Let Down

Let down,
Left to drown,
Left at the altar in your wedding gown,
Left looking up on the long way down,
You looked long for a smile in sea of strange faces,
But you only saw a frown,
That boat never came and no one saw you drown,
Floating like a bedraggled angel in your ivory gown,
Left to drown,
Let down.

I am Grateful

For the times when time is still as a rock

For the times when I stop clocking the watch,

Or watching the clock,

For the times when I am the boat,

And time is the dock,

For the stillness,

I am grateful,

For the relief that comes after pain,

And for the pain,

They're one and the same,

Two roads converging to run as one lane,

And for the Journey,
I am grateful,

For loyalties and abuses of trust,

Betrayals and friendships are just,

A refining of gold from dust,

The sifting process does what it must,

For the lessons in true value,

I am grateful,

For all the saints that have gone before,

For all the teachers who held open the door,

For those who have scraped my remains from the floor,

I'd be nothing without you, I am utterly sure,

For the comfort of unaware Angels,

I thank you

For the divine and loving thread

From before conception, till long after I'm dead,

To that bridegroom eternally wed,

When mountains have sunk let it be said

We bled,

Together.

For you,

I'm eternally grateful

The death of a poet

Listening to the lady on Radio four,
The continuity announcer,
Announcing a discontinuity,
Seamus Heaney, she said,
'Who recently died'.

Something in the way she spoke those words,
The stress and emphasis, slightly obtuse,
Made it sound,
Like yet another achievement,
For the great man of words,
Like He had picked up,
Yet another award,
Yet another prize winning poem.
Like it was simply the last thing to do,
On his to do list.

And it strikes me that this, in itself, is inherently poetic,
Leaving them hanging, like that.
That death, for a poet, is a stepping off,
Of the final page,
A dot, dot, dot,
If you will.
footprints trail,
Just occasionally it is a precise and full, stop.

I heard a man once say,
In a church building,
stripped of images,
and full of words,
That we are God's poem.

Words into flesh,
and back to words
I like to think, Dear Seamus,
that he had just finished a verse...

The unbearable lightness of being fat

Heavy handed and heavy set,

With a lightness of touch, you've not seen yet,

Heavy set and Heavy handed,

If you're lying on the mattress, you'll know when I've landed.

Middle aged like middle earth,

Middle aged spread around my girth,

On the take and on the fiddle,

However you throw something in my direction,

Trust me, I'm so fat, you'll hit the middle,

But I walk with my chins held high,

And for some reason the girls just sigh.

It's a huge responsibility,

When you are so large that,

You generate your own gravity,

But I bear the weight of it well,

Not so anyone could tell,

I transcend all kinds of restraint,

You may be skinny and miserable,

But I sure as hell ain't,

It may give me a heart attack,

But at least while I am alive, I live,

and fats a fact,

It's a kind of a mystic Zen type thing,

The peace of mind,

That comes from having your own,

Rubber ring,

I call it a blubber ring,

If I'm dropped in the ocean,

I wont need to swim,

To stretch-mark the metaphor

I float above it all,

The wreck of Titanic,

The belles of the ball,

Their skinny bones lie on the sea bed,

So don't even think of asking me to shed,

A few pounds,

I've seen many lighter folk drown,

In a sea of misery,

Beneath the waters of drudgery,

No I'm far too spiritual for that,

I guess I'll just live,

With the unbearable lightness,

Of being fat.

The glove box.

So she is gone,
So the moment is over,
Our faces, sewn up,
As stitched as our words,
As tailored with patches,
That conceal rips,
Rips that will eventually,
Stretch the new borders of their searching extremities,
Hidden rips,
We stand about, heads low,
Hog-tied hands on our hips,
In forced conversation,
Which keeps struggling back to the surface,
For air.

This car, we surround, is the last nail in the coffin,
The final purge,
My father's finally cleansed his house,
All visual representations,
Of her,
Are gone,
Or at least they will be,
When my sister drives off in it.

It will no longer be,
The marble that tips,
the see-saw,
Grief sits alone,
Weighing twenty stone,
But will not pick its ass off the floor.
Not if he can help it.

And just when it seems you are gone,
When we are pretending,
That the reason we are there,
Is actually this car,
And not your death,
Not his unfaceable grief,

An afterthought,
A by the way,
He leans in,
And flips the catch,
On the glove box,

And out tumbles,
Comically spring loaded,
Your fur trimmed hat,
Your scarf,
Your gloves,

We gasp,

And though the emotion,
Is stamped on, reclaimed,
Stuffed back, hurriedly,
Like a child clamps its hand on its mouth,
After the forbidden words have escaped,
It can not be anything but acknowledged,

And though it is not referred to,
And it it's heartbreaking to see my fathers face so nearly crack,

Like a fart in a lift,
An elephant in a room,
We all know,
That you've been there,
And though my family are reined,
And though the tears were restrained,
The smallest trace
 Of a smile on my face,
 Is not.

I love this fragile painful truth.
Like a daisy breaking the pavement.
You wont be denied.

Greenbelly

A Greenbelt for my greenbelly,
Allow it to ripen, cant eat no greenberry,
12 months to wait till I can get greensmelly,
Greensmelt and greenmerry,
I can use my greenbelt, to whip into them,
How I greenfelt, I was green, keen and greendealt,
The perfect hand,
At Greenbelt

Till then I'll just have tighten my,
Greenbelt.

Piggy Torch (An ode to Claires torch)

Piggy torch, O piggy torch,

There's no need to feel inferior,
Even though you couldn't light,
The smallest tent interior,


Piggy torch, O piggy torch,
You have such great responsibility,
To shed the light of truth,
Onto a dim point of utility,


Piggy torch, O piggy torch,
You're not to blame, what can I say?
Night is not your medium,
You work better in the day,


And besides, O pretty pink piggy torch,
You've much to deal with, caught in the middle,
Between such a daunting task,
And a woman who likes a fiddle,
A shameless piggy fiddle.