Ms Betty
She used to sing
to memorise
notes between
the wind’s silences,
tones of red,
dripping in triplets
to splintered slats
where the muted
sound of colour
stretched under
bony fingers
like tribal marks.
She used to sing
to warm the dank,
dark pulse of aches,
thumping
a wilted beat in her
frayed inner garden
where only the
stubble of wheat grows
and rain-worms float,
water-logged in sheer
stocking-like skins.
She used to sing
during
the passing of years
for weddings of colour
to throw top hats
like daffodil coronas,
dispersing
swollen, black seeds
to pollinate
the journey through.
She used to sing
to strip winter’s lash
from her raw skin
and to hush
the noise of felling trees.
She fell, her yellow skirt
ballooned like the sun,
spearheaded bushes
ripped twill,
the yellow sagged.
For a year, a snagged,
lone flag flapped on a treetop.
Sleepless,
as the night skulks,
a spewing, flame-green fire
dries a wooden,
sepal-painted plate.
With a handful of
waxed hair,
she shines birch.
Inside the sheen,
a waiflike finger
tracks eighty wide
growth rings,
as the moon’s
light is blinded by snow.
She used to sing.
Dream Seeds
When talk is no more look for the words of old,
When the earth smoked in the wake of a comet
Where drawings on ancient stone showed the way.
We blew chalk from our hands into the air
And the particles rushed to enter the sky.
We remembered the green growing wild,
The seas plump with life on obsidian tiers,
And the Earth’s nation breathed each other’s breath.
Sleep stretched over us with the wind braiding our hair,
Dreams took hold, shaping seeds to flourish.
Blood Orange
At Kiang–Nan in the Kiangsu
There are small scarlet oranges
That the winter doesn’t kill
Because the air is truly sweet at Kiang-Nan.
(China - eighth century, author unknown)
I’m an orange bandit in a thick scarf.
Bloody is my flesh, it’s sour to kiss,
But it’s plump with good things to stain lips.
Unzip my organza negligee
To release a lachrymal heart,
I’ll tease and colour you quietly.
On the sapphire Indian Ocean,
Forefathers’ skins were etched by salt,
Naked they bled riding petticoat waves.
Our home was a dhow from Kiang-Nan
Where words of love rolled amid cannon and ball,
The rhythmic squall softened a sailor’s heart,
He stole away in a boat filled with hessian sacks
And planted new orchards in distant lands
Where our blood became sweeter and sweeter.
We have liberty now stamped red on our skins,
Symbiotic we are with the new vine and earth,
Our tongues are narrow, but the blood swells rich.
I’m an infidel swiftly diminishing,
Precious oils have dried in wells,
I’m all chewed up inside, I know it.
This once sexy bandit’s belly button’s black.
I’m a host for egg laying strangers.
Come to my bowl, tease cerise, taste my tang.
It’s too late hand; I’m really rotten now.
Meta Stasis
She walks stiffly,
slowly in tree shadows, model thin,
shoeless in wind torn grass.
Boughs bend to stroke her bald head.
Ochre brushes tease
her feet like a lover’s touch.
Her mind runs through
visible madness,
a gyroscope writhes the soul.
The wheel stands clean,
a cage with no air.
Clearness is black light in disguise.
Life is acrid, miasmic to breathe,
but it’s hers to enjoy or to spit.
She’s seen the tautness,
a torpid smile,
pretended to wallow in it,
watched it frown behind eyes and twitch.
And felt life’s cork
pushed down so deep,
her bruised tongue pressed;
it grew knuckles.
She milked heaven’s stars,
black weighed heavy on the moon.
She staked a claim on a comet,
it was her 29th birthday.
She bled and felt
useful in the bleeding.
Tears, more innocence fell.
A gallop was heard,
a heartbeat in a dream,
sound soared, no trace of an anchor.
Her sallow face now turns
to meet the demi-sun.
Salt air skirts the treetops.
Rocks rise from the sand.
The black dress, she wears,
snags its length on limpet shells.
Threads trail like dead fishing lines.
Removed from time,
memory and infirmity,
she stares at the purple sea,
wishing to merge.
Transparent, boundless,
feeling life’s nuances in ripples,
pensively gliding in the motion of waves.
Weightless, serene,
released, liquid moments,
melting in momentum,
embracing nature’s wet
realm with humility.
Time has surrendered
its will in the magic.
The ticking mechanism has ceased.
Black cloth looses its structure,
it falls.
Shoals of sea horses
nibble remnants,
flame-blue clouds
hiccup from tiny mouths.
Below the eye of the moon,
a graceful form glitters
on the face of water,
heading out to infinite blue, free.
Fronds grow on a silver carapace,
as fish chase tails of nebulous indigo.