your message started
my hot tears fell on the screen
a window banged shut
Tweets
swifts glide
swifts slide
seem to collide
as clouds gather
they wait for cool rain
later
the sun will break through
again
in your eyes a lighted candle
in your eyes a lighted candle
yesterday remains and burns forever
as one door closes, another
every year more stars
every year more stars in the sky
every day though my eyes grow cloudy
remembering in the darkness
I said you can sleep
I said
you can sleep in my arms
safe
and I will be vigilant
You were asleep in my arms
when
they kicked down the door to take me away
my arms are empty
in the empty room
I hope you remember sleeping
safe
I hope you remember sleeping
Petros
I am a bull in the year of the pig
Heavier than daylight and solid on rock
They may call me Petros.
Calves of bronze and heels of granite
Untouched by flames from the molten core
They call me Petros.
There is no trace of my future becoming
There will be only footmarks in the sea-washed sand
But – and but – I am Petros.
Moon
Ali stretched his hand towards the night sky and pulled down a crescent of milk-white seaglass, polished smooth by decades of waves. ‘Here is all the moon I can reach,’ he said. His lover smiled in silence, her eyes full of starlight. She touched the glass to her lips.
Sami – Fiskardo
summer wind-whipped
jagged coal-black waves
drive down the coast to Sami
were they here, the men, the heroes?
were they ever here beyond imagined memories?
Father’s Day 2019
You smiled quietly when we gave you a card, cleared your throat and said thanks. We found them all you know, when we were clearing the loft, all in date order (you’d pencilled the date on each envelope), held together with a rubber band, wrapped in plastic and sellotaped down. I’m not sure why we all wrote this one.
But you said
It was not your ghost, of course not,
you have not passed.
But the thought of you, the spirit of you,
the word you had given to be here.
From the empty bed, pillow unpressed,
to the empty cup, no coffee in the kitchen air,
the space where you should have been,
the emptiness of your promise is my companion.
simonsalento 