The Hyacinth Girl

Rough and tumble father you

are not playing nicely. Shot shards 

into her eyes and birthday candles

left wanting. Unsatisfactory

fathering to your fatherless

children who needed you more than

her children which are not yours to want.

A hundred names when I sat on your knee

a hundred names you said to she that I

shouldn’t have heard. But whisper sounds

don’t stay quiet. These days they burst out

into waiting cupped hands, clasped hands

fingers that wring together after all these years.

Fingers that undid locks and locked themselves together

afterwards as I sat by your side knowing

I could never know you again. Ten dead men

lay side by side in the valley, ten men who 

fought and died, for this our world for which we

are truly thankful. May you make us, may you

make it back to the hallowed past of stretched out

unbroken days and nights. Why won’t you remember

my name?

Love

That big brittle love which gets shat up walls and almost trips down the stairs heart in mouth love, dirty love enacted on second hand yellow sheets with nobody else’s convictions except the ones ripped spasming inside out in the shiver scabs of morning nights. Great shattered buckets of undulating terror lust spill from side to side down the grotty back streets and the bright red shadows. 

Blank

A thousand misshapen endings peered out from behind the vacated rows of chairs. Too late was the cry.

Oh you, you always win in the end. It’s been streamers in the dappled light for a bit too long now, sheepskin slipper calm faces and milkiness. The sharps are giggling to themselves and hastily scratching at the dirt floor below them. 

A balancing act plays on the fuzzy screen in front of me. Even when they walk with seeming ease, they are never easy.