We Cleave and we Cleft

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

Every weekend its the same
We halve and divide
There is only enough for one of us

To get through

The other sits inside
Chained to the mast
Trying not to catastrophise

We are two sides of the same whole
Like a coin that is flipped
One of must land flat

And the other must squeeze her nose into the floor

And sniff the carpet
I wished it wasn’t this way
I know it won’t always be this way

One day she will stride out of here without me

Proud and strong
And she will vent her anger
That I held her back so long

She will want me to explain
How whilst I walked in the sunshine
There was so much rain

Because they are never truly real

They never become new
Until they make themselves
Separate from the parts of you

I try and hold her close, but it is never enough

They don’t want.
I never wanted her to be
A mirror image of me

We must divide and separate
She must become her
And I must stay as me

We separate and come back together

We cleave and we cleft
We go right
Then we move left

We dance this dance together

One day she will be fully grown
And I will dance this dance
Alone

Dismembered and Unjoined

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

The noise of the train is a kind of silence.
We have to lean forward to speak
Strain to hear each other

I think its deliberate

I can’t be this person today
The person that I normally am
She has up and gone away

I have disconnected
Dismembered
Unjoined.

All the things that join me up

I have let them go
To run amok on this train
Without consequence

I have released my fingers for example

Released completely
From their obligations to obey me
They are splayed knowingly somewhere else

Strung out on the seat next to me
Pretending to play a piano
That does not exist

Taking up a space that is not mine

A woman looks at me.
She wants to sit down
But I have ceded control

They can do what they want.

My toes, my feet
Have simply walked away
Gone into the next carriage

They have left my shoes
Along with my socks
Astray in the aisle

My lungs are heaving in great chunks of air

They hate the train smell
They are hanging out the window
Sucking in the moist morning fog

My heart is beating to a tune I have never heard

Thumpedy, thump, thump, thump
And thump again
I think about my liver

It might have remained loyal

But my eyes are resolutely closed
I am in a darkness
Against my will

My mouth is making shapes
My ears are on my knees
And my nose is running

It is more of a jog to be honest

But it is unpleasant.
For me
and for other passengers

My elbows are poking people I can’t even see

It is one of those journeys
Where I just don’t feel like me
The shapes don’t fit

Nothing makes any sense

My body has run amok in the carriage

And no one will speak

Train noise is a kind of silence.
It hypnotises.
Its a kind of social blindness.

As we pull into the station,
I put out a call to arms
Thankfully my arms respond

They collect all my pieces
Put them back where they belong

I may not be me

But I will be whole again

At about midday
I wonder about my liver
I wonder, is it loyal?

I am still not sure about my liver

The master word

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I am just a word
Yet I hold you in my thrall
A master to your servant
I beck and then you call

You put me in a sentence
Say my name out loud
I call you when I’m lonely
And you bring me the crowd

You describe your mastery
Of language and of speech
But I am the master
It is me that you teach

And on a lazy day
When I am rather bored
I can make you write this
I am the overlord

I am not benevolent
I am not very kind
I take up whatever space I want
Whenever I am in your mind

I want you to forget me
Please don’t remember this
I am the master word
I’ll be back in a bit.

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The Umbrella Dance

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

All along the platform
Scarcely noticing the rain
A company of umbrellas
Are waiting for the train

Its like a sea of manhole covers
Who’ve upped and taken flight
Leaving gaping holes
To catch cars in the night

There’s a nip and a duck
A weave and a tuck
A subtle sway of hips
And sometimes just good luck

Some hold it high
Some snuggle down quite low
But one arm is always ready
To deflect any blow

Its like a giant turtle
With a long and stretchy back
A giant patchwork quilt
Yet mostly grey and black

Wait, there’s one with colour
That cannot be right
It snakes through the crowd
In the early morning light

And that one is a painting
From an artist we all know
She bought it at the gallery
She didn’t see the show

It’s a wily platform herd
A mass of classless cattle
Stood against the rain
Against the daily battle

He uses shoulders
She moves her hips
Its sensual and its practical
And their umbrellas miss

We all know how its done
We all know the trick
When the umbrella is too close
And you have to be quick

A dance among strangers
Before we all get on the train
An early morning ballet
That takes place in the rain

And the train takes the bend
And its lights flash us all
There’s a uniform drop
A shake, shake and a twirl

A giant sucking in of fabric
Like someone pulled a chain
A moment where we all get wet
Before we board the train

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Dawning in Essex

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I saw trees
Spiked against a grey sky
In the distance
A horizon flat and even

I took in great gulps of air
And tried to belong
Under a muddy, grubby sky
In the glimpse of a full moon

I stood at a station
And told myself I could do this
When every moment was a struggle
I still went on

I gripped the greyness in my fist
And pulled it around me as I slept
I took that even line, and wore it
As a belt on my waist

I waited, I was patient
As I took stock
Of power lines
Skittered across an empty landscape

I listened to crumbled words
In the dawn in coffee shops
The stories of tradesmen
Who hesitated in my presence

I painted my nails in desperation
I gazed at the orange, the white
At the dazzle and the glitter
And I let it all seep in

Until the spirit of Essex
Was embedded in my soul
Not to replace my home
But to let me be here

And still be whole

This girl thing, its not easy

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

And I scream out loud
Writing is performance art.
Being a girl
Is conformance art.
I shave my head
Cut off half a leg,
And still its not enough.

It is never enough.

The words they,
Obfuscate.
And I obviate,
any need for their guilt so pleasantly
Out in the yard
Dogs howl in the night
I remain out of sight

This girl thing is easy.

Makeup is like grammar
If so,
I write with a stammer.
A road full of rules
But nothing can stop me
Then, life, I am shackled
And routine has taken my-

I look for a saviour

Tall, dark, handsome and strong
But the things that he told me
Turned out to be wrong
I needed the money
I took the cash
I left him in limbo

I still, have a rash.

How did I get here
I’ll never know
I lived in conformity
But society bored me
I ran and I ran
But I never ran far
I ran in a circle.

What was I meant to be?

This girl thing, its not easy.

A stump of a girl, like me

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

And it felt like raindrops on my skin.
Until it blooded, bubbled, burst

Outwards.

Into raw, red, angrified pustules
Covering every speck of habitable skin.

Only to fail.

Fade!
Freeze!

And in its wake,

A

Seething,
Slithering,
Slime ridden,

Stump

Of a girl

Who? Me

Ate her peers for breakfast
Dined on her tutors at dinner

And ate the stars at supper

Spitting out the sun at the end
Cursing it for its vapid uniform intensity

A wrath enduring to infinity and the end.

Divide and multiply

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I want to know why
When I undivide
Pay my full attention
I don’t multiply

I am simply whole

I unseat myself
I stand up
And shout out loud
No one hears me

I don’t under-stand

I stand up really straight
I don’t slouch
I make noise
I yelp, I scream, I call

No one responds

I unkind them all
Repaying all the kindness
I take it back
And pay it over

It does not work

I unhinge
And take the door with me
When all I had to do was
Was turn the knob

I want to fly

I need to resole
To find my spirit again
Not a simple make over
I don’t need to resurface

I dig deep

I decry
Let the pain slip away
I unwind
Closing the door to the breeze

Yet still I am ajar

A bottle
On a window sill
Liable to fall
To break

An infinitely impossible number of glass pieces

I recede
Plant myself firmly
in the ground
Hold back, then go forth

Redouble my efforts

I redouble
I multiply
And there is the answer
I spread out across the universe

I come apart

And I spread out across the universe
And it is joyous
To see the world again
To re-view

I give it my undivided attention.

I Drew Myself

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I remember when

I became

Definite lines

Before then I was a half sketch,
With holes and gaps
Things could easily seep out
And they did.

Horrible residual bits of me left on the floor

I was a blur
I appeared at parties as a set of double lines
Nothing held me in
And people saw through me

And around me

I was small floral patterns on a pale background
A little bloom, a potted plant on a brick structure
The sunflower seed
The one that germinated in the shade

The spindly stunted one

Spreading spiky leaves
Out in the semi darkness
Clasping at drips of water
That were absorbed into mortar

But somehow between the dance tracks
And the last track

I formed

And maybe some of it was you.

But I drew the lines.
Real and definite and clear.
I dredged them out of alcohol sodden carpet,
And blood stained sheets,

As fingers clasped at my neck

I made my lines hold firm.
I took a bruise or two
I stole a brick from that wall
And replaced that flimsy stem

I shed those useless leaves

I stole every brick,
Every strip of wall paper
And my brightness shone out
above the wall

Clear, definite and real

And you

The sight of you,
the smell of you
Became a blur
Off in the distance

A faraway spot on a fading horizon

I can barely see it

even if I bring my hand to shade my eyes

A strange sooty spot

on the heel of the shoe that is my life

I clean you off.

I am definite and real.

Lines coloured in, and you?

You, I have forgotten,

Left behind on the doormat of life

A poet in the mirror

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

Today I met a poet
I don’t know her name
I saw her image in the mirror
I am not quite the same

When I read her words
They tore me apart
Thundered down the hallway
Stabbed me through the heart

Do you think its possible
That I might not be here
I dissolve into the wall
I might never reappear

I want to make as if
You can never truly see me
To go into the silence
And not exist completely

Because I have read her words
They echo in my head
I don’t know why she wrote them
They were not words I have said

And yet they came from somewhere
A place that I have been
I deny understanding
They are not words that I mean

Yet still she keeps on reading
At the top of her voice
Shouting ever louder
And I don’t have a choice

Today I met a poet
And I cannot pretend
The words that she shouted
They were mine in the end