Poems
Poems
Witness Marks
Accompaniment to Shannon Garden Smith and Emily Smit Dicks exhibition at 8-11 Gallery
Listening to the faint sounds of a couple settling down for the night
She was clearly cut from the same cloth as me
She a poet
And I a writer of fiction
She makes two from one and one
And together they were sleek moon-like light
Feelings are condemning
A sensational grip of whole body words
Now and then there was a low humm
And I could not, with my hand on my heart, say no
What they say
Can only be said as a result of having failed
Youth culture blushes on behalf of its country
Still, they believe each ending is a site of transformation
And like a diary they are open to the future
Hadn't there been something open about them?
(It’s not possible to identify every tiny fluctuation of the soul)
Isn’t that what they make their living from?
Share the moment with me here and now
That was their only offer
At the table, the sisters wear plastic scraps of light
Lifting the green from its leaves
It's absence they long for
Through the last quarter of the half full moon
Returning to the inner of the outside
There there there
It has to be there
Birthplace
In the collection “Small Obstructions”, 2017
I think it’s a cave in reverse
If I put a finger in its perfect circle dark secretive infinite
I could pull out its interior inside out outside in
I shift my weight to the right foot and raise my left
Knee bent at ninety I use my left arm and pull my left thigh away from my body
Now we’re opening to opening and I can balance
In contemplation
Slowly I return my leg to centre and foot by foot
Lowering knees and toes together I press my forehead To the hole
a gentle sucking on a down covered arm
I press down in response and can feel it smile Just a little pressure
The top of my head through the earth
Then quickly without warning over my nose and clog up my ears
Earth Turtleneck
I move in
Make myself comfortable
Round out small cavities in the irregularity of it all Soft and firm from years of burnishing
It low glows and the gods can see in
Caramel carnelian coral and cinnamon
Soon I no longer miss the light so fickle in its placement
The warmth of darkness thick and consistent
One day is not like the rest
There is a subtle shift and I flirt my toes with the foreign wind
I circle my ankle and swarms of mud forms around my foot
Up my leg and under the softest part of my thigh
I chew the dark marl that is icing my mouth and caking my lashes
Returned from where I last came I lay in solemnity and body bliss
Re-skinned and obscure I tap my chin and chant
I am a cave in reverse
New Moon
There were cycles of earthly time when my mother arrived home from work,
And didn’t come inside
Instead, ferrying her petite frame across the frozen patch of land we called Yard,
She would excavate a fluffy foot off the top with a joyful plastic Dredge,
Creating a human-width, protective trench between her car and me,
Me watching culpable from behind our thick weatherproofed Door
Far, in the softest part of my mind and in equal kilometers away,
She creates bridges still, and I lie guilty puppy lazy in comfort
There’s not a part of me that’s not full up in her, by her,
And the evening Roots of her hair
I can see, in my own uncertain form, glassy water particles from winters past,
Beginning to thaw
Just as she sees her own mothers’ coursing through her
Generous Face, feeling Eyes, unassuming Wrists, considerate Thighs
May I sponge up the vestiges of gentlewomen against Atrophy‘s arid touch,
to keep myself from Independence
May I never fully close grief‘s Door, keeping suffering stuffed above my Larnax
where it can serve in memorandum
May I carry, her, this, us, she, with me
until we can all go Home again
Life is nothing but a minute of everything intense and forgotten and hopeful,
in places that are always snowing