In Which The Poet Attempts To Say Goodbye To Poetry

When we part ways

the world will be

straightforward once again. 

A cup will be a cup. 

A shoe will be a shoe

not a soup ladle 

not a megaphone

not a submarine.

Mornings will not awaken 

as if they were creatures 

stirring after long sleep. 

Yesterday’s eye exam

should have been routine

but I saw the optician’s legs curl

round each other like snakes. 

I saw the back of my own retina 

as the cracked surface of a clay planet. 

This will not do. 

My eyeball is not a planet

for if it were then I would be

my own solar system

perhaps even a galaxy.

Just thinking about it

makes me dizzy.

When I am in your company

the whole world can shift in a moment. 

There is no solid ground.

When you and I part ways

the women will wear quite ordinary hats. 

Their heads will not sprout flowers, 

will not become bird nests. 

Trees will not grow arms or claws. 

I will be able to go 

for an ordinary stroll 

on an ordinary day 

in the ordinary woods. 

The green will just be green,

not a leprechaun’s shirt or dragon’s eye.

You were wonderful. 

You sang me songs 

when the train chugged out of the station. 

The tunnel was the night, 

was a route to the underworld, 

was the inside of my own mind. 

Now everything will go back to normal. 

I won’t cry. 

Only poems make me cry. 

They produce tears like jewels 

tumbling out of a treasure chest.

I am trying to say goodbye

but I can’t do it.

You see,

I think

I may 

have

fallen

in love,

with 

you.

Last Night My Heart

The Doctors

Apocalypse

Made in Italy

Double Date

When you avert my gaze

it seems as though you are shy,

as though I’m some beautiful girl

who wouldn’t want to know you.

Perhaps you are

star gazing,

divining futures from the clouds,

the tops of trees,

cranes, kites.

We drink our coffee

and still

you do not look me in the eye. 

Instead you gaze at the space around my head

as if I exist there beside myself,

another me 

to whom you can address your comments, 

another me 

who will hear you better,

will answer you in some enigmatic way.

I grow jealous of her,

knowing that to look into

the dark of her eye

is to be stripped bare

and once seen like that

you can never be clothed again

no matter how many brightly coloured shirts you try. 

The Spin

I live in the mountains

but you’re not gonna

find me there.

I'm coming to the city

to seek you out.

I move like silk

smooth and cool

towards the district

the golden bucks

the business

where I’m gonna

pop some corks

and release 

my motorcycle roar.

What do I do all day?

I am planning your life.

I distract you with the high 

slit of my skirt

my perfect thigh.

Don’t try to chase me.

I am a red wheel.

I am spinning like a snake.

and I 

am following 

you.

Bread

Each time

I am amazed.

Flour, water, yeast.

Some salt.

Simple.

But then

our muscles mix 

the flour froths

and the bright bread 

starts to bubble.

Our aprons ache 

for more warm water. 

More!

Don’t be afraid!

The room lights

and rises

and the dough turns

in our high hot hands

to something 

as real 

as you or I,

miraculous

and alive.

The Last Storytellers of Cremone

I see them emerge 

from St John’s Wood underground:

the women of the bare feet,

the women of the crooked back,

the women of the shuffling step,

turbans huge as baskets

wrapped around their heads,

necks bent to the left as if listening

to the dreams of scuttling trains.

I follow them to their little room

just off Grove End Road.

They promise to tell one story

for each round of fabric 

that is unwound from their heads.

And as they talk, all that they have carried

falls onto the floor:

painted tea-pots, silver thimbles and spoons,

wedding dresses, candlesticks,

waistcoats and blankets sewn by hand.

We sit on the floor and laugh.

They strip the night from my eye.

They tell the story of the king of the wind.

They voice the jewels of my own wonder.

I ask them where their land lies.

I ask them why their heads are weighted down.

I ask them what they yearn for.

One story for each round.

But every piece of fabric they remove

must wind around my own head

as each tale I hear becomes my own.

I hear of the lost land of Cremone

and wonder how a country can be lost.

Each woman tells a different tale:

the trees grew too tall and toppled down, 

the borders stretched too thin and disappeared,

the people turned too proud and moved away.

I hear of a land that faded out of time.

I hear of a land now carried in the stories,

in the turbans, on the heads of these women.

One story for each round.

And when the night is through

I feel my own head

newly turbanned

filled with stories.

We are the women of the milky eye.

We are the women of the laughing teeth.

We are the women of the vanished land.

We are the last storytellers of Cremone.

Reality

These Old Cafés

Not the smart redecorated ones 

with mobile phone top-ups 

and take-home mugs. 

The archaic ones 

with walls that flake and puff 

where strange folk sit and pick 

their nails with toothpicks, coins,

the corners of matchbooks. 

A book of matches. A book of fire. 

A book of all the things that burn 

before your eyes 

and in that end regain their dignity 

like a viking warlord aflame in his boat 

pushed out to sea

lighting the night with his memory 

held in the minds of men 

who will drink long horns of ale to him 

and sing the ancient songs. 

In these cafés there are such things;

books of matches

books of the stories that cannot exist 

anywhere else in this world. 

Men who are not yet old 

prop themselves on the crumbling chair. 

A newspaper rests on the table 

but these men don’t read; 

they are busy with something else, 

some invisible work that eats up all their time. 

You wanted a take-away coffee 

but you have come to the wrong place. 

You have entered with too much speed. 

Your voice sounds too loud 

and disturbs the thick air. 

You realise it only once the words 

have left your mouth. 

This place doesn’t do take-away. 

It may take a while for any drink to come at all. 

Fame

A Vanishing Act

Susanna's Bath

After Nuno Júdice

I enter the water, which smokes

with steam. Then I fetch The Luz

which surpasses in value all our gold.

My sombreness evaporates, so

fickle immobile, sobbing on cue.

Under the stars of São Oleos

the reflexes of my skin dissolve.

My spirit lifts in accordance

with The Luz, like a quietness that

is whispered. And when The Whole

is explained, described in blazing detail

on my body, around each curve,

I dance inside like a wild snake.

And today the stars are brilliant

like our ancestors of the world.

Enter. Fetch the water. I invite you.

Enter the bath, and we will do well

in the salt of the three courts, the

teeth of the caravans, those boxes that revolve. 

We will hear the chimes of the two sisters,

quiet as The Luz is quiet, 

whose cost is above all else.

Then freshen your skin with the sponge

for the hours have traversed us.

The NaPoWriMo prompt for today is to choose a poem in a language you don’t understand and then translate it into English based on the look of the words and their sounds. I have attempted a translation of O Banho de Susana by Nuno Júdice of Portugal. I did not look at the proper translation until I was finished. But when I did, I was rewarded; Júdice's poem is beautiful and worth reading.

The Furnace Man

The Furnace Man 

barbecues 

people for dinner

picks them up like logs 

stokes his mouth full

doesn’t have to chew 

the flames in his belly 

flicker hot and fast

vaporize the bones

until nothing remains 

no skin no eyes 

no diamond necklaces 

not even dreams. 

But one day 

the memories of the girl 

he has just consumed 

evade the heat

flip-flop in his mind

salty and fresh.

He separates them out 

from everything that burns 

and keeps them 

in the cool of his head

just behind his left eye. 

She swims along the beach 

she and her brother 

they bob up and down 

in the waves 

sink into the depths

imagine they are mermaids

shipwrecks seaweed

then the sky lifts them 

into the blue

so much happiness it brings 

this rise and fall rise and fall.

The Furnace Man 

loves the girl’s memories 

of the sea 

will not burn them

plays them over and over

until he loves her too  

and wishes she could 

be there with him. 

But that can never be 

for he has gobbled her body 

until there is none of it left 

no flesh

no eyeballs

no eardrums 

no pink fingernails 

none of it.

All he can do 

is drown 

and the salt 

cleanses the air 

the water bathes 

the red cheeks 

and the laughter rises 

from the water

like a song.