I have to smile at my habit
of sipping so lightly
at wisdom’s offered cup
before wanting to pass it along
with genuine generosity
and wisdom, more generous still
keeps bringing me flavours
and invitations
to drink the cup dry,
imbibing deeply,
a profound gluttony
I feared for so long,
satiation
from a cup that never empties.
These quenched roots
end travel as I have known it,
watering this precious blossom,
the offering not from any gesture;
scent wafting
from these full petals.
Those foals
who struggle only once
and find their legs so quickly
even as they falter
how did I miss that lesson,
why has it taken so long
to find these feet?
And even at this age
long past cute or innocent,
I can welcome the faltering
and bravely try to stand,
hoping that this wet
is residue
from a new birth.
Poetry of the body,
this tracing of currents
to see where thoughts travel,
glimmers of fish in streams,
where debris has diverted
fresh flow
and can be shifted.
And of course these thoughts
are rarely words,
moving as sensation and mood,
colours of some cousin to electricity.
Despite my blindness
and all the ways I am numb,
there is a kind of listening
that touches on knowing
and by these fragile threads
I lead myself home.
She will break you
with an unseen kindness,
rattling your shape
until the brittle fragments
form a destitute mosaic,
a natural, defeated jumble
of broken colours.
And though you fear the piercing power
of these sharp shards,
she laughs with deft hands.
And shakes some more,
knowing you have secret pockets
to hoard your offerings,
persistent in her demands,
confident in her right to steal
what you don’t know how to give;
hers the artistry,
you the sand and water
fused to catch light
and broken for new shimmering.
I am a messy painter,
it comes from the way
these brushes are clutched
between my fingers,
creating a long fan
in each hand.
Each brush a different shade,
sliding paint around my world
without precision
but dripping love,
profusion of colour.
And rainbows may be cliché,
artistically lacking,
but each brush carries tenderness;
my committed flailing
trails this beauty.
All these heroes
who find the front of the room
to disrobe,
to proudly say I am gay,
I’m an alcoholic,
I have been wounded
and can show you how to live
with the liberated raw.
And me,
after scratching for a long while,
and listening in the night,
and letting the black sludge
pour from my bowels
in a paltry stream
on a small patch of ground
… my name is Heather,
and I’m not very nice.
Huge secret, that,
which is partly the joke
shared by men and women
at the front of the room,
bringing stories into light
after darkness
mostly hid them from their own view.
And me, I live with
nasty Gollum,
not the famous quester
but a little one
that scrabbles on my path,
whispering my need of more,
darting off to check the path next door,
cold and lonely and quite mad.
All this old steel for cage,
checking at the useless lock,
keeping her out of sight
except for all the times
she slips through the bars
… I give up the warden role,
stop pouring resources
in false penitentiary.
Fighting her has taken too much
from my heart,
has robbed my loins
of necessary nasty,
has sucked air from my lungs
that needed fuel
for belly fire.
I am not very nice
and you’d better hear it.
My aspirations of niceness
depended on a static clean,
a future transfiguration.
I choose instead the journey,
leaving the cage behind us on the trail,
letting my Gollum
squeeze my neck and pull my hair
as I carry her piggyback
and we trudge
or sometimes whistle on our way.
Too much, I feel
the vibrant geometry
of all those starlings,
each with their own dance
of effort and immersion.
The skill of dropping in
to links far deeper than the thoughts
in any bird-brain.
Grace manifest,
each feather tilting in a shared cohesion
to lift a bird,
each bird doing the same
to make a beauty never seen again
the same way twice.
And all those birds together
lifting human heads in awe,
forgotten tastes of joy.
Inside, the same shifting,
a fractal community
patterning, pattering
all these wings
and I have kept them caged,
worried about their feeding.
Too much
is just a hole,
a waiting for a key
shaped like love.
with thanks to Occupy Love
Unlike my friend
who polishes her stories
so they shine
at cocktail parties,
I have daily flecks of gold
free at water’s edge.
Still timid,
the questions hide,
when what I want to ask is:
what have you summoned lately?
what are your dreams conjuring
onto your day-to-day canvas?
And talking of the weather
as an act of social kindness,
curiousity longs to ask:
what have you heard in the cold?
what tales has water spoken?
I saw myself,
a sideways glimpse,
sneaking past my fear
to find someone else
to do my work.
Not just the obvious aversions
but also the care of my fiefdom;
baker, lover, monk
lined up for pay.
The glance forward
to a bloated self
watching a coach
on my treadmill.
There is a howl
that echoes in a ragged hole
where I rarely hear
the wail of my own need,
anger pulsing aimlessly.
All these stories of love
denied, light
covered, joy
squelched in the mud of propriety.
Salt from unshed tears
lining my rancour,
a chemistry of resentment
cracking the base
of all these pedestals
tumbling.
I have my proofs of hurt,
red banners fading to white,
carried for the oft-imagined day
of reckoning and truce.
But as light works its decay
on the pigment of my stories,
even white banners are weakened,
absorbed in the tremors
of a silent moan escaping,
a bitter wind astringent,
wiping me empty.
Here where all is lost,
the breeze has more space
for bumping,
dangled shards of my heart
touching like chimes.