Saturday 30 May 2015

//Poems//The Forest Book//









Forest Girl

With eyes deep as owls and my
Flagrant denials of self.
With the faint spoor of the forgotten.
Deep green winter cowls.
 
Aspects of stars in blackness
And the precious night will show me
Departed people as metaphors.
 
Silence reverberates through
The indigo coolness.
Walking with the shadows of the trees
Casting inky blue pools at my feet. 
 
Red Hair

I’m half hidden beneath the hawthorn tree
I vouch my life they won’t ever see me.
My incarnation is wispy and winnowed
I’m barely here on my own terms.
 
I march through my wooded groves of violent
terrain.
My home is hard and unyielding but it is all I have
Ever known. All I've ever known. It is all I've ever known.
 
Blood stains and iron scent that I perfume myself 
With. I’m expert at killing for nourishment.
 
Black serge dress and windings of wool
Raise steam as I walk for miles.
Hunks of elbow and ungainly movements
Borne of nights on forest floors with
Rocks beneath my head.
Flame red hair flowing behind me
Wound with acorns and cloves that I’ve saved.
Dusty hearts of puffballs explode brown smoke
That wreaths around my ankles.
I disappear into an ancient hedgerow. 
 
Ice Heart
 
Its beating stopped long ago
With jagged uncertainty I meander through what’s left.
Ice scrunched under booted feet, I stamp and I stamp
What’s left of life and of civility in me.
 
Like piss yellow snow I’m rank and pale
The boughs of winter willow scrag and catch my hair.
Bed of boughs bent into shelter. 
 
Yearning for heat and consumed by the primary of blood. Weekend prayers and Craving will forever conclude in tears.
There isn’t a hand can touch me now or spirit me away.
Anger holds me here and protects me from my fears.
 
Mine

Overhanging birch roof on my bothy's walls
Dripping diamond rain drops when it storms.
I curl up warm in hides, fire licking my nose. 
 
Moss and ivy adorn my walls, tiny orchids burst in spring.
Despite harrowing winds my tindered fires keep me warm.
 
Fallow deer sniff round the door and kick their tiny hooves.
I’ve a moratorium on killing them
I like their company.
Intelligent eyes. Sad small hearts that keep away the lies.
 
Skins and hides line my nook.
Beneath them lies my heavy locked chest.
Dried baby’s breath and marigolds disintegrate inside.
Far away from earthly things I smile and tend my fires. 

The Tales

They tell the bairns the fairy tales 
To make them bend and comply.
They dinna tell them properly
In mine the woman has victory.
 
You sink your man’s head in
A pot plant and you keep a
Mouthful of blood. 'The jessamine will flower
And the truth will out'.
 
Bloody knives cut on her every step
That’s a real fairy tale for you.
Nothing in exchange for nothing
A mermaid’s tale for blood tears.
 
Like the wraith snow child
Dreams of a life will melt and waste.
You can pretend a family bower
But it ends in weeping and scarlet rage.
 
Forest Anaesthesia 
Forest memories and arcs of sparkling yellow light.
Foxes' eyes florescent fluorescent in headlights.
Cool set of moss beneath, tiny droplets surface and tickle my toes. 

Tap, tap on the window, spinning on my heels
Blur of grey alerts me to the tiny visitor.
So set are his visits, someone fed him before me.
  
Exchanging one prison for another has been my life
Forest, marriage, motherhood and now a locked ward.
 
My way was always blocked
A foot in the door jamb.
Another baby, another move,
another congregation of fools
To be ministered to.
 
My animals still know me.
Doctors never work out what I need. 
My secrets are in a fairy pool
Stowed deep beneath the black water.  
Not for me therapy or fixing.
Nothing can bring back my fire coloured hair. 

1 comment:

It is always amazing to know you read and comment - so thank you very much.