Friends who were friends of friends are no longer friends – for new friendship’s sake, old friendships end. And I do not understand where in the diagram I stand.
Moments
Many happy
Some or many years ago of course my mum was there. Nine months earlier and the man they called my father had been too. Now both are disappeared, one too soon before the other, and the counting of the years wears thin.
The best thing remain the candles – if you forget the jokes about the fire risk and the firemen and now the fire service. Each candle stands for a memory, a year that has passed or a friend, and calmly shines its light into the future. The more candles on the cake, the brighter the light they cast, the better they show us what is to come.
Though, through fear, we may not want to know. So we blow out the candles and pinch out the stubs and blow away the memories and shade out the light. The future is arriving fast enough; I do not want to see it.
I touch the letter
I touch the letter your lover sent before you left. I can feel the heat, the sparks on my cool fingers. Perhaps, then, you were right. Heat cancels all promises and trust.
Losing you
Losing you, my mouth
And ideas dried.
Water me again.
Every day
Leave it. It’s not worth it. Walk away.
The somersaulting evening starlings signed to the sun.
The fading sun, reluctantly, dipped below the horizon.
You know I’ll be back, it growled.
The moon peeked pale-faced from behind the clouds.
Every day, it said. Every day.
illustration © Ross Gillespie @bigblether
When all the clocks
When all the clocks tick toxic
When all the stars are magic
When all the clouds disappear from above
There is only one thing it can be –
Salt for a reason
All I could
think was I
wished my
tears were
not salt. They
scoured and
scarred the wounds in
my heart.
One day friends
said. I
doubted.
Bushel
He hid in full light, a shadow invisible between the beacons. Damp light is easy overlooked and overshone, raw talent takes pressure to spark diamond sharp. With time his eyes became clearer and noticed, but the glow of his words faded in spotlights. The crash of a lightwave foreshadowed flowing; life stories stuttered and ended.
On feeling a story
The imagination of the senses: the sight,
the smell, the touch – oh, the touch –
the deep deep stirring words bring.
The wood you stand on
The wood you stand on, washed up flotsam on the stones,
once held my father’s weight above the waves;
the rusted bolt you kick with a thoughtful frown
kept closed the press which held his family maps.
It will be a found feature in your off-white apartment,
a reminder of the sea to bring the old outdoors inside.
Treat it kindly, with due respect.
It held safe their lives until that day
and now outlives them.
