Friendship is Transient

[N.B. Future versions of this poem may include an application to faith in God. However, this version was written in irony for a particular friend who proclaims the truth of the title very adamantly.]

for Han Teck and Su-Ling

Friendship is transient, like the summer breeze
that refreshes the leaves of the old chestnut tree;
soothingly blowing until her greenery ripples a
sunshine song of joy; yellow rays peeking through,
warming her skin; smiling together
at the children playing underneath.
Three months later, the summer breeze is gone.

Friendship is transient, like the whistling sound
of the autumn winds. They blow through the valley,
shaking the branches of the old chestnut tree; forcing
her into their dance of green to brown to red to purple;
grabbing, tearing, pulling the air, til they softly tickle
the faces of the children happily playing underneath.
Shuffle and rustle and stamp and crack of chestnut
hitting the ground.
Three months later, the autumn winds have gone.

Friendship is transient, like the winter storm
Which crashes into the town where the old
chestnut tree stands; making her cry in pain
as branches are torn from her side and thrown
to the earth below. Children run back to their
houses in fear. Bare tree-flesh exposed, the chestnut
weeps rain-tears of sweet-sadness as she watches
the new arm tenderly grow through trial and turmoil.
Three months later, the winter storm has gone.

Friendship is transient, like the hurricane
That hurtles down the mountainside
To meet the old chestnut tree head on.
Ignoring cry or protest, he grabs her by the roots,
wrenching her out of her damp comfort-soil
To join his furious course. Whirling through
street and space she shrieks and whimpers and tires
and finally trusts, ‘til she lands – planted feet first –
in green pastures she never knew.
Very soon the hurricane is gone;

yet the memory, the whirling, aching, crying, growing,
children-playing, joyful-singing memory, of your friendship
Will last in this transient mind,
Like the eternity of the ever-changing seasons;
through time and space,
‘til we meet in green pastures forever.

Intuitive

I live in the future and the past
dreaming of the day we met
and the day you will leave me for the skies.

I nostaligise a life cushioned in you,
where my hair is stroked lovingly until I sleep,
and the darkness brings its own resounding comfort.

Instead, my heart is thrown out to sea
in a little green basket. An adventure, they say –
shivering, wave-tossed, lonely – a new adventure of faith.
And though I may study under giants, or earn mountains
of earthly treasures, or encounter princesses in far-off lands,
I shun all this.

I dream of one wish – not riches, power, or wisdom –
but that God would steer this humble vessel of bulrushes
down old familiar streams,
to bring me back to you.

For thine is the kingdom

Between the idea and the reality we fall into the shadow
Mindlessly longingly tumbling down to ashes.
It’s been over 500 days since the joke was made
And still I sit here gazing up at you
From the core of the earth.
They live hollow lives
But we fit together so well,
Like two sisters huddled for heat.
The storm beats outside our bodies,
And the touch of others is strangely excitingly foreign now.
We wove around ourselves a dream world so sweet
So comfortable so exposing.
Fully-clothed we saw through flesh and blood
To feel the pain of a hot beating heart,
A breath and a thousand miles away from life.
Was the world jealous to taste our innocent simplicity?
So full of remorse that it ended us in a whimper?
Do not spit me out for my sins.
I was not lukewarm;
I was simply hollow.

Amidst the vastness

The sea sparkles like firecrackers,
And you sit alone in your little white boat amidst the vastness.
The sea glistens like a polished tin can,
And you sit alone in your little fisherman’s boat;
You laze away your day.
Around me is a plethora of colour,
Yet I only see you amidst the vastness.
You sail towards me, you sail away;
The sea sparkles, the sea glistens;
I only see you amidst the vastness.

Tuesday wonderland

13:41 was my first hit.
Daytime sank rapidly through the morning.
Outside me looked grey; shadows shifting through
each other and I knew that inside
the earth was rotten to her core.
The sun was brilliant but elusive.
She had no time for me. She rests elsewhere.
She sees me only in pity.
I needed to get away.
I injected it through the ears and as it seeped through my blood
my eyes rolled in pleasure and my soul soured at the sweet, sweet,
sweet relief.

In wonderland there are no deadlines to meet;
no people to greet; no heat
from the sun because the sun is not there
in my wonderland
only the beat the beat the beat

This language needs no translation, no thought
but total immersion and complete abandon.
The solitary pleasure of touching heaven
through an earphone
for a second;
my wonderland cacophony of sound.

In-joke

You say it and then whoosh
It roars up into being
Like this massive intensive horrendous beautiful thing
That still I can’t control

I want to squash it until it rolls into a little ball
And fits nicely into my pocket along with my Vaseline
Hidden away from the rest of the world
I want to buy it for one euro twenty
And eat it at a specific time each night
But I always end up trekking round and round
These same insecure paths again

I come to your door and you come to mine
I freak out at your freaking
And as we slide into the depths of my chair
I begin to see this unreachable fear
Looming near the bottom of the iceberg
That we are really just some cosmic in-joke
A hand that grasps through the darkness for a second
And then lets go
That one day I will touch your neck
And the punchline will explode all over us

And now it seems I’ve walked full circle back to the whooshing and the
Out of control-ness of it all
Yet this life in equilibrium
This uncomfort
Balanced on the end of a look a phrase a wink
Makes me feel alive
And you say that I always smile but I’m sure I never did before
So I guess it must be good

Forgotten

It lives a life of disconnection; to walk down the street and stare, stare blankly at the passingby-people or into the distance as if you are longing for something unknown and unspoken. The day is emptiness. You can hear your footfall pitter-patter on the silent stones that are smooth as if many times in the past they have been worn away worn away by these ghost people who no longer live… here … The buildings gleam but they are marked with past dominions, past strongholds; the buildings gleam but the faces are a blank. They hide their old lives under their headscarves buried behind an aging market stall, as if somehow it does not matter and one day they will die. There is no hope… no hope… or very little hope… A tramp speaks perfect English to me but a bank worker cannot. Even at night when the lights switch on and the tight-jeaned youths with their blade-sharp hair emerge, generating a black vibrancy around McDonald’s. Their lives become tangible in this atmosphere, in these moments, but by the next morning they are gone, dispersed to their beds or behind their shop counters. And as I watch them I ask myself the question that nobody in the world will ask because they have no idea that these forgotten peoples actually exist outside magazine articles: where have they been and what will they become?

Ferries glide past one another without a glance, all marked with the same name… in and out, in and out, the sea, the ships, the passers-by, and all the time from above the bare mountain looms its grey stone down at us. Maybe there are more sheep than people in this country. It is harsh, as if you would bleed were you to touch it. When we drive through these cliffs I feel as if we might fall off. The country is haunted by what it has seen, what it has undergone. It has been stripped bare down to the callous texture of the craggy dried up rocks.

And there we sit, at the furthest point of the quayside. You battle the wind to get to us. We say we bring knowledge, help and hope. But to these places beyond hope, the places in the grey area between the worlds, the places in this perpetual bare, harsh fog beauty of islands and islands mixed with mist, sometimes we stretch out and it seems to come back empty-handed; the eyes under the headscarf push us away in suspicion at yet another dream let down. Our hope just sits there, at the end of the quayside, floating in the misty air.

How You and I first wrote a prose poem

One morning I woke up to realise that you had come into my heart. I was very confused because I had not invited you in and the place in which you were sitting was reserved for somebody completely different. I remembered we had been talking before and again and again and again but you had never mentioned the possibility and so it had never crossed my mind except occasionally in my head just before I would drift off to suegno con los angelitos one sleep after which I awoke to see you there. You smiled the ocean through me and your eyes were so blue at least much bluer than the previous occupant’s (who in fact had no eyes) that I decided to let you stay since you were there already. Hello I said. There was a pause. I found myself getting embarrassed which was ridiculous but you also said nothing which to me seemed more ridiculous. In fact when I stepped out of myself as I frequently do the whole situation was one which merited great ridicule but I decided to ignore that and step back into myself because somehow detachment wasn’t very conducive to the creation of love. So I tried again. Hello. You looked the ocean at me your eyebrows both lifting (because you can’t lift just one by itself) in a quizzical expression of bemused indifference at the new location you suddenly found yourself in. The walls of my heart felt slightly sick at the sight of this but your eyes were so blue that they then began to be comforted by this bluest blueness that just shone in front of them. It was like a radiant glint that made my stomach feel nice so I told my heart to stop complaining and began to prepare myself for a lifetime of having you there. At this point the previous occupant returned which was slightly awkward because it appeared that I had inadvertently evicted him from his home without my knowledge his knowledge or your knowledge. I tried to explain this to him as a sort of means of apology but he didn’t seem to fully understand. So then I asked you if you might move to the side in order that you could both sit and play nicely together but you did not appear to want this or at least it must have been that way because you didn’t move at all. The previous occupant ordered me to eject you but your eyes were so blue that I thought I might miss the ocean when it left so I tried to make my heart bigger but that was also not successful my heart being of a certain capacity and not able to hold anymore than was already in it and that being you. At this point the previous occupant being fed up with our play-acting decided to remove you himself using force. He pulled out a large frightening-looking double-sided sword and cut a hole in the door of my heart in order to allow himself to climb back in. This of course was very painful and I cried out a little bit but he ignored that which to me wasn’t very nice as I had always expected him to be a compassionate sort of fellow. So I was bleeding out from the heart which made my stomach feel even sicker but by this time he was inside my heart fighting tooth and nail with you who appeared to be stuck to my cardiovascular tissue and unable to be budged. You and he were both surprised at this fact and turned to blame me although as I had previously said and then restated I knew nothing of it because one morning I just woke up to find you here. His solution to this problem was to cut you out from the tissue using his double-sided sword. This was again an aching process for me but he ignored that which to me wasn’t very pleasant as I had always thought of him as a kind sort of chap. There was blood just about everywhere except in your blue eyes for which I was very glad because I had grown fond of just gazing into them and watching the sea swimming around me. It was like having my own little imaginary paddling pool. In fact your eyes had almost become the sky and I was very much looking forward to the day when I would be able to lie on my back admiring the clouds and trying to figure out whether they were shaped like a rabbit or a double-pronged fork. So the blood was flying and he was cutting and you were struggling to be free because frankly you had grown sick and tired of this situation that you hadn’t even wanted to be in anyway but just woke up to find yourself in and apparently my eyes weren’t quite as blue as yours which is true because they’re green and you just wanted to be free but to my surprise I was fighting against both of them to keep you with me because your eyes were just so blue and all the time my heart was in a great deal of pain but the blueness was rather cathartic and so I kind of forgot about it but it throbbed and throbbed and throbbed and eventually the throbbing became so intense that to my own surprise I turned to him and asked him to win and so he did and you were evicted and he became you. And so the next morning I woke up to realise that you that was him had come into my heart.