Poetry

Slipping

Slipping
Peering, leaning, circling, nearing, the deep dark of the hole in the ground pulls at my shoelaces. I jerk my foot away but it’s not far and my torso barely turns. It knows what’s down there, which is why I won’t run.
Smiles were nice for a period of time but then they started to feel strange on the inside of my mouth, like a bit of food that won’t be chewed and has to be spat out. Happiness didn’t fit on my face, even as a mask it was the wrong size and the elastic dug into my ears.
EC Nov 2019
Pic from auntyflo.com

Memorial to a Marriage

Hand to hand,

Toe to toe,
Nose to nose, close… You exhale I breathe in.
It’s the morning, before the papers,
There’s sleep in your eyes,
Dreamy half-whispered words
Surf along the sunrise.
We are golden
in this embrace,
formed out of grace, and patience.
We love,
Which every law in every land
Says we do not deserve.
There’s a defiance in the warmth,
A roar in the whispers
Edges to the tummy rolls
and curves of thighs
and the heft.
The permanence of stone or bronze challenges –
“Test our mettle”
If you won’t make space,
we’ll make a monument to ourselves

E.C.

In response to Patricia Cronin’s sculpture, Memorial to a Marriage. 

 

New Poem: Cloud Bound

The hills puff up kettle steam,

the loch is one big mug of tea.

My train rattles round

making noises like

a spoon tapping

along the banks,

clink clink.

 

The denser weather

closing in,

someone’s pulling the drawstrings.

Tissue paper torn and laid together,

waves where the sticky tape

doesn’t hold;

A flimsy fan in the face of a mere breeze .

Pressure funnels

air up

we head into a tunnel of mountain cloud,

darker now,

resembling a smoker’s exhaled breath

on a cold day.

 

EMC

Loch Lomond, Gustave Doré

Thaw

 

Icy polish drips
From frozen finger tips
Blushing rooftops reappear
Cheeky circles in the clear
At first
New old surfaces
Unexpected colour burst

Stepping out from hiding
Under the shelter of the white
A seamless camouflage unrelenting
United snow and sky
It’s like the artist took their brush
And smudged all of the lines

Hollow howl runs empty
Nothing left to carry
The bluster of waning winter
Dusting round the corner

EC

Photo used under creative commons license 

 

Graduation

“Today marks a gateway to a future

which can hold on for just one more minute.

For now,

It’s about being proud.

All the hours at the library,

vindicated.

Study booth book tower uncomfy pillow,

Theorising throwing a silent housewarming

party to cries of “the library is my new home…”

 

All the stress,

Intellectual and mental health tests,

When it felt like it might be sink instead of swim,

Toes in at the deep end,

Push up, and here you are,

Reading the Thank You page,

The parents, carers, partner, friends, the helpful experts who lent a hand.

 

People hug and beam,

Proud as punch,

Punch-drunk on a heady elixir of fulfilment with a dash of fear

Of the unknown, that rogue.

But here is the finish line, for the current round.

What next? What was it all for?

Hold those thoughts,

the day is yours.

 

EMC

continues

I give

my mind

my body

my time

who I am

who I wish to be

and who I was

And now you’re a part

of the past, apart, from me

and I don’t want to think of the day when I

give

my mind

my body

my time

who I am

who I wish to be

and who I was, to someone else,

now a part

of my past, apart, from me

and I don’t want to think of the day

I give

my mind

my body

my time

who I am

who I wish to be

and who I was, to someone else,

now a part

of my past, apart, from me

and I don’t want to think of the day

I give

my mind

my body

my time

who I am

who I wish to be

and who I was, to someone else,

now a part

of my past, apart from me,

and I don’t want to think of the day

I give…

(ad infinitum)

 

EMC

photo by the author

Hewn

Glacial,

people pass,

push new routes through.

Friction forms heat,

metes the ice –

leaves you forever shaped by their shape.

Slim surface layers

become

pebbles

incremental.

Breaking away,

new, hew, paved.

Sloughed off,

the bare rocks watch

what will be brought,

and ask, how long have we got

EMC

Image Loch Coruisk, Isle of Skye by George Fennel Robson

After Winter

Last Spring I discovered that when the right eyes catch you in their light, you are seen. Aubrey was like the sunrise after a winter of Nordic nights. She brought a chance to start again, everything reset, you could be the person you wished you were the day before.

Aubre was direct, strong and had the ability to pierce whatever surface wore her reflection. Like slivers of sun-flares, burnt diamonds, she got under my skin. I was full of her.

In a short space of time, feelings grew like stems emerging from seed. Bursting like a river through a barrage, they flew.

I didn’t need to worry about letting myself go, risking running empty, because we were part of this together, me and Aubr . It was a cycle of replenishment, a process that couldn’t be seen but the consequences of which could be felt, proving its existence.

To and fro and back and forth, we exchanged parts of ourselves. As one person evaporated they were filled by the contents of the other.

Combining rushes of water and light left rainbow colours in our wake, a new spectrum for us. Aub danced bright, and I felt like I would never be afraid of the dark again.

—

Au was buoyed, Merle filled her from the tips of her toes to the whirls at the top of her crown.

Merl was rooted. She was strength, non-judgmental, with a sweetness to rival amber. A envied her.

Mer couldn’t fight what was to erupt, unchecked, from her heart. Leaving marks, like bark when its rings are marred with scars. Nurturing warmth turned scorched, their crossed paths were left parched.

Me was no longer doused by      to obscure or salve her wounds. The rush of elements stopped as abruptly as it started.      would have tried to hide a roll of her eyes at being described as ‘elements’. M would have blushed, nudging her love with a lightness of touch.

The ferocity of fire was left to burn itself out, incrementally; a violent, unwanted, renewal.

was glad not to face these consequences.

still searched for diamonds in the amber.

EC

Image by Victoria Morton
Source: generationartscotland.org/artists/victoria-morton/

Realise

She walks all night

But it’s summer

So it’s still light

And what is night looks like day,

The moon

At play.

Kneading the frustration

Out on her skin

Almonds and honey rise,

Fake scent from the bottle

But she isn’t going to

Mix it herself,

So the imitation it is.

If you didn’t know in advance

Could you tell

A blind test

Every time my mouth meets another’s.

When I tasted her,

I thought she was the real thing.

EC

Image: Summer, Margaret Macdonald, c1894

Dare

I am the good girl,

The play by the rules girl

Obey, abide, stay on the right side

And I’m told, everything’s going to be alright.

But inside I’m divining that new stars might be aligning,

Shapes I’ve never seen before, they make me feel like molten gold.

Daring to begin, performing roles I’ve never seen,

Before a friend tells me over lunch that it’s a sin,

I brushed it off   but it’s sunk in.

I didn’t know that my exploring was corroding years of doting

On the notions, those outmoded, that then goaded, questions pouring,

I was soaring then came floating,

Down into the gloaming,

And everything looked different,

And like I’d never known it.

You learn to masquerade, to hide,

Become a master of disguise.

It’s strange to conjure up a past

Where you hoped that you would not be asked

To hold that adoration clasped

Like water running through your hands.

The right direction is emerging

And still my thirst needs quenching.

When a book explains beyond hers and his

To inform teachers and their school kids

The usual rags smear their grease all over it.

Or when schools have the freedom

To erase us from the curriculum,

Is the path to relationships

Not even more treacherous to manage

when your fumbles loves and kisses

Are completely missing?

As if you’re non-existent.

Imagine what that absence does to a young mind over time…

When mirrors lose their shine,

Obscured reflections leave us all blind.

 

It’s the weekend and I’m caught up,

Tongue tripping to keep this form up

When sparks fizz,

And lips meet,

And we knock hips

And bump teeth.

But I’m in the bubble, I forget,

Take a step back, just check…

Can’t rest.

But I dare to trust,

That those who paved the paths before us,

We share the same stuff as they were made of:

Heart and strength and deep reserves,

Educating ignorance even when it hurts.

The love that dared not speaks its name has long been amplified,

Its ripples reaching far and wide

Decibels take on the tide,

And into these familiar waves we leap

Every time we dare to speak.

E.C.

First performed at ‘Dare to Speak’ for LGBT History Month. 

Photo by the author.