A Date with Cinders (An Elizabethan Style Sonnet)

Get in my car with me, I’ll take you out.

We’ll have a super time till midnight’s chime,

when you should go, you mustn’t hang about.

When you’re half naked there lies six months grime.

We’ll leave the dance and get you back home quick;

I wouldn’t want step-mum to catch us here.

You know the sight of me will make her sick

Now that the prince’s wedding’s gettin’ near.

Oh Cinders, curse that stupid little fairy

who waved her wand to get you to the ball.

She got you hitched up with that lisping Mary;

A prince or not, he’s got no brains at all.

I’m sorry love to make you feel so bad,

My first love lost, I’ll always be this sad.

© Justyn W H Rowe 1999

Hope's Passing

Here where the scent of heather blows fine cascades of kisses to meet the fresh dew, I search for you though you cannot be found.

My heart is standing basalt, aching with the thaw of winter’s end.  The pale wanning of solstice echoes in a spasm within this numb frame.

You are gone my love, where no pike or javelin may graze such fairness of head or keenness of limb.  The poem of your breath is fading, spent in its power to call the vessel of my weary mind to harbour.

A kiss for you.  Another.  Brush of lip caresses an eyelid, invoking a smile but alas, the wind is my only lover.

Arms that held sinew and flesh now hang free in weave once distilled of its mire by your hands.  Oh, for the divine slavery of our union to once more bless these rags with your toil.

This day I stood, awash with the noise and spray of the whale roads before me, to search the edge of the word for a sign of your sail.  It was not revealed.

The stone is bare and smooth, there where the ancient pull of earth and these feeble soles have joined in devotion so often.

©Justyn Rowe.  June 13,1999

Hope's Journey

Great wealth for dowry 

beyond the brine sea

My kin will sing

honours for my love

Bright our ship sail

wind song for wine

New land for planting

sacred grove and hall.

Our battles all fought

with fury unbridled

In unearthly waves high,

we yearn for home

Here lies our boat

beyond the brine sea

Oaken belly broke,

burned to blood by sky.

Eyes hoping outward,

throats bare with salt tears

Our rage is spent, lost

in oceans of sorrow.

Brother and sword kin

brine fit for reward

O for timber and branch

for rafting together,

Would see us homeward

to fair Erinn’s fields

I dream of your hair,

soft fern and waterfall

Rushes and ripe fruit

from deep thorn thicket 

You’re not the sun

though land darkens without you

No moon gave you birth,

yet you warm the night

You’re not of the stars,

still you steer this heart

Great wealth for dowery 

my heart bid me bring you

You are my path light

from ocean to home.

©Justyn Rowe.  June 11,1999

Climbing

Gripping violent slipping,

Bleak skin tweaked with fear;

Toes in flows of air grow colder,

Pleading head turned, 

Need to be freed from choice, 

Hanging suspended, play amended, spent

Rescuing mum, excited hum thrum won.

Sammy slips down through the climbing frame

At Eastern Beach.

Love in Spring

Spring is back with budded head flaring

Bare ground aroused with colours soon blaring

Broken stem and close pruned roses

Exploding outward in outrageous poses

Crusted bough under lichen and mould

Softened by green as fresh leaves unfold

Sap running tide-like through stems newly hatched

Blossoms appearing with honey bees attached

Time when young boys grow more gallant inside

And Gals feel a buoyance their faces can’t hide

For great loves begin slowly the way this year’s buds will

From the stems of old roses that are blossoming still

A Date With Cinders (An Elizabethan Style Sonnet)

Get in my car with me, I’ll take you out.

We’ll have a super time till midnight’s chime,

when you should go, you mustn’t hang about.

When you’re half naked there lies six months grime.

We’ll leave the dance and get you back home quick;

I wouldn’t want step-mum to catch us here.

You know the sight of me will make her sick

Now that the prince’s wedding’s gettin’ near.

Oh Cinders, curse that stupid little fairy

who waved her wand to get you to the ball.

She got you hitched up with that lisping Mary;

A prince or not, he’s got no brains at all.

I’m sorry love to make you feel so bad,

My first love lost, I’ll always be this sad.

Under Stones

Lonely together

In orderly terraces

They commune in silence

Strata-titled

Across the discarded slope.

Gravely they ponder the hours

Awaiting visitors who

Arrive in dribbles of conscience

Or just to steal the roses.

Her moss is coating the words

Her lichen has changed

Her middle name

To smith.

His special text

Has succumbed to the decay

Of sixty winters of frost

And is forgotten.

Laying there

Under their bleached stones

A whitewashed memory

Has a name and a life.

They are watching us

Argue with our time

Believing what we do

Is so important.

They can smile

When we forget them

They understand

In a heart beat

We will be them.

Genie-allergy

While sipping Beach House brutt the other day

I dreamed of mundane things and their beauty

My nefarious past drifted by on clouds

Like boats and bikes and stripy topped bathers

Of splish splashing children’s heavenly smiles.

My father’s picture in fair haired tight curls

hung over the doorway of Gran’s parlour

telling of his childhood just like mine; where

his father told him of his fathers time.

Their history unnerves me, their home is lost.

The wine lowered slowly, shortening the

rise of its bubbles the same way our time

for living is lessened with each passing

of the clock’s hand by twelve. I live in short

bursts of inspiration; champagne foaming

to be consumed by time’s lips, tounge and teeth.

My ancestors rejoice, their bain cast off

as I am swallowed; “fitting end for fools.”

late arrives to break my fearful mood

Its taste reminds me of days yet to live.

Chef’s specials waft into my deep revere

The wine has gone where temporal things go

swelling my stomach with its glowing buzz

because it does that for me when I dive

too deep into the past. I reach for

the strong coffee to quell the allergy 

I have to my history and its faces

like asthma it takes away my breathing

unlike coffee, which hits me as a wish

granted by the genie of the future.

Safe Hands

There it all is, some would say,

The oyster filleted and spread before you,

The whole man encapsulated in the contours of wear and tear.

Where do we view the secrets of the inner self?

Are they so displayed somewhere?

Do pathologists read them on your brain tissue at the autopsy?

These leather-some lines of interest we live in:

Are they chosen?

Or are they the serendipitous residues of a diverse experience?

It is something to ponder though isn't it?

How the lines on ones hand can tell our most intimate details,

Yet we stumble around in insomnia-ic shadows.

I'm certain there is a book on it in our library.

A baby boomer with a thing for crusty skin and silk head-kerchiefs,

Ensconced in a fairground tent can tell you all your mysteries.

Now I'm afraid to do anything that might injure my hand.

I sit with it propped upon a cushion in the lounge surrounded by jars of moisturiser

Afraid the lines will be damaged. Afraid they may even be broken! Oh God!

If the lines on my hand tell the past and present,

And if what you do with your hand determines your future, I won't last till next week! 

I have my son's nappies to change!

If I Wake

Inside there is a burning, a wasting of inner strength like fat burning as I run in a fitfully asthmatic sprint toward the ever lengthening corridor with steps falling like a metronome in time with a my fast beating heart.

Feet slipping backward as the heavy linoleum floor tilts forebodingly above me rising into a circle and still I run. Round and round towards the door of 308. Something not done, something not done, something important forgotten.

I sweat buckets of salty drops which fall slowly toward the floor as slow-mo movies in late night television show snow.  Never slowing and heart pounding painfully harsh breathed molten hot gusts of thick gas like blacksmith bellows melting steel.

Whirling soupy pool of dread, sucking at me, drawing me off the floor, slewing side-long into the well of despair as the door comes in sight, slow, so slow that I can feel the shift of its molecules while head pounds in time to strange music. A chanting of familiar phrase.

A vice-like pressure on wet temples.  Clothing stretched tightly round, holds legs and arms, pain.  Arms responding too late and legs leaden and useless, I fall and fall turning over and around.  The door goes past in a drugged blur as I reach desperately for the jam to no avail and the moment is lost.

Keeping the flood of watery gel around me from entering past my teeth and sipping air through tiny bubbles rising from doorways, I swim toward the light below the door.  Drawn in torture towards that which I fear and know it is my only hope of escape.

Every fibre screams for release and with the very last of my strength I drag in a breath of watery spittle to cry out a final cantrip powerful against death and ….my hand passes through the doorway the water subsides and I open my eyes. Awake. Its my birthday today.  Blog due today!  I haven't prepared!  My dream will have to do.

Currency

Decided to open up and talk of life.

Not the peripherals this time

Only what makes a connection

Between heart and head

Synapses join, creating fresh links.

In time, a new pattern may emerge,

Forming bridges 

Between what I perceive and what is.

A fear grows of being the only one

For whom that strange music plays

Splinting my soul.

Do you hear it too?

Does the noise of misconception

Jangle your cochlea, 

Making you spin tumbling

Inside your skull?

Shake the box

Letting your dice drop onto the dialogue

What do you find?

Gather them again

Throw harder and faster

Building a stack of comprehension chips

Understanding,

You can bargain for a peace

You will never have without the gamble.

High odds and fearsome opponents

For best results.

I'm game if you are!

All I need now

Is a little loose change to begin.

My pockets seem empty

I shared with you my deficit and you

Found a small coin 

In a lint-filled corner of my stitching.

Place your bet.

What do you see here in the dust?

A winner, or a lamed dogger

Waiting to be glue?

With a little polish

I find the coin is a dollar

Then two

Overwhelmed that there is

Still value to be found

In the pocket of my mind

I'd like to keep the coin

Realising that only sharing it

Will have the chance to grow.

Now waiting for the season to change

Ready for the planting.

I guess I can wait till then.

Till the end of winter.

Spring is coming.