Three Sublime Poems by Gaynor Kane

Morning Pages

 

Outside,

ideas, adjectives and verbs hang

like foliage on an exotic promise tree.

 

Fluid and flighty

bewitched creatures, I pick

words carefully, to sound and scribe.

 

Peaceful dawn,

sunbeams on flowers

and language resting on my lap. 

 

Alone and Adrift

 

She spread out her fingers

staring at the future

on her palm,

as she traced the arc

of her lifeline.

 

Picked out grit

from under her nails;

saw writing in the sand

of rough skin. Rubbing

fingers to thumb,

 

she heard long dune grass rustle;

webbed folds and wrinkled knuckles

become gentle ripples on a moonlit ocean;

whirlpools in the whorls

of her fingerprints.

 

Lunula on thumb nail,

a little moon

to navigate by;

to find a radius to her ulna.

To feel the warmth

 

of a kindred hand,

cupped and stroking her cheek.

She supped a tear of laughter

and felt a lightness of touch

like a sea breeze. 

 

This Ocean

After Jack Spicer

For Natasha Cuddington

 

This ocean, humiliating in its disguises,

Wild waves, wash tossed masks about,

destroying. Broken coastline crumbles

into tumultuous depths to grind gravel

─pestle and mortar motion; in time

jagged edges become colourful beads of silt.

 

No one listens. The beach feels fingers

plough furrows in dry sand, winces

at washed up plastic, discarded blue masks.

Sees a little face smile at a tortoise-shaped stone.

 

No one listens. Stones are still stacked,

packed with age-old meaning. A pebble placed

on a headstone. Smiles as a child

finds a tortoise-shaped-stone. No one listens.

 

This ocean is life giver, filled with mythology,

in irregular breaths and with the loudest

heartbeat.  No one Listens.

 

This ocean is life-taker. She sings

songs of deceit to sailors,

her masked face performs a play

to a masqueraded audience–

giver of darkness and lover

of Neptune. No one listens.

 

This ocean rises and falls.

This ocean is not simply blue.

Gaynor Kane is from Belfast, Northern Ireland. She came to writing late, after finishing a degree with a creative writing module. Her full collection, ‘Venus in Pink Marble’ was released on her 50^th birthday in 2020, published by the Hedgehog Poetry Press. She has three other publications, from that press: a micro collection, ‘Circling the Sun’ (2018), about the early aviatrixes, a chapbook, ‘Memory Forest’ (2019), about burial rituals and last wishes, and a co-authored chapbook of pandemic poetry ‘Penned In’ (2020). Her forthcoming chapbook of love poems ‘Eight Types of Love’ is due to be published in February 2022. Her poems have earned places in several competitions. She has been guest editor of the Bangor Literary journal and has also performed at several festivals, including the Belfast Book Festival, Stendhal Music and Arts Festival and Cheltenham Poetry Festival.

 

Website: www.gaynorkane.com

Twitter: @gaynorkane

Facebook: @gaynorkanepoet

Instagram: @gaynorkanepoet