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 50th
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
No comments:
Post a Comment