He Left Me Scarves
Category: Writing and Poetry

He Left Me Scarves

The fringe had twists, bristled my chin. The hunter had gone,
tied me in his scarf. He left me lots, all cashmere,
all with an odour of soaked goat and salmon.
He held his fishing line, soft wool held mine.

Chopping at overgrowth, my fingers surged cedar.
If it could be bottled, I'd label it 'Man's Middle-Age'
to be worn with scarf slinky over left shoulder that looks like conceit
but pretend it's class, or, distinguished?

Was there a scent for aging woman?
It was inevitable like hitting on skeletons as I dug.

I was netted on a Highland lake with pike or trout, or some other prey,
locked in a moonlit loch, stretching but never reaching land.
He left me there, choking on the hook.
But he did return as anemones died, always, one by one.

I picked them out and shook soil.
Stripes and spots warmed my neck
but foxes had to be chased from the shadows of my eyes
and auburn hues collected, put on 'one day soon' piles,
ready to be thrown on the compost heap.
I remembered the cycle,
could see the full moon looming, as I dug.



© J A Corcoran 30/03/08

5:10 PM - 44 Comments - 84 Kudos - Add Comment

The Funeral
Category: Writing and Poetry

The Funeral

It is Connemara at evening. It is far.
We have been here before, below the moon
vibrating like a faceless clock. We have shook

as the gale's hairy arms turned us sideways
rattling out our tin thoughts.
We have watched the blue farmer finish up

plough drills smudged with a thick thumb
the straightness of the furrows worth more
than the lines of poetry he can write.

The same tall women, the same small women
huddled and muddled up like odd socks.
Men awkwardly doing the two step forward

one step back dance, separated by the cloth
of their coats and shade of finger stains.
Same dugout boot marks follow like ghosts,

some like stepping stones, more monumental.
This view is hung on every wall in every home,
in every bar, unwittingly passed on

like the love of the craic. It is the craic.
This is where ashes are put.
I am like a gate-crasher, a voyeur

and I know he would understand.
And all at once, we laugh. They cry.
Teardrops hit clay and the turning of the wind

spins a vase, peace lilies burst into full bloom
like birth whilst pipes call as if it is the end
of the world.

As we descend, we pass by bundled wheat
stacked in squares tight like hugs, mute
like the silent children of silent children

and this is how it looks
when I can't say goodbye.
Don't ask me how it feels.

5:28 PM - 41 Comments - 84 Kudos - Add Comment

Forbidden
Category: Writing and Poetry

Forbidden

Red hearts, red minds, two red faced people
quietly tip-toeing through the blackest night
where star curtains are flung to one side
and bloody sour bites of forbidden berries
taste better than apples ripening in light.

Denying their true desire, words snag and pull
but the spirit of red is swimming backwards
pushing through the seas of change to a time
before lines were drawn with ring fingers
and forever kisses were etched on tiny skin.

Stars open and close as both worlds blink
sense burns to ash, sparkling cinders splash
backlash on roaring skins as red carries
the ocean on its back and time floats past
as they give each other the unforgivable

and like snow's first flakes, berries crumble.

3:10 AM - 34 Comments - 72 Kudos - Add Comment

Her Mary Janes
Category: Writing and Poetry

Her Mary Janes

She's marching again, in the middle of the night
stomping and trampling on the feelings of the flawed
la la la, her voice echoes of childhood syrup
"time to get up, you lazy fools", she empathises
with leaves, rabbits and the moon's quarters
her name is in gold and hung on rescued trees as she kicks
the 'guilty' in their hung-over heads.

I sympathise with one eye open, the other drifts but
her flowery dress is so virtuous, it falls across my mind
shivering shaking where she lays blameless precision.
Laura Ashley fabric hand-stitched in smug thread running
back to the point where her memories begin, seams cut-off
over-locked and edged in black onyx.

With one eye I watch her, the other watches out as she
bawls as though it was for the first time
for the liable people who disturb, she hopes
her tears water the dried, neglected soil,
birth daffodils, roses and many sweet peas
but weeds scream as she throttles, constricts –

rejected, their lime green slush cores squirt in her
rose-tinted eyes and she slides and slips on mildew spew.

2:07 PM - 41 Comments - 74 Kudos - Add Comment

Pirouetting
Category: Writing and Poetry

Pirouetting
(for Linda)

Do you remember how the upside-down sun reached us
stretched past the fishing boat steeple, past the moon
thrown pennies spiralling skimming just prissy ballerinas
with our Englishness pirouetting away in tip-toed steps
as we cross-legged a dream or two on Grecian sand?

I still hear men singing on the cracked timber ferry deck
men with brown paper and back-packs filled with reasons
mistakes and sorrys booted and laced with hopeful strings.

A dream, to sleep rough below the ferry seats of chance
minds supple as quiet springs as we float back across
the Thracian Sea, return to a time when time was free.

2:11 AM - 35 Comments - 72 Kudos - Add Comment

My Red Satin Dress
Category: Writing and Poetry

My Red Satin Dress

...is a show off, a rebel, a whore, a devil, a temptress, 
a scorned woman, a mourned woman, 
a Spanish dancer, a pole dancer.

It wears me when it chooses
jumps out of the closet and throws itself into my arms
takes me and grips until I 
surrender

each leading kiss
each following touch
each yell
each scream
each godforsaken mistake
each blessing
it uses and when it's done it 
abandons.

my red satin dress is the blood drops of each birth
each rip 
each Christmas
each temper tantrum
each grazed knee
each healing touch
each wish
each hug

My red satin dress is the rose in my cheeks
the white on my throat
the sinning lover of the innocent pearls that 
strangle.

It's a bush-fire boiling jam
a Jane Eyre metaphor
candle wax drops on rose petals
a Hawaiian sand scorch
a melting pot of volcanic proportions
a lioness showing teeth.
Its hunger is a carnivorous fiend

insatiable
my red satin dress is MINE. 

2:14 AM - 37 Comments - 66 Kudos - Add Comment

the romantic in her
Category: Writing and Poetry

the romantic in her

…doesn't see the river as a haemorrhage of engine oil with a candle held to it
lighting up the hidden ripples that slowly evolve into thoughts.
She likens its motionless to a blue whale monument
gently stuffed by the hands of old souls
they shimmy in the reflection
tossing golden coronets and sovereigns into the sky
each sparkle a memory, a cause, each one a mantra. 

She just wishes he knew that. 

So when all he can think to say is, ya know…you have a great ass! 
Night-time doesn't matter anymore
becomes barely definable against the inkiness 
of the wet staccato blot puddle

shimmering at their feet.

3:41 PM - 32 Comments - 48 Kudos - Add Comment

Hide & Seek
Category: Writing and Poetry

Hide & Seek

She is hiding beneath tall grasses with the buttercups
I see coffin feet
paled and hungry
toes shorter now
from this distance
this hill of height
this vision.

The sky has come out to play
deftly painted in the blue she loves
a beautiful baby boy
bonnet and booties with matching ribbon clouds.

She thinks I can't see her
this game depends on it
turns and pushes the sky an inch or two into grass
drinks it with her eyes
holds it inside her mouth and counts to one hundred
wraps her hair around all that slips away
but even this cannot hold the sky for long.

Pastel greens and lemons dance with the breeze
blowing, rolling with answers in a tryst---
a monastery of silent prayers, all at once, sing.

I call her name
time for lunch
she, so stubborn
lies there
I throw a tennis ball close to her
it bounces back---
I catch
its echo
the boing of its empty centre
louder in this silent setting
of nothing.

3:17 PM - 34 Comments - 58 Kudos - Add Comment

Her Mad Mum
Category: Writing and Poetry

Her Mad Mum

we went to church
hats and hoods
firm like sin
tight against
unknowing faces

her magical coat
red silk-lined pockets
full of lime green cans
the fizzy clicking echoes
darkly bursting through
the passage of holy silence
that her coat carried
everywhere she went

silent laughter 'til it hurt
nervous energy ran wild
like demented children
as the last one on
got bumped off
the wooden pew
where we knelt

we lit too many candles
her eyes shook
like a tamed animal
facing an open door
so we ran off
for a holy-water fight

she went away for a while
I'm not sure where
when she came back
she sat staring
for long amounts of time
I followed her eyes once
but quickly got bored
in nothing much

my friend said
her Mum's God
was dead

I think she
might've killed him
I also think
he may've killed her

you can never be sure
about these things

5:55 PM - 14 Comments - 22 Kudos - Add Comment

The Lifeless Doll
Category: Writing and Poetry

The Lifeless Doll

father's aloofness
stands beside her at the bus stop
she looks up to him
and finds him not there any more
sits down on the bench
to hide the towering height
of his dark comfort

mother's concerned frown
lives in the hallway mirror
each time she passes
fingers lift eyebrows
straightening out the furrows
on her mother's face
when July brings leaded lights
and glass takes sunshine
dust gives her a failure pinch

her fragility
just her own little secret
fearful as hairline cracked strength
faceless and private

can be seen through wine bottles
against a dimmed light
a naked silhouette doll

in a lifeless dance

where she is free to let go
free to meet herself

5:29 AM - 16 Comments - 26 Kudos - Add Comment