Tess

You sprang from the land of the long white cloud,

ventured beyond the Southern Alps

and ploughed a patch on another little island.

You came to discover things, my friend.

Wise and alive and strong like a silver fern,

you grow outwards and have strong roots

below. You learn things when you

fear you don’t know.

The status quo won’t do for you my friend,

there is always more.

So you take strides, you gallivant and you explore.

You’ve tried things, you’ve failed and have been sore,

even cried and given in.

Take it on the chin: a win without a

fight, anyway, is a redundant kind of win.

Mark on your map in indelible ink this

stop on your journey;

that’s what it is, I think.

Embark on everything, cross the borders

into everywhere and climb out of every window.

You deserve the whole world you’ve been travelling

and nothing less.

Wander around, procrastinate and effervesce.

You are my Frances, my friend, my Tess.

H33

So you’ve caught up with me,

and you now can

declare you are also thirty-three.

Two and thirty other silly little times you’ve

had cards and gifts, but those are now only fond debris

compared with what I hope you should

expect, next.

I’ve listened and observed as you’ve

skipped over and swerved steps and rocky

obstacles. Those hurdles that once

were ahead in the distance are a glance

over your shoulder now.

Colourful you

has danced on stony boulders.

Stapled fairy lights across doorways,

painted pots and chanted songs about churches with me.

 Like your little spider plants,

you’ve grown all over unstoppably:

unashamedly strong, unapologetically free.

And so: did you take a chance on a little romance?

Shall we talk saris, shiny costumes and a

gift-wrapped bindi?

Yes, there were those other mediocre, throwaway men,

and then

there was

 Indie.

This is a story that could write itself backwards,

a new nostalgia. A fable

so familiar the beginning escapes you.

Thinning and threadbare, the memory of you without him

Will soon disappear somewhere.

Just as the memory of my life before you

isn’t true. You are my warm weather forecast

heralding sunny days

until the end of the

summer and for always.

And the Pearl makes Three

The Pearl Makes Three

They journeyed, my friends.

Their love grew tall like the high tide

marked by green on a pier wall.

They sailed onwards, married over mileage,

threw their net wide and

then dropped anchor in a place they

decided to be.

Then suddenly (it seemed) The Bird and the Sea

were nearly a three.

Here they are, gazing out from

the bank of a highland loch

and taking stock before the real adventure begins.

They could speak grandfather’s chins, choose brown or blue eyes,

debate silly names and remember their childhood times.

Nursery rhymes were sung to them only yesterday.

All the time, taking shape and listening is their little stowaway.

Under the waves of her heartbeat, still

resting in its  bay and connected by a glittering sliver of a strand

Perfectly formed but not quite ready to unfurl

is an ocean pearl.

A tiny carbonite thing, strengthened already

by concentric layers: round like her

belly that burgeons against her clothes.

Tough, like your father and

harboured by the day-to-day swell.

Just one hop away in time

from iridescence: she has that as well.

This friend of mine, the magnificent girl:

the Mother of Pearl.

The House Where You Died

I'm here in your home where you died.
I cried on the leather sofa yesterday
where you expired.
Your incinerated bones are on the shelf
by the TV.
Of course, they're not - they can't be - looking at me.
They're solemnly heavy, like cement
but I've never held that.
Your body fat and sinews and eyeballs
and so much of you. Your ashes can't see me.
But should they ought to?
Is grief something I've shrugged off,
and been taught to eschew; the pain?
There are two sides up in the northern heather,  here;
whispers savage their way into my
stuffed up ears. I am under duress to hear this
misplaced anger. Being mad at rain because you got yourself
soaked. An acorn resulted from a scorched oak.
The moors have two sides. Cold, bleak and murder-filled. Sunny
and bright and I see your smile in every
country mile of tarmac.

Helen

In five days and one month it will have been a year
of not having you here.
A calendar full of forgettable days
that have lolloped into a year.
Milestones I have been through alone.

Your skin and your smell and your voice
are still here in traces.
I am sent them in dream-places and flittering
trickles, spools of memories that
can never truly capture you.

A year is just too measly a
slice of time.
A flake, a little shudder.
Not nearly enough of a stretch to be
able to say goodbye or begin to forget
the thirty-two years that have stalled
to a near-pause since you vanished.

Grief feels like so much weight.
Like a plate metal costume; cold and
uncomfortable.
Some other strategy.
There is no longer a you and me. You're
free. You're there.
And me? I could scream at the
unfairness of it all. Fall on the floor
and - in despair - bewilder myself with the word mother.

I fear my fading memory, I'm scared I won't
remember your face if sleep beats the fight out of me.
Waking, I fear I'll see blankness instead
of your smile and that would be like discovering
you are dead a second time.

You wouldn't be far, were you breathing,
you wouldn't be far. But you are,
aren't you, Mum? You are.

Padlock these memories for me now and
tell me how I can keep them safe.

Just vote

And if you’re not careful they’ll throw bricks through your windows.

Goes to show, you who think you’re in the know, don’t know

anything at all, you could be working on a market stall

touting your tatty wares.

We don’t care that you’re there or

What you try to do.

We’ll just expose you to our horrible disingenuous spite

should you fight, strike, allow the like

of the right and his ilk to steal money and

milk and spin cotton into silk for

the rich while they privatise and monetise and fantasise about

an island without poor and shut the front door to refugees and those that can’t help it.

Helpless people, we’re all sheep and we’re just keeping this going.

Let down the shutters, earwig on those mutters of insidious hatred,

We have waited too long and bated our breath under duress

and at the behest of our nation and some say our creation but just pure procrastination

we let it happen. We obey.

Lefty they say, lefty they shout, get them all out,

It’s a drought of humour and humanity and what is left of depravity is

In the US waving placards and flags, “We hate fags”.

In the schools and in the bedrooms, these cages of cobwebs

That spindle around the brain and riddle the soul

are asking for a name, an unticked box.

like chickenpox. It’s itchy, so scratch it

An unhinged door on a latch and an unlit match and they’re

Waiting. What are you so afraid of?

One Year

Like when you crick your neck in the wrong way
and it feels like something not hurt
but jarred.
That's how inexpicable it is to say
one year.
It's nothing like hard.
That's a syllable and it's said by
absolutely everyone.
When I feel miserable and guilty
for feeling miserable
I feel these hundreds of days
have been treading-time, getting used to it.
Un-training my hand to grab you.
De-fathoming my mind, un-synching
the plans.
Mother, bride, grandma, grey in a rocking chair.
Brushing my hair, fixing the clasp on my first bra, wiping my nervous tears.
Memories, hopes.
I wish I could have had both.
You are now This Someone to everyone and
they think they own you because
you left so suddenly; but you only
belong to me.
One year and I do know how many days
but it feels too many to say out loud.
Such a wisp of a life I've been living since
and lying about it all the time. Because
I've been proud and embarrassed.
A thrown away piece of paper with
nothing of note written on it.
An afterbirth of a ghost.
Regrets, what I've wished for the most?
Had I stayed, stroked your
face, scattered your ashes over the coast,
into the wind, away into salt spray,
I might feel better.
I might feel okay.
But you're ether. And I can't feel you either.
Not in a dog's bark, not a goosebump or a blossom-bloom
I don't believe you've been in this room.
You're pure absence. And since
you went, it's a phony world
I walk in. Seaside town with shutters down,
no games today.
No ferris wheel, no waltzers.
No spinning around for fun.
From where I came from to here,
just one year. A crick in the neck;
jarring. Plains and beaches and
farms and my arms can't
hold you.




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