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Grains of Memory

Your table is a real table
sliced oak and oil-dressed
uneven surface                                          like the road leaving the village
grains swollen from drowning emotions
                  - and spilled cups of tea

so many hands have smoothed it
over so many years
some anxious
some happy
           - all loved

a few splinters are bulging from the corners
each a memory
some good
          some bad
some probably just about the times the ashtray was missed
and maybe one where the beer bottle exploded
resting like a stained glass window
         - the table ready to hear pre-night-out confessions 

if it could talk 
how many stories could it tell 
 - too many to worry about 


next time we’re around it
we should give thanks
drift palms gently over the lines
a loose embrace
that clings tightly to the seams
              - like the roots of our friendship.

Ryūjin

devour the sand 
plunder every grain 
horde them in your golden keep 
conquer this land fleetingly
    – rise triumphant 
spread your scales of quicksilver 
under the feathered winter sun 
retreating only 
–  at the moon’s blunt counsel. 

This poem was created in response to the Imagist Poet Hilda Doolittle’s poem Oread as part of TopTweetTuesday on X/Twitter.

Lost & Found

Two Northern harvest-mice
with hawk-lit eyes
we slinked around London
from Kings Cross to Trafalgar
without hedgerow or hay to hide in
only plateaus and towers of grey

we had no map
so followed the route of bus stops
resting only a couple of times
trying not to inhale too much oil-slick air
smouldering under June’s sun

after the fifth wrong turn
tedium began to shriek
like car horns
but you smiled and said
“we’ll try around the next corner, you can’t get lost when you’re in love”

a composure in your voice
that buried the tumult
chaos collapsing
into
calm

we found ourselves on a busy London street.

Exile

I crawled into the carcass
of your scavenged legacy
stitched a cocoon from the carrion
of false epithets bestowed
on your name.

sepia-brittle and crumbling I clung
pupating in a squall of anger
until I sliced my way out
a katana soul-drawn
from the scabbard of my heart
a ronin now
banished for freeing myself
from the collective.

I carry our memories
in the whetstone
that tempers blade
exquisitely fatal.

Ascent

This time
the climb felt easier
the incline didn’t seem to stretch for a year
my legs keeping feeling without force.

This time
my dewy eyes were due to a biting wind
     rather than the noose of grief
that swallowed the air from my body
           and the right words from my lips
like the last time.

And this time our hands held gentler
and it wasn’t to do with the new gloves
we are stronger now.