Uncovered poetry: Monkeys and Angels

It’s not all that late, but I’m all that tired. So tonight I submit some more of my odd poems. Reading these poems again now is strange to me, my game of metaphors obscured by time.

Monkey Tongue

Words are like problems we never solved;
like the five-year-old monkey that lives in my mouth
whose shit on my tongue is bitter, the smell of damp fur musty and dark.
His tight black fingers pinch my teeth and his whimpering
wakes me each dawn,
a helpless moaning that tastes like desperation.

His name is Bob Transcending
he moved here from Trafalgar Square,
it’s not in my mouth that he lives,
but further in my belly somewhere.

I don’t believe you saw an angel when we climbed onto the roof last night,
your coat hunched over your shoulders so its wings could drive clouds from the moon.
‘This gets my mojo hummin’’ you shouted from your perch,
the crumbling chimney of archetype silhouetted against your back
like Michael’s sword come to bless and comfort you.
This before you leaped to the church tower and hung on its heavy bell,
its pendulum swinging you side to side like Natalie’s pen in her restless hand.

When you will swing next and the monkey rise to meet you,
I will swallow for the very first time,
tasting my own baked saliva on my wet furry tongue.
I am no mother’s appendix, my feet are yet unclean.
The bell replies no
and the monkey’s shit unraveling.


God’s Angels, Priority Post

The pin-head dancing angels delivered by the post

startle you when you open the letter,
spray jasmine scented dust that makes you sneeze.
The return address reads: God Almighty, Belfast

but the street name is smudged illegible
and you haven’t really opened it yet.

In your moment of hesitation,
She reaches through the mail slot
and plucks the letter from your hands,
so that you will not be blinded
by the glory of God and her dancing minions.

Thus the prayer will rise, disillusioned,
recalling the unopened letter
lost from beaded fingers unclasped.
And you, crying in incompletion,
are left longing for the angels
snatched back by a jealous hand.

Uncovered poetry: Ocean floor, steeper

It’s been a day spent nursing a head cold that’s plugging my sinuses and pounding my head. Now, when I come to blog, there is little to say. And so I revert to a poem I once wrote.

Ocean floor, steeper

You walk with undetermined notion
of what footsteps fall
and who is behind, who before the emotion.
When you come to the ocean you know you have to swim,
but the water is bitter and coarse on your skin.
With black clammy fingers it drags you to the shore
where is littered those before
who were like leaves, breaking with the smallest breeze,
who could not stand, who could not bend, who did not know the fold of knees.

You did not choose,
this journey forced upon you by a greater wisdom calling ‘ho,
to the other side of the ocean go’.
It presents you no solution to ferry you across,
but offers you an arrow, a kettle and a cross.
And it becomes your decision, it becomes your troubled path
that has melted into ice, absolved into water, broken into glass.

When you find yourself later in the middle of the sea,
and the waves are taller than you expected, the decision just to be
here in the water walking like Jesus but ever sinking
and who knew you could keep going just because he said come.
And though you weren’t listening, and said you don’t believe,
still you find yourself walking, holding onto his sleeve.
And your fingers are ashes, your wet body on fire freezing speech freezing cries
and doubts before your eyes
but your footsteps keep falling, wet prints upon the glass and the terror is deeper
than the ocean floor, steeper
than the mountain you see rising from the belly of a whale.

No, rising from the crashing of waves upon the sand
and you realize what this is, you realize this is land.
You’ve made it ‘cross the ocean, you’ve made it to the shore,
and you know now you’ve got further, further still to go.
But at least now you’ll be walking, not on a stranger’s sleeve,
and the mountain’s a welcome refuge, the climbing a reprieve.

Uncovered poetry

Some days I just can’t come up with something new to write. And so I turn back to old writings - there are so many of them. Boxes of diaries. Scraps of poetry. Letters unsent. Fiction unfinished.

So for today, here are two poems uncovered in old files.

Overgrown
Distance makes the heart grow fonder.

Or perhaps it just grows,
sprouting wild shoots that crop up like dandelions
in your carefully groomed backyard.
One morning you wake to find your heart a dense forest of undergrowth,
tropical flowering vines spanning the continent.

So you follow the vines across the miles
to see if they bear fruit. Arrive with a wavering smile,
cupping your dirty hands around your heart.
But tendrils creep between your fingers,
trip you when you step off the plane.

If he is surprised by your leafy appearance, he doesn’t say
but kisses you quickly and leads you away.
Carelessly stepping on a fallen frond.

He had tried to warn you that tropical vines won’t grow in this climate
and he looks at you with disapproval and pity
when you undress and reveal your budding body.
You believe, you believe that once he tastes their nectar
he will plant you in his yard to drink from you each day.

His forage into the forest is cautious,
like an explorer in new land.
He is astonished; he is pleased.
He grins like Adam when he first sees Eve
and he grasps your colorful petals in his pale hands and caresses each stem.

But soon you notice your leaves begin to fall,
the flowers droop and the tendrils stall in creeping
to hang limply along your thighs.

Foolish, foolish, we’ve all be foolish.
Pick up your dead leaves and broken vines
and return to your own earth.
Wait till spring and plant a garden
outside your window, not outside your berth.


Falling Angels
Better the angel you know
even if fallen angel is.
Your mother’s voice is a reminder
of a broken adage,
a needle through your thoughts
trailing scarlet thread.
The cliff of indecision is your to stand on
and fall from.
A cloud of distracted wisdom
the flimsy net to catch your fall.