Poetry and ramblings – and probably some rambling poetry.
Moth
She’s queasy in all this daylight.
Squinty and itchy and bleached.
Pavements ache under her feet.
She wonders what the moths do
whilst waiting for the soupy night.
Time to flitter round lightbulbs
and piss people off. She smiles,
like wires tugging sceptics’ lips.
Thinks she’d make a good moth.
Posted in Animals and other beasties, Seasons, Women
Plankton Boy
He’s as romantic as plankton
and smells about the same.
Old ponds and green things.
Organic matter and nature,
looking after all those bugs
and bacteria. He nurtures
his very own eco-system.
So I kind of love him, for that.
Bus Station Reaper
One of those startled May mornings,
spring just about catching on to herself.
He’s stuck inside by a cardboard stand.
Top of the creaky bus station escalators.
Superdrug and the fruit and veg place,
the one that’s not been there for years.
Upright sentinel – bold man in black.
But not Will Smith or Johnny Cash.
Smile on loan from the Cheshire Cat.
Palms clasped, cuffs peeping pristine.
Suitably suited and booted. I don’t
buy it – whatever it is he’s selling.
I swerve an eyes-down panic-zag
through tired formica tables spilling
like ingrained tea-stains from the café.
Fumble my bags, my phone, look busy.
“No thank you” poised on my tongue.
He’s got broad shoulders – can’t help
but notice. And that smile, Cheshire,
but not cheesy. Still Cheshire-ing me.
Like he knows things. Really sees me.
Cynicism slips: I glance, snag his eye.
“Funeral Plans – will you rest assured?”
He winks. I remember I am very late.
Posted in Seasons, Sinister and nasty
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Falling In Spring
Blossom lying in dirty gutters.
So many clunky metaphors:
tragi-innocence-trampled-beauty;
delicate and new – then she fell;
too fragile to bloom here for long;
kicked to wither in litter and mud.
We mourn the sweet-petalled.
Leak tears to sluice them clean
for cosy graves we will not dig.
We’d rather rest them nearby.
To calcify their whiteness.
Preserve and save and keep.
Our frail heroines. Their eyes
know slow wishing-well drownings.
Weak lungs and shallow breaths.
Tentative fingers, sighing tremors.
We will pull them still closer in
like wet tubercular handkerchiefs.
These library-famed Cinderellas.
Gothic-pure deposed princesses:
they are easily spotted. Snared.
Disintegrating in Havisham’s lace.
We have a craving they can slake.
Sniff them out to grant sanctuary.
Would we bother with them at all
if we couldn’t crush them dead
under quick boots? If the blossom
did not drift and fall, would we
feel we had any right to catch?
If they weren’t so sad and pretty?
Posted in Character Poems, Seasons, Sinister and nasty
Hatching
Contained, warm and snug in gloopy dark.
I’m all curled up. Protected and nested
by the mother I haven’t set eyes on yet.
Her love is a muffling juice of nutrients.
Moisture cushions my untested legs.
I don’t have space to swim. Mucus mutes
my ears, my beak, sops down my wings.
Everything is soft in here. Soft and close.
She made this round room for me to grow.
Calcium carbonate, a touch of protein.
Her body knew the recipe by heart.
Nature’s proud and proven creation.
To shield me. Build me up
to flex and stretch and test
these walls, to break the sharp edges
I’d need to crack out of her crafted prison.
To totter and wobble in surprised sunlight.
Bumble about, learn to squeak and scuffle.
To see if she’d done a good job this time
to make me strong enough to be out there.
Today she will find out. Today I am hatching.
Posted in Animals and other beasties, Freedom, Seasons
It’s not full moon until Wednesday 27th but I’m getting a head start….
The Moon On Being Full
Yes, ok, so I’m a bit bloated tonight.
It’s that time of the month, alright.
Do you really have to be so rude?
Half of you get exactly the same
every twenty-eight or so days.
Is your memory so very short?
Anyway, do I comment on you?
What you do. Things you get up to.
I do see through your flimsy curtains.
And when you roll home from the pub.
Who you sneak up that alleyway with.
You should be grateful for cloud-cover.
So yes, I’m swelled to full tonight.
Spherically cheesy in your city sky.
Yes, point and stare and gawp at me,
how I’m so large, have such a “glow”.
But don’t forget I’m shining over you.
Don’t forget I know where you go.
Posted in Character Poems, Humour, Object Poems, Seasons
It’s been snowing here in the West Midlands – and it’s cold and nasty and it shouldn’t be in March. So here’s a slightly tweaked version of an “anti-snow” poem.
Settling
The sky is falling:
dense grey-orange,
heavy street-lights
and dirty wet smog.
The sky is falling:
hurling wet confetti.
The white wedding
that wasn’t. Jilted.
The sky is falling:
pollution mocking
vain purity, with silt.
Stained white gloves.
The sky is falling:
to lie in grubby brown
sludge, trodden-over.
Are you settling?
Posted in Seasons
Grass And Dew
Goosepimples on bare limbs.
Dew licks her dress to her body,
grass-stains to drink-spilled silk.
Cliché of birdsong. A childhood
half-ghost of milkfloats, burnt toast.
Lost homework and things that
don’t matter anymore. What does?
Where are her shoes? Eyes won’t
open and the drifting milkfloat
has whirred on and away. Now
she lies afraid in the dawn.
Suburban shame, in a garden
which isn’t at her house. Paralysis.
No memory, handbag, keys
or anything useful. Sicky scum
on her tongue, a grazed elbow.
Watch lost, along with pride
and tights and blank hours
she won’t get back. She daren’t
even think about her knickers.
Need to get home. Need home.
By the way… For a little while now I’ve been meaning to set up a section on here giving details of magazines, etc. who’ve kindly published my work. There’s a link at the bottom of each blog post and I hope that this section will grow in the months ahead. But for now… here it is!
http://hollyannegetspoetic.wordpress.com/publications-where-ive-been/
Posted in Character Poems, Fear, Nostalgia, Seasons, Sinister and nasty, Women
Rushing
On a train and there’s green outside
and it’s rushing, rushing, rushing by.
No going back now – high-speed
bound to him, to awkward hugs
and uncertain cups of tea.
Whatever will or will not be.
Careful not to brush too much skin.
Sun dazzling squint tears to eyes.
Unexpected break in overcast skies.
The carriage is quiet: a silence
I plug with earphones and drums
to match my juddering insides,
my restless toes jittering dance-steps
I could never do: bad timing, no grace.
It’s just a physical reaction to stress
or excitement or endorphins
or too much stale railway coffee
bouncing in my veins, my blood.
My brain’s all fugged. My head is mush.
The train’s not even late. White Rabbits
would be cartwheeling down the aisle.
Oh yes, indeed, a very important date.
And all the time, the fields and trees
and streams, the grazing sheep outside,
all blurred, still racing, racing, racing by.
Fast-forwarding me, like time-travel,
a TARDIS and maybe I need a Doctor.
A body catapulted to collide like flung
lost property on a station platform
in a town I don’t know, I don’t know.
A suitcase with a faulty zip,
could burst open at any time
to spew odd shoes, best knickers
and other inappropriate notions.
My mouth full of stupid words.
Hot palms itching with unspent touch.
Must hold it together. Hold it in tight.
Florence in my panicked ears:
fertility, springtime, courage.
“I must become a lion-hearted girl”*
And I really must. I really must be.
To stop it all rushing, rushing, rushing.
Racing past forever. In the rearview,
a blink of a woman that might’ve been.
My stop is coming up. Won’t miss it.
*Lyric borrowed from Florence and the Machine’s wonderful “Rabbit Heart, which always puts me in mind of spring!
And finally, I’m pleased to say that my poem “Headset” has been selected by Ten Of the Best Short Poetry for their March top ten. This was an unexpected pleasure, but I see I am in good company with the other nine. The link is here…
http://tenofthebestshortpoetry.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/ten-of-the-best-short-poetry-march-2013/
Posted in Character Poems, Love, Seasons
