A Full Metal Armour

Cripples are confined by cages

of bodies miss-grown from source

or malformed under weight of circumstance

This vessel (physical) uncontrolled

out of reach

torn from tethers I had

weighted to the ground

Fists bloodied from pounding stakes

snatches of time teasing rust shards

from blistered palms.

A salient wind has risen

squalling ‘cross fields North to South

barricades are crumbling.

My solitary Centurion abandoned her post

and I have lost strength to carry

full metal armour

Exposures oracular intent

hangs loosely upon

a fertile air.

© Samantha Ledger 2012

Twister to Jordon

Desire has burnt itself into states of ash, white and hollow. These simple dreams once laid bare under a vulnerable sun have turned delirious. Chime saccharine beauty. There are bells ringing out in a cacophonous peeling. Listen though deaf, a heart cannot discern if they call out in worship or warning. Fires have been lit with tinder dry willow and birch. Burning acrid stacks to guide home weary weakened warriors.

Once they claimed Crusades were directed by Christ.

They lined us up to eat his flesh, one by one. Storms rolling over horizons. Old women lowered themselves lowly to earth waiting for dust to lift them skyward. Off in the ferocity of twisters coming to claim only the holy. There are no chambers deep enough to contain my sins and bone marrow seeps its substance slowly around the skeletal frame.

Doves beckoned, broke formation to swoop down amongst sinners. There are no saints sleeping here, each sacrificed in a letting of blood.

Blankness

Or blackly moves shadows about the page. Here weep I scriptures meaning. Leviticus has demands I stone myself to rid an essence of evil. No other hand will raise rocks despite laying my head at their feet. Prayers of forgiveness still themselves upon bloodied lips. Nothing shall sing me sweetly back to God, shout me to salvation. I have never travelled to Jordon. Going nowhere to meet the naked etching of myself. Hollow. Unclear.

I am only a stranger to strangers with no map to guide me home or back to Jordon.
My body made to lay under
and then blindly to roam.

Copyright: Samantha Ledger 2012

waterlillies

Copyright: Samantha Ledger 2011

deliverance

She says she has words
plentiful in a vocabulary of Welsh,
I cannot content with
vowels and concepts spoken,
in my language                  another language-
passion rages beneath  the fine veneer
of motherly attributes,
if she were astute wisdom
it would lead a merry path
past our (un)holy vision

I have birthed one
long       desire to give others a sense
of freely available oxygen,
are there drugs that alleviate
such sentiments,
I heard her annoyance and relinquished
control to another-
                here is my power
take me.

I have suffered and suffer
indigenous cramps of native
blades and humorous felinity,
                here seeps substance
of women.

I have failed and fucked
twenty eight moments,
only one leading to this-
                hope fails me ,
 he will see
persecution.

So I say,
                she has my eyes
they are filthy-
I thought you would lead her
towards other paths,
dreaming you would not make
another women
                in my own image.

Copyright: Samantha Ledger 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

for Iris

There is fate

I hear it calling   distantly,

I had not reckoned that it knew my name

but he did           and spoke it

with an eloquence I would not have

associated with a poor

upbringing-         we are poor (I)

in moral fibre and perhaps character,

so they say         of me and I behave

only to your expectation.

You see this love and assume

the demons caught beneath,

under the net of capture are yours.

Why

                why

is there per         sist         ence

in memory,

I cannot will it so or         stow its feed or

stem its hunger.

I watch dutiful

Catholics recounting vows

hopeless and lost,

for her sins of innocence-

understand mighty,

I thank Iris

for delivering this body

complete to its road.

There are many paths

to lead hope astray,

they remark on fragility

yet seemingly engrossed by the frailties

of a woman grasping

at womanhood she believed

denied to her.

I feel the tug of reality

pulls at wounds gripped

by a recall-

manufactured efforts,

if they are wrong

then am I held together

by misguided hope,

string     twine and glue.

Deliver me from evil,

                I prayed or pray- yet

you never came.

Now I am alone with her

Priestess,

                 protesting beautifully

in a language I cannot speak

                but find myself agreeing

too.

Copyright: Samantha Ledger 2011

toxic

Over the years

the voice has dissipated

to a small chiming sound,

pitched so to almost be unheard,

it seems so much better to be

unheard               unseen.

You said it was the comment

I made across the table

dressed in a suit,

               Just be kind to us

my reference to professional conduct

but you heard it as

              Just be kind to me

We began with discussions of

poetry and art

over coffee and cigarettes,

            a middle of

my legs spread from

one side of a room to the other,

                          ended with you leaving

while I carried our child

        under my breastbone.

Perfection exists in balance

of all things,

handing trust to your lover

because they know

             what it means,

how fragile its beauty-

          for them to break it,

scattering       shards

like a trail of breadcrumbs

               that I must follow

to put myself back together.

I heard your voice calling

             again

through the distance,

remembering becomes rose tinted

I loved you so deeply,

              I love you

for making me a woman

want to lay myself out for you

yet it always was toxic

                 it always was toxic,

chimes the voice

speaking slowly

calling this masochist to prayers.

Copyright: Samantha Ledger 2011