poetry collection VI: wherein i search for the hand of God

archive of my poetry, February-April 2024

you come to visit / dirty laundry - 8th February 2024

you come to visit
you say,
you have half an hour
you have allotted yourself
for affection, for feeling
in your world,
the wild, all-consuming, unruly spool
of intimacy and pleasure
can be taken, by uncompromising hands
and wound tight, neat, no loose ends
locked firmly within a box
and allotted
half an hour of your time

you come to visit
you talk to me
of ideas and dreams
debates and stories
your rules and routines
you tell me how
you could live every day
the same as before, a prison portrait of
monotony and grey
i laugh, incredulous
i ask you, surely
you must do something for pleasure?
you point
your fingertips graze
each curve my body makes
you reply,
monosyllabic:
“you”

you come to visit
you bring
your laundry bag with
you say,
it is so that
you look busy, as if
you have something
more important to do
you say,
it is in case we are caught
but caught exactly by what, by whom
i find i cannot be sure

i do not want to become
your next hurricane
perhaps i can make myself
small
so small in your arms
so inconsequential
so filthy and used up
you throw me in your laundry bag with
your other dirty clothes
that way i might stay with
you, at least for the night

after forgetting
that once-familiar feeling, the way
a steady stream of affection fills your body with
a sunny, unending joie de vivre
or the way that seven hours on the phone
was never enough, relinquishing sleep
to hear the quiet hum of my breathing
in the soft February dawn

a certain kind of hunger sets in
with sharp teeth and talons, clutching
leaving claw marks running through
each escaped animal, its would-be prey
eventually in search of anything resembling
a decent meal, a bed for the night-
your laundry bag, perhaps

that hunger grows in parts of my body
i did not know it was possible
to even feel hunger within
so that when i look at
you, i see something that appears
just about the right size, give or take
to fill up a gap in the shape of
a gentle firmness that lies
not just in the arms you hold me in
but in the condescending tone of
a dismissive, disapproving father
somebody to explain
somebody to guide me
to hurt me, should i deserve it

you do not believe in God, although
you understand
you say,
the purpose of religion
after all, something must control
such indomitable humanity
in all its boundless, incorrigible
lust and sloth and greed
where would we be without repentance?
you say,
i nod, knowing only too well
the pitfalls of
my rotten autonomy

you come to visit
you say,
goodnight
turn out the light behind
you, as
you turn to leave
in the darkness
i cannot see an end
to this hunger
so until i find strength
in arms that are not
yours
you can make me small
and use me;
your dirty laundry

wherein I search for the hand of God— - 3rd March 2024

in the icy stream that wanders
down my throat, purging the poison
of a million moments I know I’ll never get back
(but - and this is strictly between us -
even if I could I don’t think I would
raise my hand to yours to prevent the blow)

I search for the hand of God
in the glowing screen that I behold
at the bar, the idol of my altar
your name, scattered like some
constellation, interpolated
by clouds swarming to obscure
each letter of it, like some
menacing Scrabble game
twisting together and falling apart
before I can make my move

I search for the hand of God
in my laughter, my turning toward the door
it crept up on me so late, I never realised I lay
in a bed of my own making. Perhaps,
somewhere, I believed that if I never slept,
never made the bed, I could keep
the inevitable at bay

I search for the hand of God
in the way you held me in your arms for the last time
with a tightness, almost as if you knew
could sense, that impending dread, towards the end
and how I’d finally breathe, through the trees
in my newfound solitude

I search for the hand of God
in the warmth of the sun against my skin
that hit me like a bullet where only birdsong lingers
I find God there, when I pierce, unfold
I tear away– my paper cage, where you
permeate all space; now, endlessly disperse
as I stub you out underfoot, I let my lungs take on
a greater purpose; something with
the renewed violence and vigour of
the eternal January sun

I search for the hand of God
in the sheets that enwrap me, but not in the way
they did when I beheld your exhilaration
at the first sight of snow, and inside–
the warm wonders of our landscape
of which I often wonder, if she knows.
But I digress, rather–

I search for the hand of God
in the folds that take me all the way under
in the voices and faces that anchor me to Earth
rather than let me float up to the third floor
where, if the fancy so struck, I could draw out
the visceral, guttural scream-cry of a child
and you would be there, to take the fall

If there, I asked, perhaps I might Know:
Do I glitter in your fantasies?
Do I murder you in your nightmares?
Does it stay intact, in your dreams?

Such a search across the banal planes of your mind,
however, would not yield, not extend to me
the hand of God for which I yearn (it was this, if anything, when
the artist to my muse fell asleep on the phone, that I learned)

Rather, God holds me down as sobs subside, I let
the new dawn rise, and when I look out across
the morphing crowd of possibility, expansive
sea of infinite new realities and endless space
the hand of of God reaches out;
I find myself absolved, renewing, divine
and each time I reach out, I see my own face

the lake on Sundays - 15th March 2024

you once laughed
at my suggestion
to play the long game
to wait out the long silence
between

to carve meaning from
the long hours gone
wistfully, sighing with
the willows, taken
by the breeze

the wind whispers out over
the lake, where the water
waits, on Sundays
when it washes
over me

out of the woods
i always return, i watch
the window, as i wait
on Sundays, but only
for the scene

home, and no skin torn
by your practised hands
moulding meaning from flesh
(i trust, in the end, we both
shall find relief)

meanwhile, i am but static, frozen
over, Sunday lake, and not
to be moulded, i’ll only wait
here, out beyond
the trees

for some torch, held, by hands
that are, too, holding out
i’ll wait for those flames to melt
that frozen lake, to extend
their light to me

heartworm - 19th March 2024

take me off this pedestal and
crucify me

peel back my tattoos to get
under my skin

for my leather cool for too long
for a heart that slowly rots

where my heartworm stops up
the blood, so longing to pump

sensing the years of blood drought
you hold your hungry mouth out

to catch me
when I fall
i am all
want, want, want—

down below, all the time
fingertips intertwine
by undivine coincidence
clinging to resemblances
only semblances of love

what a field of landmines
for the romantic mind
my planetary capacity
to mould the fragmentary
some promising hint
of voice or face

its pitfalls and slopes
cratered skin, arching nose
becoming bracken and
rocks and seaside coves

along my favourite shore
where the sand becomes stone
your statue, my altar;
newly our home

where, devil-may-care,
the blood will flow over
my rosary as i kneel

your arms becoming
the only thing
ever, ever, ever—

where i whisper my promise:
i will make you a God.

my heartworm halts the bleed
before you take hold
its aortic contortions take new forms
but the lessons are old

i feel them again
in the dawn hours when
your eyes search mine, for a glint

of the right kind of smile
warm and docile
of the right kind of hatred
matching with yours
of sweet servility, or savagery still
within your grasp

if there’s some bitter taste
you’re yet to efface
if you can, press down
hard enough; teeth to tongue
if you can, scrape out
the remnants of it
take my heartworm with you
if you’re able

to leave my heart open
make the right kind of mold
to have and to hold
hold back, hold still
strange girl, gone wild

you search, and i stare back
soulless, glassy, reflecting
predicting, ten steps ahead
exactly what kind of wrong
you’re diagnosed with

though the bleed is so sweet,
the heartworm knows:
there is nothing of the heart
about this.

my body is a wildflower garden - 3rd April 2024

i lay silent and still
but for the beating beneath
that threatens nearly to topple
those blooms newly-budding

from the nape of my neck
sly, stretching and playful
one single astragalus grows

sloping around the shoulders
breathed to life by mauve carnations
from the bud of the lavender rose

blooming into wild red orchids,
all over. from my lips, a lime blossom;
the sinking fountain-dime fate throws

while the gold thread spins out still
it assures only one gleaming certainty:
though love lies bleeding
ambrosia, over, over
will return

if marigold cut away the flesh
let dandelion spring up from my side
if wormwood should hollow out the bone
let magnolia flower from within
and cease the cruel ebb-tide

through rhododendron swathes i wade
to wait by the acacia, where i reap
only drooping foxglove with
the thorn-apple’s sour sting

i tear out the purple violet roots
i have nothing but landscape enough
and time: the dull stretch of buttercup
the meandering passage between

hyacinth-tinged, pink-yellow
forget-me-not by the red carnations
until arborvitae fronds stem from
behind my ears and between my teeth

in spite of rosemary, the willow will creep
for each plumeria, a poppy persists
singularly under the shade of the mulberry tree
snowdrops will yet grow over my waist
and my thighs, where bluebells ought to be

all while the moonflowers blossom, intertwined
with the purple hydrangea that rambles in static
through the nearly-dawn hours of the night

the mezereon scars are still left on my chest
the spindle tree’s shadow swallows my heart
but for pink campions budding on my breast

the closeness of the cherry blossom nose
the soul-searing cheekbone morning glory
the lonely amaryllis on my toes

so,
come as you are
come as a dream
come to me quite undressed
come to me in our sleep

come meet me by
the snowdrop fence
let the past sink into
the springtime stream

the rushing water, the road
and the supple-stemmed flowers
let out a distant ring of joy.
endless joy and blessed time.

you know nothing yet
about how
the nights warp
around my fingers
and how
on my nightswim
i do not break the surface
rather, i become it

my body is a wildflower garden
there is wolfsbane under my tongue
but, you know,

you could probably
love it out of me

i’d be fresh and clean
for you

i love my late night company
my morning glory

you could learn
to love it too