Debbie Strange
A Selection of "Tankart"...
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the twelfth floor
she lives in a room
her home a cell on the twelfth floor she stands at the window waiting watching the setting sun’s red eye (and the curb for a familiar face) she is bathed in red her curtains the colour of anger and her glowing cigarette she takes the family photographs off the wall and hides their faces deep inside a drawer (the next time we visit we find ourselves missing) when we comment she says just paring down less to dust |
A Selection of Haiku...geese unzip the sky a snowflake trembles on your eyelashes at dock's end
a yellow ladder steps in sky dog nails on hardwood waken us at four a.m. a mouse in my shoe
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A Selection of Small Poemsthe drowning trees their driftwood bones rise up a desecration
of toxic algae blooming we, the gardeners listening deeply
to the poetry of trees I become a leaf a black purse of sky unclasped and spilling silver I hold out my hands
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for Calum ☊they straggle out of their black-houses
silently greeting the peaty air as they untether their hopeful boats leading them like dogs to the end of the grizzled pier the sleep-fuddled sea rolls over and grumbles into the thickened waist of morning and the blue-breasted hills breathe in the slanting sighs of heathered moors hand-hewn oars slice through buttery water drawing and quartering the awakening sea with its insatiable craving for the rarefied taste of smoked and salty Lewis men with a careless wave and shrug of swollen shoulders winter’s teasing tongue of storm lashes out licking heaving decks flicking crumbs of frozen fishermen into the greedy bay wind-whipped dogs limp home and nudge the lamenting shore with torn sails between their legs without their singing masters and silver creels they bring no solace to the widowed croft Note: Black-houses were traditional thatched huts on the Isle of Lewis. Fires were built in the centre of the living area and there was no chimney. The smoke escaped through the roof, blackening the interior of the dwelling. |
folding ☊the faded pink sweater still hangs
by the unravelled threads of her life from the broken hook of my heart edges worn thin and frayed warp and weft remember the shape of her body but never the scent of her skin buttonless now seams gaping as wide as grief i fold into her fingering the torn pocket for shreds of comfort from the last crumpled tissue
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