Half Agony, Half Hope

Wasps 

Wasps with barbed-wire stings

       Huddle    quiet    in their comb, 

                 Waiting out Winter.

Winter 

Winter sits

At the mouth of the cave. 

I watch from a 

Candle-scented,

Stove-flickered

Room,

As burnt leaves

Flake to the ground.

The impact of the rain,

Knocking on the forest door.   

They crack, split, sizzle

Quick cold as the sun’s wick 

Burns out.

My soft, white coat is waiting

On the hook. 

I run to the 

Must-filled, 

Rain-dampened

Wood,

Where no one wanders

And nothing squeaks 

But the wet leaves on my shoes.

And I am there to see if the tree falls. 

No one else will dare to look;

Winter has scared them away. 

Branches

The bones

      Of branches

                Tear my dress,

                 Pierce my skin with wicked-witch nails

On knuckled fingers,

      That interlock, block 

The pebbled path. 

                                  Ploughed field on the other side.

                                                                Soft, flat, square.

             Toasted by the sun’s golden tongue.

Restrained by black thickets,

                        I peek through a chink,

    as the hedge grows

                                bushier.

A keyhole?

                                              A looking glass?

The clearing fills:

         Chaotic blooms of daisies and bluebells,

                     Elderflowers giving advice when they’re 

                                                                                 Just as lost. 

Rose

The brightest red

In a monochrome field,

Framed in gilded gold.

Her red-velvet petals and emerald

Stem, hiding thorns like the

Sheath of a knife. Royal crimson,

Romantic blush; the façade 

Of a red-cap goblin, a bloody-

handed Macbeth. Who draws 

Blood from her enemies 

And drinks it like water.

Longing for Outside (Sequence)

(1) Longing for Outside

My novel lays abandoned 

On the blanket I just made. 

The mug of tea that warmed my hands is stewed.

Instead, I freeze my fingers to chilblains

On ice-cube glass,

Wipe a gap on the frosty pane,

And stare, longing for outside. 

Outside is clean white snow,  

Leaves that crackle beneath boots.

I run

Past the waft of pease pudding,

The warm milk with its tiny trail of steam,

The soft-yak jumper pulled over my head,

The tinkling keys that draw back my ears,

Like a dog, 

That hears the jingle of the lead, 

And yearns 

No! I have to go. I want to.     

I pull my scarf tighter and tighter, 

Stuck on the hook of the door,

Zip up my new white coat – the ropes,

Block out the calling sirens with gloved fingers – the wax,

Jump on my boat-shoes and row. 

I want the Lewis forests and the Tolkien hills,

I want to go to Troy, if it takes me twenty years to get home. 

(2) Novel

I lay open, 

Discarded on a shelf,

Ribbon just falling off the page.

I want to tell you my story,

I want you to listen. 

I want to show you

Gleaming boats that glide 

Past waving crowds on riverbanks,

Sending metal-clad heroes to twenty-year wars.

I want you to embark. 

Listen!

To the silent forest they trek through,

The leaves that whisper under bare feet, 

The creaking wheel of a Tesco trolley 

The terrified screech of ‘Here we are’.

When they made me wet with their tears,

And told me what they couldn’t tell anyone else. 

Come back to me and listen. 

Look at me,

and not just the cover. 

I want you to love me,

But you want to tell your own story.

(3) The Blanket 

I sit discarded,

Slowly unravelling,

On a pink quilted chair.

I once knew your soft hands

As they caressed me. 

You rubbed me on your cheek,

The soft-skinned palm of a new-born

On the flushed face of its mother. 

You wanted hammocks hooked on trees that could collapse at any time. 

I wanted a house that’s just a little too warm from the fire.

I wanted a dishwasher stacked with pre-rinsed plates 

And a bed with blankets and cashmere cushions. 

You left me 

On the pink chair,

By the bookcase with the frosted lamp.

You wouldn’t take me with you. 

I didn’t want to come. 

But I’ll keep the pink chair warm 

In case you come back.  

Saplings

Six little saplings

Cry, shoulder on shoulder,

Branch-hugs and intertwined roots,

Drawing up water from connected soil. 

One grows taller, 

Steals the sun and casts

Eclipsing shadows

Down on others.

Then he browns.

He burns, bends, breaks,

Withers

With the weight

Of the water;

Wrinkled cracks where 

It forced its way through.

For the others? Enriched soil. 

They climb, a little less sturdy.

The odd leaf crisps up and falls,

Lightly, to the soil beneath. 

Their stalks grow brown streaks,

Every time they hear the crack

of a splitting trunk, the moan

of the creaking roots that try to steady it.

And by watering themselves every day, 

From the soil of the fallen sapling,

They reach an unclouded canopy,

And sway, rustling, in the warmth of the sun. 

Family tree

Starting thick and strong, they spread out far,

Thinning as they go, further, further.

I try to climb across to where you are,

But is the branch a strong and sturdy one?

Or does it weaken as I try to climb?

The trunk is just a phone pole now.

The cables thin and wobbling like my voice;

So scared that they will snap at your request.

Call too much and will the cables crack?

Not enough and will the branch collapse?

I want it to stay green and young like us,

The kids that used to hide in wicker tubs

Or under beds with grinning faces wide,

And you would play along but now you won’t. 

Now we only speak through wavy lines.

A pixel face,

When you’re free from work,

Glitching on a cracked black screen.

Your words are sparse and awkward. But I still

Cling    to    every    one.

The Red Forest

The forest is red.

Not a golden, autumnal red,

The red of ambulance sirens, donor pouches 

And surgical instruments scraping metal dishes.

Its branches make a circuit; aorta – vena cava:

So fragile, fundamental; so terrifying

As they intertwine, wrap like fingers around my wrists.

The forest is a labyrinth.

Mind-games and word-tricks trapping 

Me in thickets.

Red! Red!

Pulsating veins,

Toenails cutting into hard-rubber shoes,

Crimson trees towering,

Scarlet canopy sinking down.

I crouch, spinning

in the blurred blood room,

Yellow, spotting up in the 

Red lorry yellow lorry red lolly

Black.