Lion-Hearted Girl

It was the cold that finally did it;
drove me inside the wardrobe
where I curled up and closed off.
It was safe there, hemmed in
amongst the coloured wool sweaters,
the neatly pressed t-shirts and the flat
paper ghosts, hanging –
as if in suspense - with breath
baited, stagnated. Their air thick
and warm like syrup, sweet narcotic
cloying in my throat,
dragging me deep like a lullaby
to somewhere dull and safe
as sleep.

But outside, I can still hear you:
a ghost, roaming your own
card-plated home, clawing at the door -
You! Whatcha hiding in there for?
Get out here now – you can’t keep running
away forever, y'know! It's pathetic! (Or,
as the case may be, parenthetic –
just a pause to let me catch my [your]
breath) D'you think I can ignore
this? All your mumbling and
rocking and crying and lip-biting
tumbles as you trip, tongue-tied,
knock-kneed, to Narnia? You
(never could understand how I got lost

in every moment of mouths that opened
over my head, whilst you bore down,
god-sized, well-wintered) think this
is what life is all about,
do you? Being locked up
in that bird-brained-cage of yours,
trying to coax feathers from your spine?
Well it's about time
you grew up, (or even, grew in
to this mind, which still seems
too cavernous; a lonely throne
to fill) and picked yourself up
off that floor. You don’t need help,
just some sense (and sensitivity, but what’s
the difference?). You!
You ain’t nevernevernever
gonna amount to anything
anymore (except a lot of knots
of bones and nerves and intestines –
but, oh God, take them all! Which witch,
in which wrist, is this? Now she's in them,
they're full of flaws!) That's it;
let your head hang - it's all
you'll ever be good for.

Here, you pause, definitively.
Still not adjusted
to this brightness, my eyes are sore.
You always blocked the light
from my skyspace; my one glimmer
of hope. You, and your
cannibal imperatives, your sharp-clawed
verbs. You grip me like a noun, tight,
between two hangman’s hands. 'You'
is a mantra, sewn to my chest. You
are the curse
with which I am blessed.
Oh break-

fast heart! You'll gnaw
my innards, else I rest.
But, steel-lipped though you may be,
maybe I've learned
to steel myself too.
Curled quiet inside my make
shift escapist world; hugged close
in the whorl of a wardrobe,
(either/or)
I've learned to emulate the lion's roar.

* * *

This is the last of my old creative writing club draft re-writes, and I think this one turned out best (probably because it's changed the most! haha). Actually, this was originally in prose, but it only made up the first stanza, which has been almost exactly replicated here, just in poetic form.

Inspired by (hopefully, quite obviously) 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' by C.S. Lewis and an amazing poem called Granma Crow. I wanted to work on my dialogues again, and getting the meanings/plots of my poems clearer to the reader. Hopefully I have succeeded - but you'll have to let me know what you think!

Roots

I have never been fond of gardening -
never liked the mud;
the green that entangles; nor
the dense fresh smell that catches
your breath. There’s no pleasure
in the visceral vibrancy; the pressure
of growth pressing against the sky;
the atmosphere tense
with life.

But once
I found a picture
of that same sky, creased,
the colours mulled by time – and you
below. The same half-
smile, the same blue eyes,
crinkled by the sun, as my own.
There, you rose round the rhododendrons,
a blush of warmth beneath those
bud-starred canopies, as if emerging
from a well-worn sleep.

O green-fingered ghost,
now I know whose earth-bound
pulse I clawed back dirt for.
Amongst the growth, your heart’s
laid to rest, nested amidst the ropes
of my child-like explorations,
my gropings through the dark –
my roots, dug deep
through time.

* * *

Giving a whole new meaning to 'family tree' (ho ho!). >___>

Here you are, Phoeb, this is for you! Another of those creative-writing club redrafts that I said were coming. (You can see the first fail here). I apologise profusely for its crappiness - even though it's been edited quite heavily, I don't think anything could really salvage it.

Just one more of these things to go, hopefully, and then things should go back to (slightly less mediocre) normal.

Out Of Touch

It seems unfair
to be kept from air - held
in limbo between the white
of the skywashed ceilings
and the whites of the eyes
rolling back on blackness. Not
that they care – they’re used to
this confliction, days of contradiction. To us,
to them, there’s no difference - life
is a picture show in black
and white, and when the lights
fade, you’ll see
that this film’s drawn tight
across our eyes – else you might
notice the pressed ricepaper
wings that shoot crinoline
from our shoulderblades. Despite
everything.


Though,
being fragile as we are,
we are not expected to look
beyond the horizons of the dead-
pan stares to where those wings
could take us –

The doors, that swing
on such geometrical hinges
as to open both ways
are to remain forever
out of touch.

* * *

'I know death hath ten thousand several doors for men to take their exits; and 'tis found they go on such strange geometrical hinges, you may open them both ways.' - The Duchess of Malfi - Act IV

Sometimes it's hard to find an escape route, but remember - every trap has a trapdoor.

This is the first of several pieces that are basically clean-ups of old drafts from creative writing club. You can expect a few more of these coming up, I'm afraid - it's the easiest thing for me to do whilst the war against revision is being raged.

I pretty much completely changed the direction of this one, but without changing too much of the original content. Still not too sure about it though... some of the imagery seems a little too contrived - overused by me, if not everyone else. And you know that your work's not at its best when you begin to be influenced by your revision...

* * *

And finally, some news! Remember that school poetry competition I entered ages ago, with Wasteland? Well, I won! :)

Mothership

If flesh is grass,
then we are glass –
grown curved into the crux
of love, washed smooth
by the spine of time. We are
where our image met -
my face, yours,
f r a g m e n t e d by pores
of light and the shells
that collected in our eyepits, our
outstretched palms. Born
of the sea, and whitewashed ceilings
that bore over you, punctured
with eyes like
stars: we have
a bond that stretches beyond
even death -

when the water will seal
over your mouth, and my breath
will make mosaics
against the sky.

* * *

Ever since I heard this song by the Screaming Females, I wanted to write something called 'Mothership'.And I finally managed it!
This was started in creative-writing club. In pairs, we were given a picture and were told to write something inspired by it. Phoeb and I were given a picture of a weird pottery and shell mosaic-thing, and this is what it inspired. Surreal musings on motherhood. Hmm...

Blue and White - Istigkeit

Here I am now, submerged in blue: a wall of colour and nothing else. Here, time is defunct, because now and here is nowhere, and I am little more than abstract thoughts. There’s a kind of purity about it, a wholeness; smooth white peace like a softmint, with the sting in the mouth too. There’s a sound like the hush of clouds seething between the bones and a floating sensation, like falling asleep underwater.
Beneath the heavens, where opaline skies bite down on treetops, I lie open. I am free. Out of the veil of myopia everything seems crystalline and bright; pure as tears.
I have come here to empty myself; to erase emotion and relieve the weight of exhaustion from my limbs. The endless expanse of blue drains me, washes over my eyelids, and I am infinitely small yet part of everything, and full of so many fractured voices and half-formed words, I find it hard to breathe.
I am learning peace. Locked in my own pearl carapace, I sleep, dreaming achromatic dreams of bird cages, piano keys and sulphuric clouds dragging the lake. And I am rolled flat beneath the waves; a cut-paper ghost, the mouth shutting on nothing over and over. Ice laces the knots of my spine, and I can feel my lungs flooding with silence.
And this is what it is to be whole. Istigkeit: the essence of life, pressed like a flower.
I am beneath it all, beyond it all, as I lie still; watching the clouds passing, passing, over my head.

* * *

Just something short a wrote in creative writing club recently. The theme was colours, so I, naturally, chose blue and white.
Although it wasn't originally inspired by the song, I felt that it fit - and, as I love Babes in Toyland and this is an amazing song, I thought I ought to share it. Even though that meant spending an evening making a video as there wasn't one on the internet (shameful!)...
Enjoy!