I dreamed last night
of an empty room,
of absent colour,
swaddled tight
in pitch and gloom.
I woke in fright, in
spice-lined sheets,
the heat of night
having bled a cool
clarity from my mind – oh
I dreamed last night.
I saw darkness seep
into the lines, and
blur the light
and though I know
I have no right
I long to tell you why
I dreamed last night.
She had known men
and the language of them
She had heard all of their words
and felt them grip her beneath tables
Perhaps the way she smiled a lot
or touched her hair, or
even what she’d wear,
would bring it on
This is not a mating song.
When she was nine
a neighbour told her parents
that she’d soon be in her prime –
he winked and
they had laughed
In upper school she’d
doodled secret hearts
for boys that hung about in parks
in packs, ’til one called her
His Missus – for that
he’d taken more than kisses
Hot cola breath and
both hands on – that week,
a few diary entry misses
A decade after that
one had pushed her knees apart
in a bar, as she sat:
she’d said she wanted an early night –
she liked a lager
but had to get home to bed
and to feed her cat
Tell you what you need
instead of all that
he’d said
and then he told her
Now she was older
The sun of her youth had set
but still they’d come
and leave her wondering
what about her
made them feel so strong
This is not a love song.
Tonight she’ll find
some way to keep her back
from the wall –
her voice is gone and
this is not a song at all.
He had made her a CD. Initially, he thought about making a tape, providing a useful segue into discussions about old sound systems, a topic about which he knew a lot. He imagined how this vintage gesture might be charming, and give way to his being able to tell her things she might not already know, like how hi-fi is an actually an abbreviation of high fidelity, or how to tighten the belt inside a record player. He thought she might like that. She seemed to like learning.
He recalled, on more than one occasion, her having mentioned almost winning the pub quiz at her local, and she had seemed interested in telling him some of the answers she hadn’t known. Did you know that? She had asked. Sometimes he had, but he never let on.
rock
speaks volcanic tongues
a dark crown
atop the ragged shoulders
of the wild earth
obscure
and sombre shadow
ebbs and pools
like a deep bruise
upon the wild earth
unseen
wind soothes the
black pearled glass
bejewelled with fractured light
above the wild earth
lower
your human eye
bow and retreat
from the vast chambers
of the wild earth
Nightmare, by Artie Shaw and his Orchestra.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W59FzOwYIs)
The sound is smoky and
close. The trudge comes:
a march through honey.
I can feel my rusty heart
align itself to the heavy
thunderous pulse, as
the scorched pitch of the
trumpets wheeze out their
melodies with dry throats.
From nowhere, a narrow
squealing clarinet pours up
and down the stave, like oil.
Your kind of jazz beats me
over the head and shoves its
fingers into my open throat.
ataraxicat 