Cleanliness is next to godliness
When the mist finally lifted
the grided hills had moved forward
and stood as an obstacle
outside my bedroom window;
I pushed them to the corner
of my eye
they are simply too big to fit in my purse
*
A shred of soap
all clean and weak
got sucked down the plughole
it was Monday morning
Monday's washing day
Tuesday's baking day
and the rest of the week
we sleep
*
I dried my hands on Thursday's clean towel
after you left your white trail
your saintly snail track
and because I aways clean
I know you will come again
and because it is all clean
you can feel original again
*
I like to be tired
I am tired from sleep
I like to have read from my bed
what I already knew
I have taken this stance
with my arms pinned wide
I am waiting to forgive
© Thérèse Lloyd
LOVE RECEIVING
love receiving
used to giving
all the time giving giving
slowed down process
this correspondence
lack of speech
be forgiving
as age rockets on
and shows it.
to hear news
is to remember slices
flashes and "Trash"
the sound of that scene
in the capital.
And on.
Further away
in the back-bar
of the brain.
shall slap wrists
occasionally
and the occasional call
when money is not
so tight
and people aren't clinging
all enquiring
- will be some sort of substitute
from a quieter letter writer.
But fear not!
You and everyone else
are still in here
still thought-of
and talked about.
More golden glows
than what is imagined
on the belly of the scale
(dried up links)
there's a stack of envelopes
bulimic envelopes
all waiting to be filled
then to be spilled
into the most grateful
of hands
in your greener cities
fruit bearing
sonic ears on.
© Clinton Gorst
musical scores
We are harmless surely
as we leave trails of jasmine
not just the scent
but the soft weak flower
broken like dozens of tiny umbrellas.
I catch your gaze
wide and stunned by inch of bone or round of flesh
like that time at the shower window,
mirrored as though you could do no harm
but live beyond your body
We are as absurd as we can be;
To feel each bump or scrape
in this house built of packing crates
I know that in due course
you will take ownership of my voice and breath,
Now brittle like teeth worn weak
through pleasurable excess;
It is difficult to imagine a life without sin,
the drink is the problem
and Every Good Girl Deserves Wine.
All these brown paper bags conceal evidence
of musical scores
written under the influence
of blood red walls that stand with arms folded
like sound barriers that deny more than they protect.
But you and I can be like new gosts
naïve in our surroundings;
We will pass through walls
and slip into the night, loose limbed and lipped
and allow the wind to steal our whispers.
© Thérèse Lloyd
