrance charge
to the temple of what was once
revered. It is chill-dark.
In the corner, Jacob’s ladder—
retracted now—
leans abandoned, blackened
beneath St. Peter’s toe.
Only nostalgia vainly thrives
against sterilizing dust.
I light another candle and walk
out in the asphalt citadel.
Here
the lifeless guard every stone horizon,
the clean busily manufacture
fresh, and the finest
gather to show purpose.
Under a crystal chandelier
you tell me
‘In life we can never turn back’.
Elsewhere
a muddied cock crows thrice and
still the leaves grow.
What were we thinking?
And suddenly we are old and each
lonely and the distance
too far to reach.
Our voices have slipped
over an empty horizon.
Our hard-earned flesh is spent
and will no longer save us.
I remembered
how at her age
my tread was heavier,
keener against the earth,
resisting to gain height.
These days
I merely brush the surface.
how the cut tulip stands
tall
fistfully defying all that
contains her
beauty opening full as the world
innermost
yellow heart and black thoughts
the weight of
colour
breaking her back
the edge of her
folding
as she bows, wiser
to the world
‘Women, prominent in the field of florists’ pinks, seemed to have little to do with tulips. The Miss Dalton who, at Lancaster Tulip Show on 22 May, 1826, won first and second prizes…was a rarity’. Anna Pavord, 2000, The Tulip: 205-6
