Sunday 16 August 2009

Another one I found that I'd forgotten..



The Inherited

Generations have died before they've had a chance
to tell me how I'll go. One sudden death after another.
How do I prepare? Perhaps they are themselves
the indication and I'll just go like they did: in the morning
unable to sit up for fear of pooling blood; in hospital,
a pink swab mopping saliva from sunken parts of face;
eight weeks from diagnosis.

I could carry round whole heaps of hows to stop it, but slings
and plasters are no prevention. Every pain I have could be
where things will loosen first, every limp and yawn
a last hurrah, a sign of things to come.

I am not calm, but my oblivious heart is tapping out the truth
on my love-torn ribs: b-bum, b-bum, b-bum—
I think hear correctly: all is well yet, all is well.

Tuesday 11 August 2009

I just found this on my computer at work.



The blue and yellow roller-boots handed down to me from the 70s

I was in mid-air when I noticed the blackbird nest:
I soon felt the snap of flightlessness in my coccyx.

The cats would wait here at the bottom every summer,
tasting imaginary bones, re-enacting the catch

while the parents bred and fed like crazy
their fat, stranded children.

Wednesday 5 August 2009

It's been a little while.



And in that time I have been on holiday. Also, a moth came to visit me that was as big as my palm. I'm not sure where it's gone now, but hopefully out and toward the real moon, wherever that leads, as my big broken paper lantern (as it just learned) is not the same thing and leads only to trouble. And a headache.

And so for a photo, first, and then maybe a poem later.