Hey Crazy Lady

‘Hey crazy lady go shag a donkey’

came a yell from a suped-up hatchback.

The boys cackled like jackals

and roared towards the horizon.

The subject of their abuse skipped on,

her layers of tattered cardigans armour

against their infantile words.

She swung her carrier bags by her knees

and swigged from her bottle

despite the early hour.

I grew nearer and glanced her way

trying to express that impossible look

of non-patronising sympathy.

Her wavering, faltering eyes met mine

and she collapsed into giggles.

Rolling, inward chuckles

and childlike titters.

I watched her leave and couldn’t

help feel envious

that even if she wasn’t all there,

the best part of her was.

Honey

Blood may be thicker than water

but what we have is honey.

Syrupy strands hanging between us

every time we part, pooling at our feet,

an amber river connecting us from afar.

What we share cannot be counted

in a million bee hours,

in thousands of stamens

or in rays of brilliant sun.

You are my colony, my hive, my Queen Bee.

I revel in our sticky bond

and am sustained by your nectar,

Oh sweet ambrosia.

Our Future

Our shared future flashed before me;

me sobbing, bruised, inadequate.

You glowering, snarling, growling,

diminishing me to an inch in stature.

While our highs could lift me above the clouds,

the lows could shatter my entirety.

I envisage my friends pleading for my sanity

so I extract myself from you,

like tweezering out an ingrown hair

or squeezing free a blackhead.

Your arrogance disgusts me but your eyes,

your eyes shall haunt my decision.

The Magnifying Glass

I know this is called Lone Wolf Poetry but I believe words are more important than form so here is a short story I wrote. Let me know what you think!

 

She lies gently curled into his side, her head nestled in the nook of his neck. His hand traces the soft curve from shoulder to wrist. This annoys her as a new lover so easily can. His finger stops and encircles a tiny imploding star the size of a pea midway down her forearm. It is a muted crimson and he wonders how he never noticed it before. He enquires to its provenance in an intimate whisper.

The past three decades collapse and she is six, leaning against the doorframe and silently looking out into the paved front garden. Her brother is there, three years older, squatting and staring fixedly at the ground, unaware of her gaze. She looks at her own small feet, gently clad in white cotton socks, slipping down from her scabbed knees and checked summer dress. The small boy with dirty cheeks smiles slyly as the dry grass he is holding a magnifying glass over begins to gently smoulder. This trick he learnt in a book pleases him greatly, he had after all searched every room in the house for a magnifying glass and found it in his father’s bedside cabinet next to an old watch, handkerchiefs and a box of condoms, although the boy didn’t know what these were. He had taken a slim silver packet out of the box to investigate later in the privacy of night.

The boy scoured the paving slabs around his feet for other objects to inflict the sun’s powerful rays on. Scurrying over the hot concrete he spies an ant carrying a tiny ragged piece of leaf with another following closely behind. He moves his hand and watches the intense yellow bead beneath the magnifying glass race toward the first ant. The ant scuttles down the crack between two paving stones so he moves it over the second ant. The insect moves quicker as it feels the intense heat but suddenly staggers and begins to slow.

The girl, watching this tiny melodrama from the doorway is at once horrified and bewitched. She gingerly steps out of the doorframe, placing her white socks on the grey stone, knowing the repercussions this will bring from her mother. The boy, startled by her presence loses track of his prey and it finds shadowy shelter in which to rest but doubtfully recover. He scowls at her and she tiptoes closer and squats down beside him. Wordlessly he grabs her wrist and hovers his instrument of torture over her forearm. Her eyes meet his and she feels the noon summer rays intensified on her pale soft skin. She remains silent and holds his gaze even though she can feel her bottom lip quivering and her tear ducts beginning to well.

Her innocent skin slowly turns scarlet and a small spot begins to pucker. The boy notices this change and stares only deeper into her nubile face. Without warning a crow swiftly swoops down from a nearly poplar tree and for the second time the boy’s concentration is rudely broken. He jumps up and darts into the woodland beside the house leaving his magnifying glass to clatter noisily beside the girl. She watches him run and then looks down at her milky freckled forearm now so violated. She places her lips over the mark and her tongue feels the lingering heat and the slightly metallic taste of her own blood. Yet she feels triumphant, and adult.

The woman comes back to the present with a second enquiry from her lover and she mumbles an excuse of a cigarette burn in her heady teenage years. Not yet ready to let this man burn her.

Jigsaw City

I’ve heard this city called a multicultural city

but it doesn’t feel that way at all.

I walk for miles and notice the changes,

crossing invisible, unspoken walls.

Subtle shifts in grocery shops, hairdressers,

the types of clothing you can find.

I laugh at those who say we are blended

like some exotic smoothie, combined.

Black cheek rubbing against white.

 

We are a jigsaw city.

Fit together so snugly

that it’s hard to see the borders.

The mosque may gently brush

against the Catholic Church’s side,

but no-one dares transgress

the un-parted sea divide.

To the untrained eye we look united,

snoring gently by one another.

But these hidden boundaries sever us,

they blind us to our brother.

These Girls

You like the ones who show their bones

and blow smoke in your direction.

Who sulkily listen to the Rolling Stones

while gazing at their reflection.

Girls who fuck with your heart and head

snorting lines in a seedy bar.

Their lips shimmer in Russian Red,

these girls glitter from afar.

You yearn to uncover their mystery

and tame their wanton ways.

These girls always have a complex history

their soul is a tortured maze.

You know these girls just hurt you

and leave you crying on the floor.

But even with what they put you through

you cannot help yourself craving more.

Book Grief

I feel the paper wedge

in my right hand thinning.

The wedge in the left

gradually building,

creeping up silently.

My mind refuses to entertain

the possibility of this ending,

of losing new friends,

new towns,

new worlds.

I ration the final chapters

to keep them alive but

the end is inevitable.

And I shall grieve a little death

with a small sigh

as I look upon the final dot

and close the back page

for the final time.

The Dancers

We watch them dance,

swirl, twirl,

and collapse in each others arms.

We sip saccharine sodas

and make polite comments

on the music, food, dancers,

whatever our listless gaze

falls desperately upon.

We wait for the euphoric dancing

couple, begging for ‘please,

just one more dance, please’.

So I let you lead me to that dark

wall and breathily kiss my neck,

hot and wet, unwanted,

while I watch the heady dancers

swirl, twirl, and fall in love.

Me, Medusa

I wallow and wait

in my desolate cave

awaiting my fate,

beauty’s slave.

Me, Medusa

with hair made of snakes.

.

I yearn for a gaze,

I crave just a glance,

but my eyes ablaze

only freeze their stance.

Me, Medusa

with hair made of snakes.

.

I cry for these statues

once vibrant lives

I did not choose

to have eyes like knives.

Me, Medusa

with hair made of snakes.

.

I did not concede

to this evil spell

just a mirror I need

to assign me to hell.

Me, Medusa

with hair made of snakes.

We Still Have The Moon

I gaze at the skinny slip of the moon

and take comfort knowing

that this is your moon too.

That miles of journeys can disappear

with a glance.

Even when you bask in the scorched sun

while I’m shrouded in infinite darkness

I remember we still have the moon.