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Poetry

Three poems

Hetty Cliss

INHIBITION

 

i am always carrying / a bag for life
filled with weeds, expected recipes
the bludgeoned berries
of someone else’s feelings
 
yes, i carry messages / from your eyes
to this pigeon-toed heart of mine
but at night words split us open
and we lick up the cut
 
talk carries / a wreath of lilies
but i fear what lifts in the light
like a sparkling dew or a bruise
struck green in healing
 
the weeds are creeping quicker
now, can’t you feel them?
 

FOCAL POINT ARRHYTHMIC
 

when you are bad    you say bad bad         and i swoop in riding rings
of denial     no         not bad bad   good bad           good bad doing the best
it can    good bad dragged to doom      sinking      to the sofa in the living
room     heart beating     to a count of three       b   a   d   b   a   d   b   a   d
good bad unaware      as i dart downstairs       good bad climbing behind
clenched eyes       searching     for self-pity’s peak   so far       so high and far
when you next croak   bad bad    from a spent throat   it seems too faint
to mean anything     even when i know       the tone of your crawling
speech     good bad   still beating    b  a  d  b  a  d  b  a d       and shrinking
to screech          bad bad           hoping to reach ears                     all blocked
with sand                      you keep me good                                 to set you bad
but everything              is blanket grey    yes       you’ve been bad   again   so let
my goodness  flit in    so healing     so ready      to tuck you in      so ready
to pin you     to your actions      hammer hands caressing              bad bad
bad bad      i smile and swing     smile and swing     and say    no   not bad
bad   good bad        good bad doing the best it can            blanket gripped
to chin        beating   beaten by sleep     so silent       and still       and good
 

HORSE GIRL
 

I want to revisit Virginia Woolf.
I’m pulling weeds in the garden (you are
what you eat), thinking of the time Miss Cole
gave us the answers to a Jubilee
Weakest Link class contest to learn, rather
than stacks of factsheets. My memory whetted
as I read and re-read regal stats to
parrot back in the multi-class contest.
 
Jack was my partner (as useful as an
appendix). I hate ragwort, but I love
Woolf. (Horses mistakenly munch weeds to
death.) I hate the grip of dirt under nails.
 
No one suspected I’d cheated. Many
eager and snivelling years preceded me.

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