Once
the lean arms of a willow
wrapped around my belief
nothing was going to change
there would always be
this moment
where your eyes took me in
hungry and unapologetic
and I
like most who are young and eternal
watched myself on film
blinking against bright sun
unaware of shadows
Girl you are not a girl anymore
you are a woman
woman you are reviled and judged
for being a woman
when you were a girl it was suffice to
have a nice pair of legs and a pretty mouth
do you recall how often you were asked to ‘cheer up and smile love’
when all you were doing was trying to grow-up and be serious?
how men would do your bidding because of your WonderBra and not the sense of your words
now you are a woman
you will inherit
inequality
double-standards
and not be able to find clothes that feel right in stores not meant for your body
because nothing is going to come easy anymore and still
as you sit there in your curves and your burgeoning skin
feeling the surround of yourself lapping at the corners
you will inherit also
the voice of your round bellied ancestors
who have come ringing through time and again
been judged, poked, prodded or worse, flat out ignored
seen how silver haired men get all the fuss like carefully licked jewels
whilst a woman of substance is
lost lost lost
behind the mad din and snuff of youth
for youth it seems needs a distinguished father of any age
but does not require
a mother
a grandmother
a female sage
for women are judged upon their reproductive abilities and
the years they have lived beneath the moon listening to the shore
if too few, they are deemed unintelligent
too many and nobody wants to hear
for women are judged upon
scales created long before
an even playing field was won
if it has, if it has yet
for women it is easier to become lost after the lights have grown less hot
held to a higher standard than the eternal covet of men
who are picked up and dusted off by many worshipful female hands
too eager to say ‘there, there, I will help you, poor thing’
who shall help then, the woman?
Not her own kind, surely, nor men who adore only youngest vintage
Who shall see her? When she is grown and perhaps does not accept her allotted place
or wish to remain invisible or grow old with pressurized grace
who shall listen when she wants to be heard at any age?
or the desires of her are beyond the sanctioned pail
or her damp passion which does not flip and flop and require Viagra
a woman if she is loved
is ten-fold her maiden self
for the wefts and the welts are earned and learned and now they represent
a splendid coat of multicolor
she wears with pride and sometimes regret
but more often silver wisdom and the softening yet
of her edges into rounded corners and eventually
a supple circle come full
the world may dominate her discourse
the youth may clamor for their right to change the channel
she may slip quietly through the bridled noise
with strong thick womanly thighs
and as men chase their tail and young women cast a gaze that seems to say
who the HELL do you think you are, old lady?
woman, you do not bat your eyes or rise to those absurdities left behind
for she is the wake of day and dusted sleep of night
cradling the future in her all-mighty grip
she learns from being kicked
to stand she must let go of the girl within and be
a woman of our time
casting her pearly net wide as she
swallows the sea and sighs
letting the tide tumble out with her exhaled breath
aaahhh yes
aaahhh yes
Gaining weight used to feel
dangerous
body parts blowing up, smothering familiarity
she wanted to be in control of everything and nothing could be controlled
so she took what she could instead …
her own flimsy pounds of flesh
the shrinking and expanding of time
denial and suppression, weezing like old men
enraptured by ballet dancer who starves herself to death
if she ignored her bodies longing to transform, she stayed small
and boys could circle her waist and say; you haven’t changed a bit! She could believe the lie and retrace time
could still be a slip of a girl, wearing her old clothes from when she was free of the demands of adulthood and blood, blood that did not rinse clear even when scrubbed
and this she did, for far too long, for fear of else
for what more was she? Not a mother, not since hurtling down the stairs, pushed by love, she saw her baby break into knots of placenta and gore
now not sure of whom she had become, in absenting herself it was easier, to dwell in the old shell and not
expand
comfort in knowing one’s exact circumfrance
and how it would feel to place a hand upon her flesh
a control without anything behind it, empty strawman, left without match to kindle, burn and diminish
she stayed the same whilst the rest of the world changed
grew wider, grew taller, grew inside and out
she was a fascimile of her damp past
it wasn’t until a sickening reduced her to almost empty
where she rattled and she clacked and she was hollow cheeked and pigeon chested
then her heart flickered on and off and she knew
the danger of staying still, was too great
she ate, though the taste was gone and appetite nil
outgrowing her own well known shape, she became something new
it was a frightening feeling to find what she would be
now that she had turned the corner and let the adult in
would she be like her mother with tiny little legs and arms?
or more of her father’s broad shoulders and freckled stomach
she was nobodies lover and nobodies mother
it hurt to cut herself out of the place she’d been so long, though long stale
and try to break out on her own, one unfamiliar piece at a time
in the bath she would gaze at her new body
bearing the marks of where she had visited
the underworld and the center of the sun
burning and drowning simultaneously
Her chest resembled the teets of a tiger, her thighs wide and strong
Readied to climb mountains, burst dams, forge expectancy
nothing else seemed important least of all
if she fitted into or fitted out of
the places she used to belong
this was a new version
she was going to gain more
than mere pounds and stone
she was going to quit starving to remain familiar
and learn the value of expansion
Will I go back in time?
Wet stockings, drying like chapped hands on weazy radiator
Your disapprobation, her disinterest, parents who
Took poorly to the role
And I, their disappointment
Not strictly failure
More a damp root, a smell of mold
Reminding them of empty spaces within themselves
I lay, hot brow, empty handed, slack mouthed, dearticulated by illness
Briefly relieved to be cut loose
And years passed overhead without sound
Tiny dancers on the globe turning time
Until they could not be certain, of ever having had
A child
Nor was I sure, I had been born
Such is the potency of separation
We can remove ourselves to point of extinction
And now I may return, the Archer retracing steps
With fine lines and trembling notion, mangled by distance
They cast every doubt in nets of resentment
No doubt it was a relief not to attempt a role
Illsuited to
People without need
We forget
Going home is often empty
Ageing backward
once a child
stuffed with potential
you could be burned and
engage future with the severed fearlessness of the young
who do not believe the bell will toll for them
and come a day
marked by tree rings of frigid growth
looking up at sky emptied of cloud
how cruel the season burns
secrets from the branches
that day
an altered girl sinks beneath bath water
marred by her loathing self
what emerges trembled in fear
keep the lights on mama
she is returning to unknowing
It is the dementia of the soul
clamoring for relief
her bones are no longer soft and green
they grow lean and she curls
away from herself
those days of succor and wiggle
when was the last time you touched her like a flower?
and opening she cried into you
tumbling into a shared well of blossom
we both wear silver in our hair now
released from knowledge, return to unknown
lying like a split pomegranate
seeds spilling out
mouths stained radiant
how did you live so long to trap yourself?
back in the box of musk and gunpowder
the lock sounds like a scythe
it is cold and unworn
opposing sides climb to the rumor
you are undone
I always wanted to visit New Hampshire
because of John Irving’s book & the film with Rob Lowe & Natasha Kinski
who
could not act
yet their chiseled attractiveness
stood in for them, a superficial filler
as often is the case
for some that is how
life’s entirety unfolds
they don’t really choose
going with the muslin crowd
falling into things like sharpened
pencils sit neatly on a desk
ready to be taken up & blunted
I never felt easy or molded to
others surges
when the crowd hastened to rise
I would take the other pew, sit a while
watching the admonishment of wood
bending over itself in prayer
where discarded moments
buoyed a sense of artificiality strung on a line
flung into frozen lake
as melancholy as any conjured mist
for it was my curse to be a romantic
& New Hampshire is just another place
where my dreams lay a while
purring against naped fancy
it is sometimes better not to seek them out
for they will never be quite as you imagined
life is no film or book
it is a long & windy road sometimes rendered ugly by
man’s fecund print
the only dream is found
in youth or its diminishing wings
when everything is a stage
& beauty elucidates our need
to believe
the hand of ancient love
helping each other dress stiffly by creaking radiator
four knees popping with affection
I want to retrace the mortar of what beseached
me to hold castles in the air & believe
one day I would witness magic
for if my hopes were less grand
more flat and ordinary
I may not have spent so long
gazing upward at empty rafters
thinking myself an acrobat
afraid of heights
My feet were always too big for vintage shoes
granny said
girl you’re outgrowing your ancestors
measured my 1980’s girth with pokered face
disgracing corselet historians with modern gait
I never was the black-eyed-girl of my father’s heart
his own ungainly DNA bore him a chip off the old block
who knew his self-loathing would rub free like lint
on the broad shoulders of imperfect kin
you’ve no delicacy in your frame girl
your hands are too wide for these kid gloves
you cannot fit into the stays and confines of the past
where did you come from? changeling?
half and half in one world and the next
part girl part boy part aberration an inverse
it was easier to steal a pair of dungarees
climb the old knobbly willow tree
dropping apple pips in indigo pond
a disappointing girl with one eye patched lest it wander
I saw my delicate mother and her child’s form
rush like a dancer into applauding future
gone from those who would love her best
she left a horse hair brush that smelt of her skin
and I did not know what to be
standing there with my unliked shell of pallor
a mockery of fallen relations between two lovers
retreating to the verge of attention their child
I waited until nobody expected me home
muddied, stained and bramble scratched
children with no reflection
if you asked me then whom I loved the most
I would have pointed to the owl
grand in his luminous white feathers
for he saw the little girl’s disappointment
and together they sang
low into night
to beckon timorous vole
closer
It’s your turn to make the second pot of coffee
let’s take the day off, close the computer, shut our doors
silence the voices who sound awfully like 12 and 13-year-old teens
complaining about losing their homework and pointing fingers
when did we learn not to grow up?
I always thought Huck had a point when he tied his handkerchief on a stick and took to the wild
this is not the Peter Pan kind of childish fantasy
when we talk of growing up and growing down we forget
like Picasso once said in order to render abstract we first need to know the techniques of how to paint
then we choose like the 90-year-old who says screw it I will eat what I want, that’s informed consent
childish however, is the absence of reason and consequence splayed like tired kids exhausted from pass-the-parcel
fluttering like a torn flag over a battle field of this and that
the news isn’t objective the screech of complaints sounding like a hen-house on fire
nobody listens nobody really knows it’s not about fact it’s about opinion and who gargles loudest
I think back to the playground of my youth where twice a flasher showed his bits to the girls and they all screamed
ew it looks like a sausage! I never want to eat meat again! and ran off laughing
it is true, me and Donna plugged the girls outside loos with toilet paper
so Mrs Slug would come and tell us off, mushy peas staining her apron
detention is better when it’s freezing out
we had reason behind our madness
and whilst we didn’t see the folly of flooding the loos back then
or how long it would take with stinking mop and bucket to dry off
we learned our consequence and next time feigned illness to stay by the radiator
oh nurse it’s my head it’s pounding! You do look a little green, here read a book
there is a learning curve
lost to generations who think answers are found in the oracle of computers
and those older folk who try vainly to stay relevant and forget their lessons
we would benefit from observing consequence and seeing it through
rather than a sound bite on TV as we spoon feed ourselves snippets of news
nothing stays long enough to take it in, we’re attention-deficit spinning tops
straining to think
would the chilly air of our playground and the closed doors until after lunch is over
wake us to reality? and if we stepped inside, would we attempt to take with us the lessons
we internalized?
or like the hippies of the sixties do we grow out of phases and give away our flares for business suit to rule the world
is death so onerous that we fear anything but power?
is inconsequence so fearsome we’ll make a splash at any cost?
what of all those we know nothing of? they say history is written by the victor, I think often
of all those who didn’t traditionally ‘win’ anything and what they would write
it is said you are bound to repeat history if you do not know it
but what if the very truth we revere, didn’t get it right?
When I was a kid in the playground I used to wish to grow up so I could
avoid being told when to play and when to learn
not knowing then nothing changes as much as you think
I envied the teachers their staff room where they thought we did not know
they smoked and ate hot cross buns and talked of rumors of the headmaster and
his male deputy
who both wore open toe shoes in Winter and I once asked him when ushered into his office for winning a poetry prize
don’t your toes get cold?
and he said
I do this in remembrance of christ I want to feel what he felt
and that Xmas we put on Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat
the drama teacher said candy you can do backflips can’t you? You can be the queen of the Egyptians
and I never felt so good as that day I wore an old wig I once dressed up and played Kate Bush in
with sequins and blankets stitched into approximation I shook my belly and pretended it contained jewels
the headmaster’s eyes teared up and he stole a look at the young junior who
sang along with our ‘who built the ark?’ louder than us all, dabbing his small eyes with the back of his hand
afterward Clement and I climbed up to the roof playground and on the wire we swung upside down
daring each other to fall knowing we couldn’t
maybe that’s a metaphor for the fear we need to feel
the safety net
of all endeavor
how holding hands with a boy in the dark
briefly I was the queen of egypt and everything seemed so real
in a way it never does now
because not once did I need a search engine to tell me
what I believed was true
TheFeatheredSleep 