Poetry Archive
Honey
You forget my name without meaning to.
It lies too close to my mother’s in the battered thesaurus
of your broken-spined memory.
I am awkwardly wedged between the cross-stitched tapestry of her face
and the monochrome polaroid of my aunt.
I am change down the back of the sofa –
a joy when found but easily dropped, misplaced, buried... forgotten.
My name flickers in and out of your mouth like a bathroom light bulb
with faulty wiring:
every time you mistake me, I feel as if my correction must taste
like broken glass.
And I know. I know you know – you shake your head every time
as if to rid the moths from your dusty skull, to have the light turned on,
and stay on, without interruption. Your mind is home to more forgotten things
than I will ever know. Except, perhaps, if I am lucky.
We stand in the kitchen that has not changed in fifty years.
I think it remembers me better than you, at least sometimes.
In the light from the back door I love to leave unlocked,
your fragile lace hands grace my full, rosy cheeks:
they are softer than dew, thinner than a sheet of paper,
in their touch is a kiss.
And in your eyes I see the loose threads of me stitched back together:
You say my name – my name –
and you smile as if it is honey, or ripe mango.
And then the light flickers. And I remember I am chocolate;
bitter sweet.
My name is just a fleeting moment on your lips.
I guide you to the living room to take a seat;
you call me by my mother’s name –
and ask me to turn off the light in the kitchen as I leave.
Honey features in StoryTree Quarterly Issue 2, available for purchase here.
What Happens in Reverse Time?
My flu appointment is booked for yesterday due to a fever I will
contract next week - to be honest, next month. given
the state of the NHS, and more serious threats such as
the hernia in mom’s stomach have mended themselves,
like grandma’s sweaters, but grandma herself is pulling
sweaters apart, after she reverse-departs from the funeral pyre.
What happens in reverse time?
Benjamin Button doesn’t remain a curious case, and
Christopher Nolan gets famous for writing stories forwards.
Hair growth is the primary problem leaving
middle age wanting, and barbers fighting with farmers
about who does the planting. Married couples love until
birth does them part. Those who don’t, wounded as they are,
move on with mended hearts. Heartbreak
is the kind that begins with healing. Love letters still
erase, retracting their feelings, and exes still
cross paths, and lock stranger eyes, but there’s
an entire season called ‘Rise’.
What happens in reverse time?
Britain mends barriers with its br-entry into Europe, and
the British Museum empties its contents
onto the globe, spitting artefacts across oceans,
to where they were found, prompting Indiana Jones to
chase them back into the ground. Wars involve giving life,
un-sealing tombs and guns swallow bullets
back out of healing wounds.
Smiles are commonplace; common ways to keep your mouth,
and people act like something’s off
if you walk with a frown.
You draw tears from the ground like dew from the soil
and the news gives you updates on how many people smiled.
Everyone remembers their last love and waits for their first.
Youth walks with wisdom, age is not faded,
hindsight arrives before the moment that made it.
Seas water skies. Rivers climb.
What happens in reverse time?
Fortune tellers are historians finding futures
in books and archivists are explorers assembling the truths of
a world that hurls itself at the beginning like an end, and
motivational speakers still like to pretend you can
quit! Your! Job! Before you get! Too! Young!
You admit! You! Can’t! Because you’re one among many
hustlers who bust it every day before day before day before day
before day before day...
Thirty quintillion days rotate the earth westward,
the years lose digits like your weighing scale, and
Krishna awakes with an arrow coming out of his foot.
Buildings crash and build and
coffee gets hotter by the minute and
beards shrink if undisturbed and flowers die
at their youngest and there is
world peace. The universe begins
with dark iron balls floating in midair and ends
in a spectacular collapse of matter and energy.
What happens in reverse time?
You begin a poem.
What Happens in Reverse Time? features in StoryTree Quarterly Issue 1, available for purchase here.
Mark On Me
He smells of smoke
As he sits by my side with a pack at the ready and his diet coke
And I sip on my wine, lend an ear and wonder about all the hearts he broke
And it’s all fun and games but I know in the end I’m bound to become the butt of the joke
And he really isn’t all that
But he’s good at this game and I’m stranded at sea
So at least there’s someone to keep me some company and chitchat
And I sat
And I stared
I am so out of place
Whereas he’s in his natural habitat
So I’m breathing him in
Tastes like crimson and nicotine
Bad idea
I saw it that very instant, every warning sign in plain sight
I am technicolour, he is black and white
He is playing to win, I detest the game
But I felt myself swooning, Jesus Christ shouldn’t I know better, have I no shame
He is giving me nothing yet my fingertips are covered in ink
I don’t have a name but I’m sensing his mark on me, and I drink
To cut loose and he’s bruised, he is damaged, he’s fucked in the head
Takes one to know one and his talk is all too familiar, the lights going off, and it’s all red, red, red
Yet there he is sitting, a cigarette in his hand
And he asks me no questions, no strings attached, drew a line in the sand
Worst of all – pride comes before a fall
And I’ve granted too many concessions, made too many confessions, let too much bullshit slide
Though I’ve learnt to have no expectations, swerve around the temptations, I still gave it a shot and I’m down for the ride
And I could be so wrong
Played along to have peered through his gaudy veneer
To see cardboard pretences, and yearning, and hollow-eyed fear
Have I learnt restraint
In the face of a wound that needs tending, have I stopped deeming myself a saint?
Am I still in control
Or I’m long lost, walked into a trap
Is the writing up there on the wall?
Cause I’m doing so well until I’m not
He is crossing the line and it’s getting hot
And I talk big and I fly high
But he don’t know the psycho shit I’m up to at night
And I’m barely there, but I’m all in
I’d wreak havoc, cause mayhem for the hell of it
And I’d let him touch me and I’d let him play
I’m down bad, and he knows it, it’s plain as day
And he lives for the chaos, he stirs the pot
And I’m doing so well until I’m not
Over and over, again and again
I’m better than this, but he drives me insane
And I’d breathe him to life, I would give it my all
But he’s nothing but smoke, writing’s up on the wall
The poison is sweet and I mess about
But he’s nothing but smoke, so I’m breathing him out
Will untie the knot in my chest
Go back on the road and wish him my very best
But for now we’re still only halfway there
I am so out of place, so I sit and I stare
Mark On Me features in StoryTree Quarterly Issue 2, available for purchase here.
Winter Haikus
A chill wind rises
Cuts through coat and window pane
In snow-kissed city streets
Soft frost crunches
A faint footprint in the grass
In morning’s brief hour
Mist hanging low
Mingles with my hot breath
In dawn’s dilute light
Evening snow shower
Lightest beads of ashen white
In 5 o’clock darkness
But that’s outside now
And warm arms keep chills at bay
In duvet and soft lights