Poetry
| Open Heart |
| Tunnel's End |
| Alma's Crows |
| Little Bird Big Bird |
Poetry From Insensible Heart
Open Heart
I had a heart in my hands once.
It shivered like an injured bird.
I had to stop those fibrillations
to steady that pale heart,
cooled, in its cage of bone.
Such an enormous task,
it took all the long afternoon.
But we had opera, laughter
and a tunnel of light
in that dungeon-cold room.
And sometimes it leapt,
that insensible heart, like a flying fish,
or one left behind when the tide
goes out. Poor heart to be stranded
like this, a fist of blubber, in my small hands.
Tunnel's End
Let's say you meet an angel
complete with wings and robe
on the tube to Tooting Broadway
who offers you a crystal glass
filled with snow and it doesn't seem strange
though this is august and the day hot.
He disappears into the crowd at Clapham south.
Perhaps then, you get off the train
And see the girl. The one you saw yesterday
And each day before. Only this time you stop.
She doesn't ask for money or a cigarette.
She simply holds out her hands. You give her the glass.
You touch. The snow begins to melt
And it doesn't seem odd. It doesn't seem odd at all.
from Alma and the Blue slide
Alma's Crows
She knew every nuance of a ruffled feather,
each significant tilt of a head, the coda
of a closing eye, the bluebottle tongue.
She would talk with them, perched in a tree,
dangling muddied worms from her fingertips.
Sometimes she sang.
Most days the crows never stopped
with their chatter-caws: they could argue
day into night and she seldom left
before Corvus shone its stars on the elms
and the night breeze tumbled its leaves
to the ground, only then could she feel
the full weight of the moon, the earthy
pull of her human bones.
Little Bird Big Bird
Stealthy one. Girl tall.
Woman short. She watches me
watching her. Body shy.
Still as a clipped wing.
Heart of nesting beaks.
Mindset of colours. Featherful.
Black swans on her chest.
Mouthpecked. Tongue-full
of popinjays. Eyes jammed
with peacock. Impossibly bright.