Priori

Aspects of reality
which are not supplied by the senses....
like time...
can you see time?
No.
Or can you?
But we are aware of time.
What is time?
Time the elusive
white rabbit runs off
with a pocketwatch
out of sight, down a hole
which leads to...?

Jean d' Insane

When you look at an insane man
all you see
is a reflection
of your own knowledge of what insane is
which is not to see him at all.

To see him
you must see
what he saw
it wasn't me that was crying
it was my eyes

Who is Afraid?

I filled my pockets with rocks

I left you my words on the river bank

To hold, to squeeze, to make sense of my

Existential musings

I am, was, words,

Farewell, ink and thought

Tears on blotting paper

I will find a room of my own

Resting my head on a fluffy cloud pillow

Alternative Motherhood

She mothers in other ways……

The Empress in a robe of pomegranates

calls you

and leads you

into the lush forest

to stand with the trees

as one

and fill your belly with fallen fruits.

Magdalene dries a frog’s wet feet with her long Venus hair, smiles and receives a croak in return.

The Wife of Bath

A deaf seamstress

sits at the table of faeries

crushing scarlet beetles

to dye tiny clothes for her friends.

Aerial sits on the edge of the boat

dipping her pale flesh into the water,

offering a handcup to the kingfisher.

Tempestina waits for the storm to subside

and sighs

as she spots a ship on the horizon.

They are safe!

She cries.

Gaia’s undulations

comfort a crying face

when there is nobody left.

It is dear Ms.Eyre

hugging the earth,

like a mother.  

Laburmum

Me? I’m Mama tree,

I suckle earth

after clouds burst

I lap it up

until it hurts

then I BUST it upwards

through my labyrinthine veins

To sustain

Your pretty buttercup face

That kisses the rain

You carry me on

After I have gone

I remain

Sustain

An eternity in your veins

Our sap the same

‘Til we meet again

On a spiritual plane

Refrain,

Never mind the twain,

Mark, or Shania……?

Hell,

Happiness came!

As the earth sustained

you

with

rain

from my labyrinthine veins.

Theatre of Stars

Theatre of stars

audience of light

beaming down on the sandy stage

Saucepan Plough rests on the horizon

star stew bubbling and frothing away

as the moon turns red

and the blue, tri-coloured sea sighs

as the moon turned to blood

the sea silenced the air

and where we dipped our toes

the sea is now black

the end is a sigh

Mother nature's third coming

the universe stops....... 

then whispering waters

flow forward

and skim over souls past

guiding, reminiscing, laughing, crying

a flip of silver tail and

the siren calls

plaiting her damp locks

on the craggy rocks

sand in solid form

open your arms

to embrace the space

in the theatre of stars

the sea cyclorama

hug the air

channelling carbon in a different form

look, a piece of you over there! and here!

anchor our souls in the sand

carbon on carbon

diamond dust

Master Flashstar blinks his eye

You're safe, he says,

come and race up the winding staircase, with grace

and watch the show

I am a house gutted by fire where only the guilty sometimes sleep before the punishment that devours them hounds them out into the open.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

Forgotten Fingerprints

Karl hadn’t left the house in a month. And as for getting dressed, what was the point? Nobody came to visit. Anyway, he savoured the smell of his own unwashed body. At least he had control over something. He allowed the smell to get so bad that even he couldn’t stand it, so he had to force himself into the tin bath for a half-hearted lather. What remained of his grey wispy hair he tied into a thin bun to stop the strands tickling his greasy face when he was baking. It was Frida who had to fetch the rations. Not as though they needed them. He had a good stock of flour and salt in the cellar. Always have flour in the house, his baker father used to say. Add a little water and that’s all you need to survive.

     Karl wiped his hands on his encrusted apron and looked out of the kitchen window towards a man walking his dog across the field. The man stopped, turned around and appeared to look directly at Karl, so he backed away from the window. His heart pumped faster. He was reminded of his recurring nightmare. The one where he hid in an abandoned barn. A group of officials were looking for him. They were so close that he could hear their different footsteps. One clipped. One hurried. One lazy. They halted. He could hear one noisily inhaling his cigarette. Then it stopped. He’d been having the same nightmare ever since the letter arrived. Why, oh, why did he burn the letter? He just couldn’t stop himself. It was as if…there was a faint whistle. The man stood in the next field but the dog refused to jump over the stile. So he climbed back over, stumbled a little, scooped it up and cradled it like a baby. The man was talking. Karl wondered what he said. Bad dog. Papa says no biscuit for you, today. You got to learn to obey. Obey.

    They were out of sight, so he whacked the dough on the wooden chopping board and a cloud of flour rose in front of his face. His nose hair sensed an invasion and he stood there like a waxwork, anticipating a sneeze…Hack, hack of the heavy knife and the dough had multiplied into three, which he rolled into balls. One fell on the floor, so he dusted it off, slat it onto the floured board, and using all ten fingers, made a wurst. And repeat. And a sip of schnapps. And repeat. Then he squeezed the strips together at one end and plaited. If you looked closely enough, you could see his fingerprints...He limped from the table and slammed the glazed challah into the black stove.

    The key turned in the front door. Frida threw her satchel and almost knocked over the hat stand. She took off her klettejacke and hung it on the banister, noticing for the first time that one of the bakelite buttons was loose. Taking two steps at a time up the stairs, she stopped halfway.

    ‘Frida, how… how was your Wednesday?’

    ‘We travelled to Mount Brocken again.’

     ‘And?’

    ‘Well, we did the same thing as last week. There were baskets to fill. With gladioli. Fields of them. Dark orange, light orange, pale lilac and the brightest yellow. The flowers were thrown away, though.  They only wanted the leaves. Full of vitamins. Helena said that they grind them up and mix spices and beef fat to make supplements for the soldiers. Oh, and there were the pretty primrose fields. Only, I didn’t get to work there...Later on in the day, we moved to the mushrooms. We had to be careful to choose the right ones. They all look the same after a while. If we picked the wrong ones, they were thrown away by the checkers. Lola said some can kill you. Fly agath...’

    ‘Fly agarics. The red spotty ones. So, does that mean you enjoyed it, then?’

     ‘Enjoyed it?...’

    ‘I’m sorry, Frida, please come and sit with Papa in the kitchen. The bread will be ready soon.’

    ‘I’m not so hungry…’

*

    Karl thought back to when the letter arrived. He was alone. Normally he wouldn’t open her mail. Well, it was rare that she did have mail, she was so young. But he knew what was inside. He recognised the official stamp. There had been a similar one a couple of years ago that they opened together. Who were your grandparents? Your great grandparents? What religion were they? What did it matter? Apart from their fingerprints, their blood, bodies and brains were no different to the rest of humanity. She was only a Mischling second degree. A quarter Jewish. No, no, not good enough, they replied. Thank the dear Lord. But this time they wanted her. He threw the letter inside the oven.

*

    Karl hobbled down to the cellar with the lamp. He felt the musty cold seep through his apron, his dressing gown, through his home-made pyjamas, his ripped vest, where wiry chest hair poked through, past the cracks in his rib cage, into his lungs, his liver, his heart, into veins that carried his blood. Halfway down, he paused to look at the wall. She was still there, framed in flaky gold. Her eyes sparkled with the warm glow of the lamp. He reached up to kiss her glassy lips. Forgive me, liebling?

    He clasped the last dusty schnapps bottle from the rack and spotted a battered book tucked into the brick wall, so he grabbed the pencil in his apron to tease it out. It was Frida’s notebook, wrapped in a dirty yellow ribbon. He looked up the stairs. The ribbon dropped onto the floor. He couldn’t read some of it, so some words were lost forever. Perhaps she wrote it in the dark when there was a power cut? He thought back to the last air raid. Nobody spoke. In-between the bombs you could hear the faint scribble of her pencil. There was a drawing. Of a tiny flower. And a knife. A knife?...

     Friday 27^th July 1940, 5.27am

   The early morning is the time when the wind blows in the mountains. The earth creates what is new. The earth takes away what is old. Holy earth under your heath. That’s what they tell us. But I’m not interested in that. I love to dance. To feel the music pulsing in my blood. I feel alive just thinking about it. I want to listen to Nat Gonella. I want to jump up and wrap my legs around him and dance . Dance to the Tiger Rag. Let my hair fall all over my face. I want to leave the H.J. and join the Swing Jungend. But I can’t dance. I have to learn to be a good mother. To be religious, to be a good cook and provide for my family. To produce the best for the sake of the country. Kinde, kirche, kuche. Wilhelm told me of the Edelweiss Pirates. When I’m older, maybe I can join. I can use the penknife that I cut the gladioli with to protect myself…

*

     Frida ran down the stairs and opened the oven. She swiped the smoke away with both arms and took the edge of her jumper to lift out the remains.

     ‘Papa? Papa? Where are you?’

    He dropped the notebook and stumbled up the stairs.

    ‘Burned. What will we have for supper, now?’

    ‘I thought you weren’t hungry, anyway…’

    ‘Why are you crying? It’s only bread.’

    ‘Frida, I knew that they would come for you…’

    ‘Knew who were coming?’

    ‘You know, last month…’

    ‘What do you mean you knew?’

    ‘You had a letter telling you to report to headquarters. But I burned it.’

    ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

    ‘About receiving the letter or that I burned it?

    ‘Well, both. This is not going to go away, Papa. We have to do as they tell us.’

    ‘But I could have made it better for you. They dragged you away…’

    ‘I understand, Papa. You were trying to protect me.’

*

    Karl thought back to the day that the officials broke down the door. One went in the living room, one straight upstairs and one in the kitchen, where she was eating her soft boiled egg. As the chair tipped backwards, a thin line of glossy yellow trickled down her neck and her notebook fell out of her jacket pocket.

*

   He thought about having a little wash and perhaps getting dressed, but where were his brown breeches? No doubt creased underneath a pile of other clothes stuffed into the wardrobe. He rolled up his dressing gown sleeve and stuck his hairy arm into a mountain of mottled threads. Then it dawned on him. The notebook. It was still on the floor. He hurried down to the cellar. She was already there, sitting cross legged on the floor, caressing the ribbon.

    ‘I can forgive you for the letter, but not for reading my diary. It is supposed to be private, Papa.’

    ‘I didn’t mean to. It’s the drink. I’ll stop. I promise.’

   He reached out to embrace her, but she gathered the ribbon and went upstairs. He followed her, but stopped at the picture and smiled. Its fine, liebling. No need to worry. She has forgiven me… But do you still forgive me?