london in november

we drove into a morning

that spilled light across the fields

in a way i don't think

i will ever forget

speeding south toward warm fire

and hearty dinner

we continue

no rest for the wicked

i am away

on a train

to a big town called London

where they stole my wallet

and i stole a cherry

and i began

all those months ago

and so i was to return

to see faces

familiar and sweet

to dance to tunes

that held my hair back

and put salt in my eyes

to sleep as a bohemian queen

in love with the night air

cold on my skin

to listen to tapes

and answers questions

why?

how?

when?

where?

who with?

to sip lattes

and make beans on toast

to hear accents

that have only become accents to my ears

of late

to be seen again

and loved all the more

i saw the purple turtle

and i am learning how to remember

and smile

at just how glorious

this life can be

untitled

so it is

another chapter finished

and it is without silence or peace

that which i had wished for

i exit again

there is a space

unknown

and unkept

inside

foreign borderlines

where there is a boy

waiting to be a man

in the arms of a stranger

and it is to him i shall cling

coming awake

and alive

in eyes that do not look to judge or intimidate

control or suppress

these mistakes

that i am to suffer

and be made a stranger among friends for

will pass

in the distance i will once again travel

in attempts once more

to rid myself

of the cruelty your love had to provide

the half lit up man

the closer i get
the more wrought with jealousy i become
it is as though
no matter
how much
or how far

i am still filling up
his footsteps
and looking at the space
left still

i am shadowed by a man
much greater then i

and his eyes
though long closed
burn holes in my back

his breathe remains in my conscience
and his words
are harder still to dissolve on my tongue

when you have just enough

to turn around

again

do you think

perchance

the wee things that stood behind you all the while

will still be there

just as they where before?

something slipped out the window

of this car

as it sped away from any form of commitment

but in the space between where you are

and where i am

was once there a line

so it is in dreams now

i fish about

for our friendship.

wellies across the water

red toes across the sky

you cannot imagine

i will sit by you
stranger
man in this not my house
i will cook your dinner
and wash your clothes
and at night
i will hear you stumble
about
in this not my house
you seem still driven
some unsatiable hunger
perhaps for the cakes hidden under the stairs
or for a translator
to turn my questions
into answers
the demons of the night claw at your sides
and i fear the sound of your restless rambles
i do not wish to bury you
but i did not wish to bury
any of those i have
you are not paying for any wrong doing
your regret has no place here
in this not my house
among those who only wish to love
until this love need not feed or listen
is it a selfish love
that keeps you
or a heart so full of compassion
it cannot ignore
you cannot imagine
the ghosts reborn in the light of this darkness
there is purpose to us here now
a purpose on my part
so full of unwanted responsibility
how cruel it is
to know
and not know
to care for
a stranger who's eyes scream of unspoken sadness
i fear i will learn what it is to mourn a stranger

just around the bend

i have tied my heart
to the mast of this little ship made of paper and glue
i walk to the water of Leith
and place it down beside the reeds
and the rubbish
i push it forward into the stream
and watch as it disappears behind the first turn
i will no longer chase
what waits
just
around
the bend

you have until the flower wilts

1 week, 4 days

3 hours

and now

32 minutes

is all the time you have

to make this right.

that is how long it will take

for this flower to wilt

and die by my bedside

there are buds yet to open

but the water will not be replaced

i will ignore the wee flower

until i notice some sad, sweet drooping

if it is not made right

i fear

i will never like the colour yellow

again

who we have become

it was not you
it was the idea of you
my idea of you
the promise of you

and now
knowing this space between us
i am reminded of
of the simple fact
that
where we were
where we were going
and inevitably
the people we where going to become
are all that need now be addressed

apart, alike, away and amused
i must seem
at the light hearted
heart breaking
separation of it all

i see a small girl
frozen in yet another
undesirable yet utterly amazing situation

that is where you left me and now dear
this is where i am

swear to me
this is who we have become?
and promise i will choose to
adapt to, accept and abolish
in that order alone
this daunting reality
waiting at my feet

Wine in the Forest

This afternoon

we drank wine in the forest

The man you see all over town was sitting behind you

we talk about old things

and new things

and things i dont really understand

until you translate them from

Spanish to English, then

English to Spanish, then

Sedi to Sarah, then

Sarah to Sedi

all with a nice wee cup of wine

the till

somehow

out of the till today

there spilled

some unexpected word

that made me smile

and be grateful

i work with the most gorgeous girls

my head

there is a very big grey cloud sitting just behind my left ear
when i wonder what i want to do
the cloud spreads further over
it fills with tears that are yet to fall
and makes my shoulders wet

the wee bottle of carbonated water living inside my head
shakes itself in this pressure
and through the lid
bubbles escape

some of the stars fell from your eyes into mine
and now i cant really see
but i know what i want to see
your words
and mine
alike
and aloud
across a big stage

when i find a mop
i will clean up the mess
my head has made

room on your couch once more

at once

like a slip

slide

show

of colour and light

i am sprawled out

across your couch

pouring my tales

like tea from a pot

onto the lounge floor



once all is said

i am empty

and ready to be refilled

with the burdens

that tomorrow will not fail to provide



leave me room on the couch once more?

sufjan is always going to belong to sufjan

the Psalms are written by wiser men then you

but they are thrown about

as your own words

i cant believe this

has boiled over in the pot

the water has all gone and now the rice

is stuck to the pan

it is burnt black

and i will never be the same

curly haired girls dancing in white dresses across a clear sky

kissing quietly

and lighting matches for the sulfur smell

their is a harmony playing out

and it causes me to choke

it was the year of the dragon

she was born

and she died in the year of the ox

my relatives know how to bury

the things they cannot accept

my only revenge is my happiness

and i am waiting for the cold

like a child on christmas eve

my beaches are hotter

in my absence

and your grass will never be this green

how fickle

i kissed him like i was leaving for work
i did not turn back as the car pulled away

for two weeks i cried enough to save all the farms across the Simpson
the salt of my tears wore the grease from the grills

Patrick told me to keep my chin up
and Jo told me to never go backward

so i went up
and away

and now all i can do is write you letters
and remember the smell of you in the morning

how fickle this thing love is

mail boxes

it is
as though
everybody has died
and gone to heaven
and i am writing letters i cannot send
because the mail boxes are too full
of sympathy
and regret

i fill your head with stories that are no longer stories
that are mine to tell
yet i cannot stop but tell you
all the more

there is no truth
and a tiredness waiting in my eyes
to catch me
if i hold them shut too long
i am always waking up too late
and you will probably not get my letter
not in this time of mourning.

tomorrow will be a gorgeous day

tomorrow i will travel to a small house

a few miles away

to claim this gorgeous instrument

and on the bus

on the way home

i will play you songs

Myfanwy (poem by John Betjeman)

Myfanwy
Kind o’er the kinderbank leans my Myfanwy,
White o’er the playpen the sheen of her dress,
Fresh from the bathroom and soft in the nursery
Soap scented fingers I long to caress.

Were you a prefect and head of your dormit'ry?
Were you a hockey girl, tennis or gym?
Who was your favourite?
Who had a crush on you?
Which were the baths where they taught you to swim?

Smooth down the Avenue glitters the bicycle,
Black-stockinged legs under navy blue serge,
Home and Colonial,
Star,
International,
Balancing bicycle leant on the verge.
Trace me your wheel-tracks,
you fortunate bicycle,
Out of the shopping and into the dark,
Back down the avenue,
back to the pottingshed,

Back to the house on the fringe of the park.
Golden the light on the locks of Myfanwy,
Golden the light on the book on her knee,
Finger marked pages of Rackham's Hans Anderson,
Time for the children to come down to tea.
Oh! Fullers angel-cake,
Robertson’s marmalade,
Liberty lampshade,
come shine on us all,
My! what a spread for the friends of Myfanwy,
Some in the alcove and some in the hall.
Then what sardines in half-lighted passages!
Locking of fingers in long hide-and-seek.
You will protect me, my silken Myfanwy,
Ring leader, tom-boy, and chum to the weak.

pencil case

sometimes i wish i was the green pencil in your pencil case
you would always have to use me
to draw the grass
that would grow across your notebook

if i cannot be the green pencil
ill maybe be the blue one
equally as usable
and then i will be apart of your endless sky

but i think i would rather just be in your pencil case
because then i would be near you always

is there a home for us in the sea?

is there a home for us in the sea?

Where the tide rolls over and covers us
from these tempestuous nights.

sweet sailors fall down like raindrops overhead
and their ghosts swim alongside the dolphins
in my dreams

naked in my bed
i dream of the shoreline
the spray of the sea on my face
stumbling over the rocks.

unupdated self

beginning to think
(a scary process in my mind most of the time)
the hysteria seemingly almost always created
is something that should
not be
happening anymore
situations that seem repeated and questionable behavior
once again indulged
leave a mess
that really need not be there
beginning to think
and realise
these things are things
of an old self
an unlearned self
and i cannot
be that
anymore

not being a complacent woman

hold my hand and lead me back into the familiar
let me see all i've seen before
only now with fresh eyes
untainted by my preconceptions
let all that was remain
only allow my heart to embrace
all i might choose to dismiss
in this attempt at accepting the realities of my existence
realities i so fondly ignore
let me be not a complacent woman

a red stain

there is blood on your pillow
stained red
i stare at the mark in awe
i did not ever imagine
you could bleed
as you bleed
i am turned to stone by your pronounced fragility
and now i fear
i must forgive you

the magic of the tooth fairy

this morning i made pan cakes
for the muffin who tells me she hates me
a tear stricken face all red and puffy
sitting on the stairs
she screams like a banshee
this morning she looked like a 4 year old
and wiggled around like a fish
refusing to wake
the worry dolls under her pillow
are not helping lately
so i take my grandpa's tissue
and pull her tooth
for the second time
and watch as only the magic of the tooth fairy
can make this all better

beans

today i got your letter
and it smells like you
and i hear your voice in my head as i read your words
and i miss you
and your craziness
your stories
are stories
where you and i are the lead protagonists
and i play them out in my mind
as i lie in bed
remembering your bandy legs
and messy salt water hair
one day i will make you bacon and eggs again

washing machine dreams

this morning i woke up
and was tired still
i fell down the stairs
washing basket in hands
sleep in eyes
and i let your clothes fall down over me
like a blanket
i fell asleep once more
covered in your smell
and dreamed of the world inside the washing machine
all soap and bubbles
this morning i woke up for the second time
on the stairs
covered in your dirty clothes

i

smoke

cigarettes

while

a

man

in

a

kilt

plays

a

pipe

full

of

bags

and

i

think

i

am

home

jamie and claire fraser

you have auburn hair
for this i call you jamie
you are not from inverness
and you did not fight
bonnie prince charlie
but the golden fuzz
on your chest
is his i swear
i was reading all the while
and those books i read
made me leave
my beaches for your mountains
i flew to you
on the biggest
and loudest bird
i could find
for three days
to find this nest
and you where here
only stopping for a wee rest
so i twisted the threads that pull us all
along each day
until yours and mine intertwined
and for a short while
i call you jamie
and i am to play the part of claire
and we are in our home
that you built in the mountains
asleep in the hay

crumbs from the queens table

i didn't know what to give you

so i wrote down

what i thought you may like to hear

if it is not

what you may like to hear

i am sorry

but if it is

pleasing

to your eyes

to read these words

that would like to materialise

and wrap around you as you sleep

creating a cocoon

just keep you warm

and as i am fond of these words

yet ever so weary of their over use

and the somewhat misguiding abilities they have

please be careful with your interpretation

but please listen to these words

that will play out

in my voice

or your impression of my voice

in your head

as you read

these words

three words

i do love

the crumbs from this queens table

you are so funny

this is the funniest thing i have ever heard

i cant breathe

my lungs struggle under the pressure

and my belly aches

if i were three i would have wet my nappy

but i am not so i will just wet my pants

i feel endorphins release in me

they are sparkling through my viens

tickly my sides

and i cant believe how good this laughing is

this is the best feeling i have had in weeks

you are so funny

i want to marry you

and laugh till they put me in a little box

under the earth

you are lying

you are lying to me

i can see it
there between your teeth
like a piece of spinach
stuck

you are lying to me

i can tell
by the way you fidget
and squirm
like a bug in my presence

you are lying to me

and i hate it
i hate how these lies fall from your mouth
they pool at my feet
and i begin to slip around on your vague excuses

you are lying to me

and i know you are lying
my sweet friend
you are lying

faith in the unpredictable

there is a song we used to play

and it reminds me now of what became

of nothing

and it reminds me of what will come

if i give this life

enough time

to take flight

the faith i have in my unpredictable fate

sustains my eager heart

fall asleep

sleep evades me
so i decide to break myself
into little edible pieces
so when you wake up
you can stir me into your coffee
or spread me on your toast
or just keep me in your pocket
so when your on the bus
you can eat me
i think sometimes
it is better just to fall asleep

loose woman

loose woman
you loose your knickers too fast
and your dignity with them
you find yourself
continually searching for your pants
not remembering where they are left
or why they were ever removed
there is no reason for it
the nights where strangers
become lovers
then turn back into strangers in the morning light
and yet
you are still looking for your pants.

chalk drawings

we where chalk drawings
waiting for the rain to wash us away
we are leaves
drying in the sun
our wee skeletons becoming beautiful to look through
we are singing songs by the road
and juggling a thousand pebbles
until we find a lake to skip them on
we are sand between our toes
and the dirt under our nails
the aches and pains and tiredness
we feel
are distractions we need not notice
when we start to draw ourselves in chalk once more

the colour of the sky

are you trying to forget
the colour of the sky
when you sit in bed at night?
so when you wake up
you think you are in another place
somewhere you have never been
somewhere you are not a face recognised
the little girl in my heart
fidgets with the hem of her skirt
and screams at you to stop leaving
everything you really should never have wanted to leave behind

paint

we are trying to paint in the dark

when we cannot tell where we are on this page

we try to smell the colours

i wish i could use echolocation

to find you

in the dark

but i have not a mellon on my head

but if i did find you

i will take the match i carry everywhere

strike it across your face

and light the room in which we paint

a city alight

we will sing a lament to the stars tonight

bringing all our scars to the light

just once we will know

what it is

to be alight

and alive

dancing in flames

in january of this year
melbourne caught on fire
two people were burnt alive in there house
their daughter has skin grafts
she is alive
but orphaned
i found out a month after
what use is all this new technology
if i cannot know
some of my relatives
are dead

seeking a ghost

my mother is in love
with a man who is not my father
this man did not tell me stories
he did not make my billy cart
he did not kiss my sleeping forehead
he did not teach me to tie my laces
or dry my hair after a bath
he did not take me to the circus
or teach me to drive
he did not buy me new shoes
or mend my watch
but my mother loves him
his shoes sit by the front door
his toothbrush beside the sink my father installed
and his clothes now fill my fathers side of the wardrobe
dads smell disappears slowly
sometimes i hear his photographs screaming
and secretly sometimes
i want him to haunt our house
until his smell returns

you are a story i will tell

i think i found my heart again
in the south of france
with a silly american boy
who couldn't dance
and if i ever see him
i will tell him
there does exist
a different opinion to his
that is not wrong
people have monkeys
that they call baby
a man in london has a jet pack he uses to get to work
i have a bicycle that is going to emancipate me
and i have seen the first cloned sheep
the truth is
i am blessed
but not by your god
not even by my own
but like everyone
by the people who love me
you are a story i will tell

not my things

there are seven deer
and sixteen swans
dancing atop her bedside table
in the room that is not mine
but is trying to be filled with my things

my things are not really my things at all
they are a collection of things i could not leave in one country
somethings are very special
not because of what they are
but because of how they came to be
the things in this
not my room
in this
not my house
i am slowly coming to terms with the fact
in essence
i really own nothing
except the thoughts in my head
which of late seem stolen and regurgitated
like bird food
i hope one day
i will know what it is to earn something
and in earning
truly own
however important that is.

upon waking on your birthday

today i woke knowing what my day lacked before i'd the chance to change it

having found comfort in the idea that time had the ability to dilute the strongest of emotions

i was unpleasantly surprised

and have found

as though by some ill magic

i am once again

waking and once again learning

you are gone

and yet it is still your birthday

NMSP

no
more
sad
poems

my sweet friend across the sea

a letter is sent to you

you see it on the floor

by the door

beside the table

upon the rug

the handwriting

easily recognisable

and yet

it will stay on the floor

until you are ready

to know

all i want to tell you

how much i miss you

how much i need to hear back

just to know

all that was

all that has changed

and all that remains

of my sweet friend

across the sea

a hand scribbles something down
on a napkin in a busy cafe
inspired or just bored
i cannot tell
how is it you write
what you write?
or who is it you want to read it?
i must believe
what you say
still imaging what you really think
leaves me afraid
what might you say
if i ever think to ask
what i cannot promise burns holes in me
what i cannot say
sits waiting on my tounge
for all my excuses
for this silence i have none

asking of whole

is it
you are
not half
not a third
not even a quarter
of the man i thought you were?

or

is it
i am
not half
not a third
not even quite a quarter
of the girl
you could ever hope to love?

my indifference
is not half
not a third
nor nearly a quarter
of what it should be

sisters

a little grief in the dark

sometimes he is not dead
he has just passed into another room
of the big house we all wander about in
he is waiting now
for the interlude
or is it just that he waits for the moment before i wake
where he can be beside me
as i sleep
watching and loving me silently in the dark
and it gets hard
sometimes i am lost
i cannot find the light switches and i trip on issues and judgments
i search the house
wrought with grief
slamming cupboards and breaking glasses
the darkness lets the fear tight in my chest grow like weeds
the sickening feeling of alone claws at my sides and i curl smaller and smaller
seeking comfort in the foetal position
his eyes smile back through the photographs
still images of what was
and i realise
i am looking for something that has never left my side
and i am grateful

pressed flowers in the post

how is it she is able to sustain his idealistic fantasy without burning out in the heat of all her efforts?
he lingers still in her presence
she is in love with him
or at least thinks she is
yet he rolls over each morning
stirring her once again from her slumber
and he makes love to her with a half hearted sigh of relief
angst still plaguing his eyes
she is the void he fills with further emptiness
in their sad excuse for a relationship
he is a silly man
and she should never have taken him to her bed
let alone into the garden of her heart
allowing him to harvest all there was of her
she has now not a petal to show for the past eight months
tumble weeds blowing carelessly through the barren wasteland of her chest
should she not press herself
some small white flower
and iron herself in grease proof paper so she can send herself in a card to his mother
a card explaining that her son is better kept at home
out of sweet young girls hearts
his mother hears nothing of it though
the card will be put on a shelf in the drawing room
until a new pressed flower card arrives in the post

my new old bicycle

my new old bicycle is so pretty
it has pink ears and rusty shoulders
i walk beside it because right now it has a broken leg
but when it has been mended
i will ask it to take me to work in the morning
and to the house with the birds on the walls
and it will help me carry the shopping home
and when we are both feeling excitable we will go down hills and squeal
i love my new old bicycle

burnt toast

what a joyous occasion
this Sunday morning
half asleep in your cereal
you are beautiful
i am in love with your tired eyes
and dark expression
this why i burn the toast
all the time

little brocken pieces

the first time i loved him
i broke his favourite cup
it splintered across the floor
the pieces spelt his name on the dirty linoleum
he is passing through
as i am passing through
this multicoloured kaleidoscope of emotional turmoil
only to come alive in bouts of undesired passion
there is no peace in his heart
and the closer i get
the more i cut myself on his broken pieces

kettles in the sky

my grandmother, my sister and i will lie on the grass
in our grandmothers front garden
we will create creatures in the clouds above
the sun warm on our faces
my grandmothers wispy white hair playing across her weathered face
there is a rabbit
turned to a spaceman
that is now a kettle

there is soup on the stove
biscuits in the jar by the bread box
an out of tune piano
and chalk over our fingers
i am home

the curtains

the shadow of a horses ghost flies surreptitiously past my window
yet i know i must sleep with the curtains open
it is simple
i am afraid of the dark
and i long for the morning
i want to know when it comes
i want to know it is there
so even in my sleeping
in the time my soul has to be independent of my body
in the time i surrender to natures kind nurse
i must know all the fears
plaguing me
dancing like demons across this night
have faded in the morning light that graces the cracked window sill
i will sleep with the curtains open