|
|
|
|
I have taken to drawing dogs. They have begun to seem more like people than people. I feel more certain that they will Inherit the earth. I feel safer when a dog snarls Than when a person smiles. I can see them deciding not to think of all the answers Before they’ve eaten their dinner. I can see they’re not bothered if the post is late or if They miss the bus to Fulham Broadway. Their faces do not pose when you look at them. (And then try and pretend that they’ve just seen you.) If they’re happy, they’re happy – and sad if they’re sad. If they got begging letters – they would answer all of them. In their heads, all of them are riding motorbikes across France Without a cur in the world. And most brilliantly of all – they do not write poetry. I like dogs.
Just like that with half a coconut from the fair. and you had to swallow it or wallop a cat with a dead dogs bollocks. And then, and then, run past a mad nun and Jimmy the tramp and make it down to the railway-lines and leave your head on the line until. Someone with ginger hair goes past and shouts “Hey Mad Mickey— get yourself home, your tea’s on’t table.” And, unless your mam’s dead— in which case it’s allright — you have to lock your best friend in the toilet and never ever let them out. But, when you do, ONLY do it when everyone else thinks they’re dead. But, if you’re really shit-scared, AND the cops come looking — only own up to the coconut.
(But, that’s it, right ? )
Foxgloves are a wild flower. I sleep on a bed of them. I eat foxglove, dream foxglove. I am foxglove.
Smooth, purple, pockets of foxglove fill up my eyes. New blood grows from my nails, washes itself into my hair. Foxglove, foxglove. The colour is insistent. It is my new colour. With the colour I am become strong. Tall. It is the colour I am fit for.
The foxglove is neither fox nor glove but keeps itself, in all, under wraps, part by painted part. The colour is as I would wish, I do not fear them.
I keep some foxgloves in my secret cupboard. They are as innocent as snow, sweet purple snow, they can put a spell on you. But do not fear them... they show you a simple face.
Beyond their face, they cup a wildness to themselves.
Some turn their faces to the bold sky and from it take new heart. Upon you, upon them I shall cast a spell of welcome. I live. I breathe. I can deny them nothing. I am foxglove.
The bones of the old house Stand on an orchard. So. The bones and blood of my house are apples. Whole juicy crinolines of them. Here the trees are laden, are ladies with ruby fans pulpy with apple segments. Their fans speak the language of apples. I speak the language of trees, of apples.
I myself, though you cannot see it, am apple. My fingertips are apple-pips. My blood runs clean as cider blood. In the night the bricks rustle like the soft leaves of russets nestled at dawn as they protect the ground from itself. The earth has a way of answering fruit. It is the swing of a pendulum as time itself becomes edible. Over my dreams birds fly, call to me, “You are not alone. Let the tree that loves you ripen.”
The birds protect the apple shell of my head on the pillow. Our eyes watch the leaning towers of trees sway in the wind, the long branches of people’s dreams — the green skin of them unpeeling, unravelling behind their swollen eyes. We are turning, turning into the red pulse of our selves as we wake. Our teeth close on the creamy, unbitten day. Then. We are falling. Fallen. Our throats swollen with Autumn. The years pour through our bodies like cool, silk green water. Our bodies that are sinking, that are the crumpling of flesh. Only that. I am wearing my dream skin now, do you see???
Like the centre of fruit we have dreamed ourselves. Like the centre of fruit, we are ticking flesh. We are the perfumed opal cores of apples. Within me the apples that are golden hang — my apple soul, at last comes home.
|
©
of
all poems featured on this site remains with the
poet |