Tuesday 16 August 2011

of spiders and water

I heard them
flying across the sky
despite myself and the longing that
they were not real...

I hear he went France
I remembered Agincourt,
so many graves
and the knave skewered
on his own sword
pretending it was just a dream,
but we were standing there
carefree and five years short
of seventeen.

There are bats circling
on this- a cool august evening,
I watch for the men
of eight legs or arms
to creep silently
unhinged through the night,
women speak in verse
I find myself terse
turned on or off from their ramblings.

Rabies is an affliction
that gives us reason
to foam readily at the mouth
and my southwards lips
shift as my hips,
dance with longing forgotten
steeped in dealt blows-
I am slow to return

Yet do
                as I must.

While the endless thrust of blood
same type and route
delivers notes of music,
she hears despite my muting
of sounds
found only in ways to deafen,
spreading five fingers
and palm over ears.

Here is the truth
deeply interred to recur,
yet we repent not a leisure
head swimming under
sacrifices of ones own lies

There is no poets act,
no chiming chords to accompany
the cacophony of wailing
sailing into seas,
deep oceans of uncertain living.

I cannot forgive
despite having read my own explanation,
realisations-
they are coming
I feel their limbs
clambering over me,
her waking fitfulness to letters
addresses with first names only.

There is always the river
but it offers no consolation,
she has already staked it
as her own home
and I am known to its waters.

Slaughter is a word we associate
with death
of a body,
but when will you see
it is more a death of memory
and soul

I am mute beneath fluid,
daughter- mother-  lover
none.
inescapable the melody
I hear it now
Playing....

it knows only this,
the resonance of my name.

Copyright: Samantha Ledger 2011

1 comments:

gerry boyd said...

Spooky, moody, and lovely.

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