The Hardest Word

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The Hardest Word

“We hurt the ones we love the most,” she mumbles.
An alleged joke. Sidles a coffee mug onto my desk.
Two custard creams. Outside the rain’s come on
again. Heavy. Battering down her tulips. Snapping
their stems. Both her hands grasp the doorframe
like she might fall, a crumple of jeans and jumper
for me to kick out of the way. But she foot-to-foots.
Can’t put both soles to the floor. A comical dance
(if today wasn’t so far from laughter), her jigging
on the spot, a pantomime of really needing a wee.
I can’t look at her: the blur reflected in the laptop
is enough. And her cried-out sniff. So persistent.
Get a tissue. Memory’s pollyfilla pastes the gaps
so I can view it all in widescreen 3D. Everything:
performance aimed at me. That sob-cracked mouth
doesn’t ever say she’s sorry. This time, neither will I.

 

Real Cut Flowers

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Real Cut Flowers

Cut flowers. They’re dead.
He sends them. It’s simple.
I take them. Say thank you.

Put them in a vase. Water.
Proud in a sunny window.
Corpse laid out for viewing.

Look how deeply he loves.
He spent fifty quid on these.
A tip and a wink for the girl

in the florist’s, with the nifty,
quick fingers. She blushes.
She’s only young. Envies

me: the ideal me, air-brushed
serene. The handsome man
in the suit, with his cheek,

who treats me like a queen.
she sighs. Shakes her head.
“One day…” Knocks off work.

In the pub later with her mates.
Two halves of giggly cider down.
The barman slips her free crisps.

The flowers are cut. Dead.
They’re still crowing at midnight,
showing off in my black window.

Dead flowers. Quiet house.
He’s out. A guilty blessing.
I take it. Say thank you.

 

A Lover For Dinner

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A Lover For Dinner

Up to your neck in it. In my pie.
Pastry collars you. Flaky, tasty.
Head poking out, a centrepiece.
Hair brushed with egg white
to crisp and shine in the oven.

Your arms and legs slowed
in gravy beneath. Free-range
protein. You roamed widely.
So many heifers to fertilize.
You did your very best to try.

Turning the temp right up now.
Preheating is essential, I’m told.
And you’re already half-baked.
Time to finish the job. Lecter-ish.
Shame Asda had no fava beans.

 

Unreadable (but hopefully this poem isn’t!)

Unreadable

You think
you’re indecipherable.
Unreadable mystique.

Riddles laid like trip wires.
throughout our home.
Locks bolted and dead.

Your security features.
Thoroughly alarmed.
You take no chances.
Insurance is key.

Sleight of hand, in glove,
up sleeves. Under your hat.
Safe-keeping. Distraction
techniques. Oh look!
A white rabbit! Ta-da!

Clever old you.

Each night you force-feed me
the choke-splintered bones
of the world’s reddest herrings.

They water my eyes to clarity.
How sharp is this steak knife?

You’re indecipherable
you think. Too much.
If I read you, I’d weep.

Falling In Spring

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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?

Where To Keep A Secret

If I was doing NaPoWriMo in any kind of organised way then this would be my post for Tuesday 16th April… but I’m still behind, so it’s just a random poem while I have a mo to stick it up!

 

Where To Keep A Secret

No one will know – I promised you that.
I’ll never reveal – keep you under my hat.
You’re ear-back gum, half-chewed: saved
for later. You’re flavour will only improve
with silence and time. You’re mine now.
And no one will know – I promise you that.
Sometimes I take you out just to see you
waver in dark places. Hold you splayed
in my palm. A quiver of truth and muck.
No one knows you – I promise you that.
Sometimes I tuck you in, a secret pocket
of my jacket. Or conceal you, quietly,
under the false lining of my handbag.
No one will know – I promised you that.
Fridays you might be folded into my bra.
Left or right cup. We will not runneth over.
You cannot suffocate. Can’t squeal or peek.
Sunday you’re snugged in the rib of a sock.
Again, left or right side. Fifty-fifty.
You chafe even ambling ankles.
Blister my feet with your petty scrape.
But no one will know – I promised you.
No one will know – I promised you that.
Occasionally I keep you clichéd up my sleeve,
pinned to my pulse by a tight-buttoned cuff.
One day I might need to whip you right out.
A blunt blade of your shame. But ‘til then:
no one will know – I promised you that.

 

Clued In (A Playful Poem)

Clued In

Never very adept at the cryptic stuff.
Clever references and anagrams.
Crosswords make for cross words.

Too busy reading the actual lines
to look for sneaky in-betweens.
I like things single spaced.

Riddle-me-ree. No, really, don’t.
Rip the piss as much as you want.
Promise you this: I won’t get it.

You don’t need hidden meanings.
Secret codes won’t decipher me.
Do you want to crack me up?

Wits aren’t things to get me out of.
Not a maths problem to calculate.
I’ll only knacker your abacus.

Less experiment. More happy-mental.
Control specimen now just incidental.
What happens if I light our last match?

Spaghetti

Spaghetti

He’d learned from an early age.
From his forever-ancient father.
Hands across the dinner table.
Dad liked things done properly.
“We do not eat like savages.”
But there was that one scene
in “Lady And The Tramp”…

She’d never been taught. At home
they’d sometimes had limp hoops
on toast. TV trays and soaps.
Never gave it a thought ‘til now.
Blush lushing up by candlelight.
His eyes on her untrained fork.
Rejection slithery and inevitable.

His expert wrist twirls on his side
of the table. Twisting efficiently.
Cool demonstration of dexterity.
She wishes she’d ordered steak.
He wishes he’d learned something
else from his father. How to reach
hands across the dinner table.

Window Dressing

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Window Dressing

One day the rail simply breaks,
snaps under the weight and years
of his constant tugging. She falls,
grateful, to scuffed bedroom carpet.

A puddle of voile, tired and frayed,
dusty, outdated and disintegrating.
Rushed fingers always twitching her.
Dishevelled, picked at, unravelling.

A breeze ruffles in. She settles,
pools her wrinkles in pink relief.
Now it’s not her job anymore.
She’s done her time, billowing

her prettiness, wifting and wafting.
A muting translucence. Distracting.
Diffusing more than mere daylight.
Murky weekday afternoon infractions.

Red bras bought by other husbands.
No white thighs seen from outside.
Only she was permitted to observe,
unwilling voyeur, his closed mouth,

body like repulsion, twisting away,
when they came. Or pretended to.
She framed his scenes, illuminated
in blush-rose and fuzzy flesh-tones.

Wove envy from an outside view.
Sock-strewn floor unseen. Illicit.
Complicit. She drew her veil across
all these things: discreet to his need.

Someone’s laddered tights sagging
bedraggled ankle-noose knots
from his bedposts. Empty bottles.
Fun cobwebbing to half-dreams.

Blood fades that little bit paler
with each dilution. She sluiced
against her “dry clean only” label.
Against her nature. Washed away

the watching. She breathed out calm,
fluttered a soothe in silence. In and out.
Up and down. In and out. Up and down.
Hyperventilate. She knew his rhythms,

tired requirements. Sex and violence.
Did his bidding. She was strung up
for this. She was window dressing.
Now she’s glad to be freed to scrap.

Bookmarked

Bookmarked

He is my love story.
Not romantic fiction.
Bookmark not needed.
We know where we are.

There were many other stories
before this. Murder, we wrote.
But whodunit and to whom?
Revenge or redemption?
Scenes of graphic horror.
Bad guys on the stairs.
Running barefoot. Bloodshot.
Broken glass and getaway cars.

Escape plans and travellers’ tales.
Over-heated b&b bathtub reads.
Planning and Google maps.
Leant back, toes plugging taps.
No drowning misery memoirs.
Page turner. Slow-burner.
Building, plotting, reaching
the end. Twist in my tale.

Biographical. Hidden classic.
Not to be thumbed by everyone.
Limited print run. A first edition.
Not in mint condition.
He is my love story.
We know where we are.