John Alwyine-Mosely
The circle turnsI'm from a village built on blood and sweat so the old ones say
where mother and father played at weekend love and kids sniffed out the lonely to hold with terrier teeth. Friends were made by page and word to talk away the bruise and make shouts a war cry in distant lands. Today, that past is embers ready to burn bright a page or word so the old ones say. When winter, remember springBerries ripe black to pick in autumn light
with hands, cold from dampness, cardinal stained, as bruised fruit scents the air. You taste the summer gone, maternal moments lost in spring as a deer rustles by. When home, fragrant water simmers, for harvest fruits washed clean to weigh on brass and click scales. Each bowl thorns when to lean down brought salted tears not smiles. Trickling through rough fingers fruit flops into pan and pops thick. Berries flavour licking good for pectin test You release methylated memories: camping holidays, picnics, cold nights. Time, as evening moon rises, to add sugar and trap morning smells for the breakfast bite of spring. You measure heat and fear the farewells if the pop of broken glass tinkles goodbye. Adding butter to cleanse, the pan is lifted to pour, into cloth held crystal clear jars, while jam falls as slow motion waterfall. You twitch your nose as steam stars glisten on window panes as her smile. Wax paper, scentless like the candles lit, crackles as wrapped around the necks sealing in flavours for the darkness. You know your regrets and neglects but at each spring taste she laughs. In the boat that I built with my father
I see the boats berthed photo still
as the tender breeze carries the scream of hungry gulls and the smell of salted seas. Now only weekend toys when once they tacked homeward with cod that fed us in holds frozen full And the streets woken by dawn clatter and the calls of friends empty, empty, empty. Their corpses of boats. spill with the entrails of ropes smeared with smashed hope. But while the tide turns and the boat hewed by my father’s hand still lifts on the waves I will sail and let him live lest you forget.
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On not saying hello
It was on the 8.30 to London and I was lost in a poem
more to pass the time then for serious effect, when I looked over and saw a basement squat and a time when you and I were friends. More to pass the time then for serious effect I imagine leaning over and apologetically reminding you of a time when you knew me and my brother. I turned back to my poem and remembered why not. I imagine leaning over and apologetically reminding you of my brother, now dead but scared of life yet I turned back to my poem and remembered why not as the train announcements make you stir. Of my brother, now dead but scared of life you won’t recall but it’s when I lost my world as the train announcements make you stir I see his face sketched now only in my thoughts. I won’t recall when I lost my world as I look over and see a basement squat so as the train announcements make you stir I’m lost in a poem on the 8.30 to London. Silent eatingDo you remember Barrow Hill, with church
of pitted stone, where sleepers rest until an angel blows dreams away. Once we walked around flowers of plastic, past stone lies, and out a wooden gate, to wander down past fields in flood and ash now winter bare, to this cottage of turf and broken stone, with thick yew hedge to beat back wind and rain You watched as inside, upstairs, Sunday best was tissue shrouded for its weekly tomb as rain pit-patted on the window glass. Finished, she sat on the bed's edge and wept. with bible cradled in arms long empty. Silence comforted until sunlight peace warmed smiles and kisses for the holy book. Rising, with apron tight and hair commanded, she shelves truth for love of both goat or sheep. I waited downstairs by scrubbed pine table, laden with dishes of yellow margarine, and jam labelled red with pillow bread to make a wish: for white linen, a dish of butter sun, blackberry jam scenting of summer warmth and oven bread too warm still for slicing. We left a kettle's whistle summon down to feast of tea and sandwich now eaten in contentment that God rests as crows caw outside. O banquet when home from the pub
Potato
knobbled and dimpled with skin olive brown - stripped white. sliced right. Chop, chop for chips. Soft and moist like love remembered as you dry to fry. Sizzle, sizzle spit in a flat black pan. Golden and mother warm they are raised and sprinkled tasty on chunky white bread buttered without care for old age. |
A dead man when a tree cries ☊1 The Dead Man when a tree cries
The dead man never wakes to the wail of a ghost frighten by the spite of a tree. For pines have no time for ghosts but a dead man can sit in any branch with or without candles. As flames are ghosts of trees the candles are never lit. The moon if big and bright makes trees cry and ghosts like that. Each tree gathers darkness from the earth and twists it with dead man laughter, spiced with kisses taken without love. Ghosts know this cold blackness and scream for what they lost but the dead man sleeps. 2 More on The Dead Man when a tree cries Dead man dreams are never of trees shaking away the moon. Ghosts leave no footprints by the seashore where the dead man waits for a boat of sun making water molten brass. The trees shaved and shorn are there as the boat pushing the water into fire. Pines cry on the shore but the dead man knows only what is seen and walks on the lines of fire. When a dead man wakes, the circle of trees is always nearer but the ghosts stop laughing. |
