A Crease in the Sunlight
two poems
A Crease in the Sunlight
the path has cleared itself
rare, now, to leave our form
in puddle scraps
or press our soles to mud
- be remembered
memory is nothing here
and yet I am not free
those wings black as a lock
turned and turned again
key the air
raven, we saw you drinking
like something ordinary
but you void death
break the air
the bones are white here
a caterpillar undulates over teeth
fits neatly, bends backward
in the ecstasy of an eye socket
we are told
in the rags of pine
the old witch lives here
with her ebony birds
and bleached bones
algae
the ink of sap
the oil of resin
logs split open
still wet within
we spell cast ourselves further
away, away
past the weedy pool
up the endless hill,
its skin, a dried itchy eczema
snake territory
our breath pushes us onward
like a fist
(Recommended in the Westival International Poetry Festival and first published in Channel Magazine)
(photo of the forest behind my back garden in the Eiffel Germany)
My Children and I walked in the forest daily this poem was written after a walk with both my daughters through the forest in this photo. Map a pattern realised, made manifest true as the ravines and inclines on aging skin we walk here, the moon our cool torch, night-read like palmists I’m certain in the creases fanning out from your eyes grief can’t touch us here, in this territory where I pin my soul to your lapel where I gift wrap shadows into brightly coloured birds singing mystery as if that is all they are and all they will be the map of you is how I orient pain embedded in the distant north but joy lashed to the south of you (first published in Cafe Writers online magazine)
(photo of a map by my last house to help you find your way in the woods)
This poem was written to a prompt several years ago but harks back even further to a walk back from the pub in the summer with my then lover, we had had a very difficult time together but I was also utterly in love and willing to ignore the obvious problems in the face of my infatuation.
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Beautiful Susannah 🥰 I still have so many unpublished poems in my journals. Have a wonderful Sunday 🖤
This is my kind of language and verse. I don’t think I posted Wharncliffe Chase on here yet: this is my tongue, my Gormenghast grasp❤️😺