Category: Poetry
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The Old Woman’s Weather
858 Watts something about a CT clampso this bitcan talk to that bit of electricity. eh? the old woman asksfor an explanation while the roofruns the refrigerator. storage battery99% full. the toiletwon’t stop running. the old woman looksat the roof. roof says, not my problem. — from The Old Woman’s Weather All rights reserved. These…
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08.10: Memory of a Spare Key
The Memory of a Spare Key I am eight, which is very grown up, old enough for my own front-door key. Happy birthday, Mum says, dropping itinto my palm. Keys are power. I know this from the way they danceheavy on chains, keeping time against my father’s belt, from the way grown-ups wear them like…
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07.10: A Response Poem
This poem is in response to a Six Sentence Story, Untimely Utterances Part X, written by Nick/Spira. The line of response is: Life & death are the same breath drawn twice. Recurrence a star draws breathin fire,in ash, exhaleswhat fire takes in, again. a first page openswhere the last one closed, dawn lifts the light,evening…
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06.10 dVerse Quadrille 257
What I Carry Taken from a pebble-dashed beach, this pieceof sharp-edged flint, a gift from his small hand into my pocket — and I carry it around,its weight warm against my hip. It’s as if his hand still holds both itand my autumn heart. Written for dVerse Poets, a quadrille of forty-four words including pocket. Photograph is…
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05.10: The Liturgy
Episode 9 Liturgy for the Lawyer’s Quiet(for the facts that sit in silence) I. The Office That Holds Its BreathFenella steps into the lawyer’s office,a room that smells of old paper,dust settled into the bindingsof books no one has openedin decades. The man himself is elderly,his hands marked with the slow workof documents,his eyes the…
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The Old Woman With No Cat
The Cat Claims Lindisfarne Monastery(Or: A Feline Descent into Nordic Grandeur) The Old Woman relaxes in her armchair,eyes half-closed,as Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungenswells through the room.Gods and giants,rhinemaidens and riddles,a musical earthquakeof splendid and silly. The cat sits on the rug,ears twitching,tail conducting the kettle drums,and somewhere between Siegfried’s horn calland the descent into…
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04.10: The Distance Back
The Distance Back While my little boat moves on its moorings,the day passes in mistand pine-green,and somewhere between the waterand the trees,childhood returns. The world is wide again.Trees grow touch-close to heaven, and in the crystal of the waterthe moon is comforted. There is wind in my earsand birdsfind their perches again, and for a…
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The Old Woman With No Cat
The Fallen Branch(Or: A Feline Inquiry into Loss and Limbs) The Old Woman comes in from the garden,arms scratched,breathing slightly hard,dragging the last of a great branchto the burn pile. The cat watches from the windowsill,head tilted. “Old Woman,” he says,“that branch was large.It was attached to the tree.For years.It grew there.It knew the tree.It…
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The Old Woman’s Weather
29.09 – 905 Watts in Sussex cloudsthe old woman asks the roofto make slow-cooker beef stew the repairman arrivessays the house alarmis older than his thirty-year-old son replaces the batteryold for newwhile the roof makes teathen more tea because repairmen have hollow legsthey need to filllike a battery — from The Old Woman’s Weather All…
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The Old Woman’s Weather
27.09 – 417 Watts The old woman in cloudy England puts solar panels on her roof. Her son says it’s madness;it’s always cloudy here. She puts the weatherto work anyway. Weather used to be something she talked about. Now it does household chores. 28.09 – 0 Watts at dusk the weather clocks off. the old…
