trethevy quoit

Stand here

moss washing over rock

hands in time

I think of all who have passed through

their atoms blessing sky

if you were here with me

your Irish bones and Welsh soul

how many years will I wish

you were with me

this girl of shifting blood

drawn to the pasture lands of Cornwall

more than any purposing Chaîne des Puys can evoke

the Sioule wrapping herself between empty valleys

or the sorrow of les Pyrénées, a gentle horror

languishing in Cathar country

their ghosts stumbling between worlds

I never belonged in those spaces

memory an acerbic ¿Cómo se dice

*as flies to wanton boys are we to the gods

just as I do not now, own a home

in the barren tumbleweed of Texas

unattached, they call it ‘winged pigweed’

even as we sneeze it away to carry on

lonely pilgrimage amongst spoiled tarmac

perhaps it wasn’t even trethevy quoit

but you, and your pure love

filling me with a peace

I have not possessed since

(*line taken from King Lear, Shakespeare).

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Anywhere but this

How many times

Have I said

I’m tired

Close the chapter on me

Let me sleep

High up with mistletoe and squirrel moss

I sent away for a facsimile

Perhaps it will come already programmed

Take my place at the side of table

Mannikin hands jointed clicking clacking

Perhaps she’d love that mail order version

Better

Though love is no longer in our lexicon

The broken shoes of children

Destined to run barefooted

Toes stained with rhubarb juice

Tasting sour, tasting tart

Something bitter lingering among sweetness

For so long I waited

Watching

For you to turn at curve of road

And you did not (you did not, you did not, you did not)

The simmering lump in my candle throat

Never swallowed

When pain builds

First callused, then scars

Has anyone inquired what comes next?

I lost my voice

Then my sight

Then my hearing

It was terrifying

And it was peaceful

For I couldn’t hear them fall

Like tiger moths born in ice

Freeze with first breath, pirouette to ground

Nor see them rot and turn to wine

Nor speak of the pain

Through their juicy little mouths sewn quiet

I see now

Why people run

Why people turn to stone

But what if you can’t

And all you knew was love?

Then

What?

Sometimes I want to cut you into tiny pieces

But you’d still exist

Larger than life

In my filing cabinet of expectations

I was told once if you expect nothing

You can’t be disappointed

I found that so sad

Like eggs without salt

I wanted to taste it all

Be genuine, be real

But first the fur was rubbed off

Then the gentle felt

And finally my glass eyes

Scratched

Just like when you cry

The world was blurred

I couldn’t make out who it was

Who ached and who tore

Till I looked inside and saw it was me

Standing there in the sunlit road

Watching for traffic

And maybe your return

Or maybe a fast car

Whether it hits me

Or passes by

Maybe it stops

Maybe I get in and when asked

Reply

I’m going anywhere

Anywhere but this

Paris is for lovers

There are many kinds of travelers

one who promotes the art of transience

with ejubulent smiling photos atop picturesque vitas, repleat with apeing friends

sleeps undisturbed by change, in the marvel of perpetual motion

one who never travels

but hastens to add, everyone must

and enjoy it they should

for all they cannot understand, they bundle

in wistfulness and naivity

like a child imagining adulthood

the last traveler is uneasy

feeling a sorrow in changing places

the witness of other lives and roads

since earliest memory the yoke of

vacation was not to be appreciated but mourned

their comfort found in staying still

than the kalidoscope of others spin

demanding constancy and things, unable to be bequeathed

where disturbance comes, in the form of expectation

sorrow of coach stations and midway stops

grief striken as graves and road trips without gasoline

you are said to be fortunate, if you can travel often

the grateful traveler may forget

the gritty loneliness of their highway bed

never admitting they wished to return, even before they set off

belonging is a feeling, some will never attain

their search in crowds of strangers, leaves further lost than claimed

Yet no one

No one at all

Will ever admit

To being loathe to travel

Anticipating wonder

I’m on the bus in Mont-Dauphin

young sunburned boys are looking at sunburned girls

with low cut tops and tan marks on their thighs

taking the overnight Intercités train

where sleep is found in drizzling dots of lights and darkness

interspersed with wolves

Perpignan, Marquixanes, no stop beckons

but memories pile, like popping candy

fizzes in your mouth just long enough

to remind you how you once felt

in your own brand of youth

dirty and wide-eyed from the road

anticipating wonder

Empty space

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

Claim

Don’t open your chest up

let the butterflies out

burn the velvet gloves and seek to trust

hands held over hands in circles

dancing to the gravy of secure claim

Don’t risk dissolution

by the marble hands of your own family

it never gets easier

a little death upon a little death

pursed words kissing with violence

and just as you know all these things

you hang yourself by the neck

that’s the fool who is a child

keeps returning to empty chairs

all fall down

such is the rope burn

when love turns cruel

when love lets you down

family existing to crush the lotus

how then does the bloom float

something wide and spectacular

with waterlogged roots seeking ground

how then does the moon touch water?

reflecting shapes of wonder against glass

the hurt is

fierce and terrible

the tiger is

open mouthed

the knife digs

deep into sound

stars blitz like warm shower

lights echo in soft purr

you can cut me down with one word

you hold the key, you are my blood

and I love you when you hurt me

more than I should allow

how do we learn

to avoid exposure when

our wrists are bound

by family ties and emptiness

perhaps the pain is reminder

life is a knife, it can butter, it can cut

if we try we can surf

the upside more than down

like migrating streams releasing winter’s cold

 

 

Except smell

I did not speak your language

until I learned in the dust of play

communicating with shapes and funny faces

then I understood more until

giving away who I was 

I embraced your world

step by step accents relent

we pawn our histories

to fit in better like the crayon

is never quite the right hue

coughing scarlet consumptive 

we want to be unseen unnoticed

to fly at night when all are sleeping

do not point us out in a crowd

or remind us of who we once were

the immigration of battleworn hearts

denies who we were before we marooned ourselves

in other tongues, other culture

they say you never forget your childhood

what do they know? sitting in the same

room as when they were knee high

the truth is you forget almost anything

except smell

and when you come to hold me close

you ask me why do you cry?

and the cumin of your hair is

something I can never explain

except with hands making

feelings out of air