What it takes to walk away

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Brendan Kennelly

What it takes to walk away

(After Brendan Kennelly)

Imagine, if you can, another you. A familiar stranger.
Start with a map, it is best to know the precise place where you begin
before you take first steps to walk away. Look around you, the decision is already taken,
You’ll find it is just where you once laid another old head, made your bed
and turned up time and again, and again, and again.
In your mind you know it, if you’re sure. You have already left.

You must think carefully what can be saved, what has to be left
behind. Take a small bag, wherever your going you will not be a stranger
to familiar comforts, most things are easy to lay hands on again.
The supermarkets of the world lay out their wares as though we all begin
from nothing. Start by spreading things out, line them up on the bed
where there is the still-sleeping imprint, the lasting impression that can’t be taken.

There are the photographs, the smiling faces, fresh as if just taken
the ones where you are cut to an arm, to one side, just to the left
of the centre frame. Or behind the lens, the eyes look up at you from the bed
you shared. Slip them between the covers of a book, you will find them again like a stranger.
Shake yourself, this is the moment you remember how to begin
remember how the world looks to just one pair of eyes, know yourself again.

The first steps out of the door will make you doubt it all over again
This is the hardest point, no-one will tell you if you are mistaken.
This threshold you’ve crossed time after time, you thought it would begin
here. Perhaps you can still find it; the place where she turned right, you left.
But then you imagine you and her, as you were then, see only the stranger
trusting you with future fragments you couldn’t cement. Put them to bed.

Shakespeare’s legacy to his wife was his second-best bed
you might hope this is the way to leave a last restitution of love again.
That other, the best-bed (saved for the visitors) reserve for a stranger
has nothing of the heat, sweat, blood and night-place looks taken, re-taken
and laid down. This is where you made something, that night-forged stranger,
the place where something totally new learned how to beat and begin.

It isn’t lost, or forgotten, though now you remember how to do it again. Begin
to wonder, to the sounds of the chattering world, to the opening sky, to the bed
of the night where the moon lies, to you, yourself, in the eyes of a stranger
when you’ve just woken. Begin to notice the just-unwrapped-by-the-seaside-chips again
smell or the bus stop’s yawning, ever-moving morning where another hand you’ve not yet taken
waits. Another voice: Come home, come home. Come home to me. don’t be a stranger.

Angela Carter and Me

Feel at home now I’ve unpacked the Angela Carter

Returns

No, not because it is your birthday; a candle-

blowing, lone, short-wick of a day. That again.

You’re too wise to wish on the bright circle of hours waiting

out their tick-tock sentence. You know the simple

logic of false time, how we can savour our minutes or face

the waste of hours with the same breath. We all feel we’ve missed the train.

Not because of the way our eyes met that day on the train.

Though I half-thought I might burn up like a new-lit candle

in the spark of recognition in your now all-too-familiar face.

The time stood still and sped and went and somewhere, something sighed: “you again”,

as though we’d met before and this was the remembered, simple

act of greeting an old friend, after the briefest pause of waiting.

No, not that I am grown weary of it; of the quietness of waiting,

watching the others rush past me whilst I wait on the platform for the last train

home. The world’s stage is all mirth and brevity, “brief candle’,

it reduces what we call life to the bare boards. The most simple

truth is written, rather, day after day in the lines I can trace in a mirror. Does your face

have it’s own maps I wonder if you pay any heed to them… perhaps. Now and again.

Not because you turn up when I least expect it, time and time again.

There is a part of me lies cat-like in the long grass, waiting

for a moment to pounce, hackles up, it claws behind the eyes. My face

little hides where that purring, repeated beat derails my train

of thought. Where was I? Oh yes. At it’s most basic, this: the simple

warmth that I hold, its steady burning, moulds me like wax, as though I were a candle.

Not yet burned down – you hold your hand just high enough above the candle

knowing, as you do, that in distance lies safety. Near, now, near again.

Before you burn yourself out in toing and froing tell me; do you wish it were simple?

I know you too, grow tired. Another birthday and you are waiting

for an appointment, the phone-call, the return of youth, another bloody train

the complicated stories you have written and re-written over your face.

But, because you hold my time in your hands like a gently cupped face

and name all its moments as precious. No-one holds a candle

to you. For this the world is re-framed and I find the means to train

my words and thoughts when they run pell-mell over each other. Forgive me. Now and again

when I am grown restless from the energy of all that eager waiting,

I’ll remember and in return I’ll pretend that it is easy, love. That it is simple.

Homecoming (or Homeland, I can’t decide, suggestions welcome)

Homecoming.

Here where the boats sail from, an unchanging land. Ithaca.

The hero’s birthplace. Ragged with rocks where boats that cut their teeth

sailing in the harbour’s arms, are sold to the waves as harvest. Waiting,

like those young men, soft-legged, for the all-too-open sea.

Full-bellied with promises, bearing their parting words as though they were golden,

the backward glances are saved as treasure in the hold.

 

It is a hunger too quick, too eager, to longer hold

even in a loving embrace, even from their homeland; Ithaca.

Their eyes are burnished by the setting sun, their looks are golden

in the dying light. There is a hunger sets on edge their hearts, their teeth.

It is the call, it is the deeper call of a deep and hungry sea.

Hungry to be men and follow men gone before, they know the gnaw of waiting.

 

The sun cannot tarry to keep company with those who stand on the shoreline, waiting.

She rises and sets with a speed and pace that cannot break or hold

to linger with one who still hears those whispered words come back in the spume from the sea,

ignorant and careless of the sun and stars that arc over the ageless land. Ithaca.

Just as the men who now only see the colour of their valour and taste blood between their teeth.

They hold the waiting She, little in regard now their futures, like the sun, are golden.

 

But the halls of this land, too, can leave their riches open and in other’s eyes are golden.

The land did not plant her daughter’s feet to root and grow old tiring in waiting,

and slowly change comes, She hardens, worn down like the grinding of teeth.

So the cellars bleed out their riches and the tastes of richer past, these bottles hold

a taste of younger times, when the years were green and thick with the scent of grapes. Ithaca

in another vintage. The bottles groan; they carry more secrets than the wine-dark sea.

 

Even sailors grow tired of the landlessness, listless on the restless sea,

what treasures now but those their own imagining made vital, golden?

Their eyes are hungry for a younger man’s meat. Their trembling hands ache for her. Ithaca.

The journey back is longer, now each mile extends to drag out their time of waiting;

there is no measure makes the days less long, their hearts better able to hold

their impatience. They gnash gums for their mother’s milk, now they want for teeth.

 

Old men lift their eyes to greet stranger sons, the blacks of eyes, the whites of teeth.

As they seek their beds still warm and smelling of another’s embrace, salty from the sea

and find themselves confounded by their own strangeness. There are non quick to hold

them close now. These women in armour, with dirty fingers, their hair gilded, golden

Their features set, speak volumes. Their eyes, laughing with the men who stand in waiting,

survey what they have left, sought, returned and brought. Bones. Their dry bones on the unchanged land. Ithaca.

Token

Tags

fixed verse form, love poetry, sestina, valentine's day, valentine's poetry

An imaginary Valentine’s poem and a first try at Sestinas – this still needs editing, this is the first draft form.

Token

It’s cold this February and you’re wondering what to give as a present

you think of it as you sit, your coffee cooling and the toast and honey

uneaten; the thought turns round and round. The idea you carry

like a snapshot face caught half-turned, a retinal Kodak moment

held between the mind’s finger and thumb. One hand in your pocket

fingers the piece of time that rests there, a floating face, the strap long since broken.

Nothing too sentimental, something throw-away, it is better if it is easily broken

and some gesture is better than none and there’s no time like the present,

but for all that, it really must be something you can fit in a pocket.

“It is nothing”, can you already feel the lie, easy and soft in your mouth like honey

on the tongue? Spoken as if you’d almost forgotten, but all the while the moment

is the summit of endeavour, framed by the stage you already carry.

Remember to speak confidently, don’t mumble, let your voice carry

the strength of your convictions, once the silence has been broken

in the chatter of nothings. It is hard to imagine it at this very moment

whilst your nervous pulse races, already unsteady in potentia. Your present

is a hum of restless agitation and your brain sluggish as ankle-deep in honey

wading through the mess of mundane flotsam, the daily dross you catch and pocket.

She has a way of slipping her gloved hand into your coat pocket;

it flutters like a bird beside your side. Her voice is loud enough to carry

across a full crowd, broad as a barmaid’s last orders, sweet as honey.

Her furrowed brows, crows settling wings,have their rest easily broken

her mood as swiftly turns intention to a point of swiftest action, the present

of her sudden laughter, and in that lies her special force of moment.

So, though less than its sum, like a sea-shell carries the sea, it must carry the moment

worn and rubbed down to silken smooth with handling, like the lining of a pocket.

Something like the crewelwork of lace and filigree, their small finery a present

locked with ancient, old-learned skill. Your gift must be strong too, to carry

all those smaller thoughts, like pearls in its web, you mustn’t feel broken,

Remember simple sentiment, whimsy too, the Owl and the Pussycat, they took honey.

You think about the simple, earnest way she eats her bread and honey.

Resolve to give her a heart, your own; see, it is the work of a moment.

Not more or less than you can offer with an open hand, forget that it is easily broken;

it will sit quiet, ticking out time, as it nestles closely in your breast pocket,

small enough and slight and light enough for her to carry

folded like a poem, clothed like a well-worn word, it will do for the present.

Night Raids

Stay for a while and watch for passing light,
Take something from the dark before you go,
There are miles between us and the wide night.

Though it’s too far south, we hang on the “might”.
Slim-chance Aurora breaks the status quo.
Stay for a while and watch for passing light.

Those silent, sleeping rocks lie out of sight,
Folded in the blindfold hills that drop below.
There are miles between them and the wide night.

My grandfather watches for a first flight
Of bombs here and nightly sees a no-show.
Stays for a while to watch for passing light.

He lights his own fires, home-made flares ignite
Feinting for a threat he’s yet to really know.
There are miles between him and the wide night.

Nothing to see but shadows in the headlight.
And stars. Suspended. The last ones to go.
Stay for a while and watch for passing light,
There are miles between us and the wide night.

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

 

Her colours enough to turn a cocked head

You gave your heart, its speckled, soft-shell

A black eye for feathering an easy bed.

 

Wanting something more than the gold you sell,

To make a bargain, changelings at the gates

Exchange love like coins on the road to hell.

 

Your nest egg, dog in a manger, waits.

Juno’s bird knows well where to find its catch

to snare with a claw one whose trap he bates.

 

Brooding in her breast beats a patient watch

These stranger twins brooding alike as lies

The best laid plans are warmed to crack and hatch.

 

Each silver tongued, mocking-bird word now flies

to teach her how to turn the tune anew

and ape you. In the morning her love dies.

 

That song, half-sung, stuck in the throat, half-true,

Should herald spring from the winter dead.

It’s never yours to sing in faith, or fully through.

The House That Books Built

Tags

Bells of Old Bailey, Crucible, death of books, e-reading, I-Pad, Kindle, leave me my name, modern Nursery Rhymes, Oranges and Lemons, Owl and The Pussycat, poetry, poetry about books, poetry about reading, print media, ring-a-ring-a-roses, we all fall down

Oranges and Lemons played on the Bailey Bells

when the first of the books left, while the city slumbered

Under their covers was heard a pied-piper playing

When the people awoke, they were gone.

 

 

They’d pulled on their jackets and shook out their words

turned tail and slipped into the neon-haloed night

past the sleepless monitors blinking at them as they left.

The streets that night were paved in white

 

 

And found the welcome of the parent woods,

and wrapped their sleeves around the trees

And leaf to leaf their words to wood

Slipped back in whispered, hushing elegies.

 

 

Then the few who stayed, were penned and kept for show

in mock-up museums to books, beside a stuffed polar bear

and dogs playing cards, behind glass, long-forgotten

The unloved libraries of the neverwhere.

 

 

The words stuck like flies on the worldwide web

Are edited, used, ground down with over-use

Bloodless and spineless, always yesterday’s news

Over-killed and shrill from cheap, consonant abuse.

 

 

So now the specialists go palm to greasy palm

for an hour alone with a Hardback or two

paying to watch, while the ageing pages turn tricks

The modern take on pay-per-view.

 

 

And what for the children left behind?

Weaned on screens, edited for decency and taste.

The shades of Orwell and Atwood peddled

without irony. It is uniform waste.

 

 

Here comes a Kindle to light you to bed

Where’s the warmth in that dead-eyed flame?

No pen and ink now to draw the stars down

Twinkle, Twinkle on an Ipad’s not the same.

 

 

Leave me my name, the headstones say

I cannot have another, leave me something to be read.

and the young trace their first letters on the stone

learning that the only keeper of the written is the dead.

 

 

Where do we find ourselves again, if not on the flyleaf?

Primer to the new-found land that is our own to discover

The houses of books were the midwives of adventure

To be read is to be owned, fresh land beneath each cover.

 

 

The anchor to our pea, green boat, is the first and last page.

Without that solid, founding, literary, ground

that says: “this was you”, “this is you”

We all. Fall. Down. 

An almost break-up

Tags

facebook, facebook break-up, leaving facebook

An almost break up.

I know it’s hard, here’s not the place, look
you know you’re not the same, you’ve changed pace, took
all my words and netted my friends in your embrace, shook
me up. Now I’m caught wriggling on this sugar-laced hook
And so it’s time, I’m leaving you, I’m leaving Facebook.

When we were first together it was easy – say cheese -you caught
all my smiles and mirrored them. In that frenetic pace, sought
to cut out the middle man, cut to the chase. I thought
you needed me; me, myself not the all seeing I and was I easily bought?
Its habit that kept us together, the one you taught.

I ‘like’ you, don’t forget, you’re a click away from near
but it’s more like lies and less like life, I fear.
Now you haven’t got a clue, though my smile is ear to ear
and my profile speaks for me, what you’re peddling is clear
as crystal, a better version of myself than the one I see here.

I’m drowning in the waves of those I’ll never see face
to face. While you lie quiet lapping at the endless space
and offer up all your other Janus aliases in place
of anyone I thought I knew. I’m tired, is there an app. to replace
what I think I’ve lost? Forget it, I’m a hopeless case.

I’m kidding myself to think I’ll leave, I’m a tethered John Doe
and though this paperless trail is hard to trace, it’s a dumb show
I keep following; the years of usage have made my instinct slow.
But be assured, I promise you, the day I choose to go
One thing, I guarantee, you’ll be the first to know.

Bonfires

Tags

autumn poetry, Bonfire Night, fires

The flames singed my eyelashes

After all that rain, a night ripe for burning.
It takes fast, striking on dead wood.
Behind the clouds the moon’s bobbin is turning.
We burn the old shed door, the table, the chairs.
Paper-waste and timber bleached the colour of bone
This year’s promise or the last, given over to dust.
We bury our dead, under earth and stone
no outburst, no torches, no high-built pyres
But something gone, or almost gone, is cherished
in this common ritual of autumn fires.
Waking early to a colder day, the feeling lingers
though the morning is mist, scented with turned leaves.
Cut through with the first light, long fingers
curl around the smoky air, hanging heavy under the trees.
The night has brought down the first touch of winter.
But it’s the warmth that my body remembers, remembers
though the flames have burned down small and low
and come to rest among the cooling embers.