Invader, you can do many things to me.
Many bad things.
You shall not touch my family,
nor my friends,
nor my olive trees.
Love beauty beware
No rose without a thorn
No blood-red petals without the power to rip.
Weak flowers wave pale against a cotton sky
but crimson tearing is the heart.
Spark leads to spark
Spark leads to spark.
And one day the fire.
Playpark
A toddler in a glorious tiger onesie sat motionless at the top of the not-too-slippery slide. Gripping the sides before launching himself down, he surveyed his world with satisfaction.
What a metaphor! I thought. What a thought for the day!
Then I calmed down. Perhaps not everyone wants to dress up as a tiger. I snarled softly, almost to myself, and padded on.
The battlements quaked
The battlements quaked. In the bedchamber the physician’s long hat quivered in the falling dust. He scratched the curled words, hurriedly, carefully, desperate to carry his thoughts, his steely will, through his arm and quill. With the last word he shivered. The queen’s eyes softly opened and the world stilled.
As she walked slowly out of the doctor’s room
As she walked slowly out of the doctor’s room, a shadow shaded across her face. It matched the patch in her chest.
She did not want to tell them the news, share the picture buried deep in her bag. Deep in her heart she knew that she should but she was afraid that their hearts would break. Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would.
For today she would keep her silence, and smile, and nod, and cough quietly into a handkerchief. For today, today, they did not need to know.
But they knew. Of course they knew. They knew it sharply deep inside of them, it cut them sharp and deep inside of them, they felt the broken glass in her breathing in their hearts.
But for today she would not tell them.
It’s all about Euan
Euan was Scottish and Mimi was French. When they got together their friends called it a clear case of bilateral nominative determinism.
At first they always agreed in first person – Euan said ‘aye’ and Mimi said ‘oui’.
But then, then.
“It’s all about Euan, isn’t it?”
“Oh, very funny. Mimi Mimi Mimi, that’s all I hear.”
They were a contrapuntal couple until the centripetal became centrifugal. Euan said ‘aye’ and really meant it: Mimi said ‘oui’ but it never was again.
That moment
That moment when the sun comes out and
your heart relaxes.
The first rays of sun, the first unsure smile;
and the weights of the world disappear.
That moment.
Shopping list
On the shopping list, you wrote “plum toms”.
I read, and bought, “plantains”.
How we laughed.
Until I bit into my sandwich.
Man go lassi
She licks an arm, a milk dark flavour. Thick velvet, stars explode. Now desire swirls mango lassi. Tongue sunburnt, dust thirst.
simonsalento 