//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.