Three Drops from a Cauldron

My poem For Liz about the lovely Liz Ferrets has been published in the Three Drops from a Cauldron Imbolc 2017 edition

http://www.lulu.com/shop/kate-garrett/three-drops-from-a-cauldron-imbolc-2017/paperback/product-23047330.html

Maybe the Ex-Queen ...for Melly

Maybe the Ex-Queen

In my dream I was packing for Anjuna

clothes selected for your funeral

tightly pressed in your old suitcase

and I ripped a page from a book

with a special poem, but I didn’t look

and now I’m awake I’m at a loss

as to what it was

 – perhaps Fleur Adcock?

 I know you knew if I was well enough

I’d have come while you were alive

I’d have tended to your needs

and you to mine

and we’d have fought

as we always did

trigger happy tarts

targeting each other’s hearts

in a transactional analytical field day kind of way

but now we were in our fifties

we had a nifty plan

to meet on the beach

(in Goa or Brighton)

and try out some gentler manoeuvres

One two three four

I declare a thumb war

Fuck!

I didn’t think you’d come astride a terrestrial body,

your hair crackling, your eyes like comet-sparks*

the Full Moon in Taurus

as close as she’s ever been

to Earth in our lifetime,

but I’d never doubted that you’d win.

No, I never doubted that you’d win.

* Fleur Adcock’s The Ex-Queen among the Astronomers

For Melanie Swallow who gave me the title and last line

Candyball Crushers

once upon a moon

my candy crush and me

were gorgeous

the fiercest peroxide hellraisers

riding the waltzers while rushing our tits off

spinning like sugar in a candyfloss maker

but not pink and fluffy

we’re hardcore for life

tough disco biscuits, spangled and fun

looking for guys with sweet balls of gum

Untitled but it's National Poetry Day - theme Messages

Glitches in my knitting

stitches dropped by

lapsed concentration as

I sip my tea

wipe milk from baby’s sleepy face

listen to a train in the distance rolling on to Londontown

where I worked until this illness laid me down.

I stare at the tea stains

on the Peter Pan pattern

like Mrs Darling examining

a left behind shadow.

Unfortunately Mrs D

was a tidy sort of woman

not like me and I suspect

not like you, who owned

this pattern before me.

We might lose stitches and spill our tea

but we’d never pull

a child-size shadow in from the window

for fear it looked like dirty washing

and roll it up and put it in the

drawer.

Out of sight.

Out of mind.

Countdown to Zero

We are fragile sometimes

but now

we are as close to midnight as we’ve ever been.

We wake too late

falsely lulled by familiar sirens.

Three minutes and counting.

Counting all we hold dear.

Eton Mess

I’m trying not to tread on eggshells

while the tips of my toes bleed

and I forget

exactly what I’m trying to protect -

your feelings or my feet?

And then I recall

it wasn’t me who balanced all the eggs in one small basket

then smashed them all to smithereens

whilst flashing that sociopathic smile

and suggesting a recipe for pavlova.

It’s a bloody mess.

But I separate the yolks, the sharpened shards

and bind my feet

then use the glair

to stop the gold leaf sticking to my skin

while I fix this guilty heart.

For Liz

A kaleidoscopic

lad insane

courses through my veins my brain

my only way of being

right now

freaking through sound and vision at break neck speed

on a celestial course

of course

there’s no other way of being

right here

right now

an onomatopoeic

crash

a sonic boom

electric blue

sets jets scrambling

there’s nothing to see here

no cause for concern

they said

as they twisted our gaze away from the truth

again.

And yet for once they spoke the truth -

there’s no cause for concern.

Planet 9 is fine.

My Man who fell to Earth

our roles reversed

our souls entwined

I’m here

right here

right now

Moonlight

Starlight

Aurora’s hypersonic flight.

Expand your crescent mind

and see the soft glow on the unlit part of the Moon

for what it really is.

Earthshine illuminating the lunar sky.

© Spangle McQueen May 4^th 2016