Treasure

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. The caves you fear to enter, hold the treasure you seek.”  - Joseph Campbell
  
I touched on something long hidden
today
and although the way I laid it
bare and bleeding
was wrong in so many ways,
it left me needing to
keep it covered now, only with others
and showed me new
what treasure I have.

I had seen it before,
but never quite
like this...
Never quite
so
glittering
and so simple to touch.
It gave me back my
faith and trust, worn so paper thin,
in being allowed to be a
broken thing; gave me just
an inkling to believe
it would lift my wings again
and help me to fly. I

have never had such treasure
before, that saw my ugliness
and scars
and didn't turn away
but took out some magic
genie of the lamp,
and fixed me
the most important way:
If I lay my soul down in pieces,
it gives more than it takes.
 

Forgetting

  
I used to leave the lights on
sometimes, those days;
the days when I came home and you were gone
again, and
close my eyes to pretend
you were on your way to
bring me some comfort
or grace.

There were days when I thought I'd forgotten
your face,
perhaps,
or the colour
of your eyes...you'd be gone so long, I'd watch
the blue behind
the clouds of skies that grew greyer
than ever they'd been,
and I'd wonder how
far your journey might be
when the demons called you
this time.
  
Though you were gone, there were glimmers;
mostly at night;
when I thought I saw you in moon or star-light,
from my window,
in impossible dreams;
but they were visions only...
Whatever took you had power far stronger
than me...and I'd wonder
if you fought when it held you,
if you wanted to be free
but it wouldn't let you,
and you were much too proud
to say...

I came home and left the lights on
today...and I wondered if maybe
I'd forgotten your face,
or that knife-edge I used to sit upon...
but I noticed
I have had no earthly want of late,
of watchful walls, with eyes
of blue. And it is one thing
to notice yourself forgetting,
but quite another wanting to.

New Words

  

Somehow, many years since,

I fell asleep on the washing pile,
and knew not of all the dangerous miles I would tread
before I awoke. The woman spoke
to me only, in dragon’s tongues,
from that day until the end,
lending me no more
than glimmers of time
to tease my heart and tempt
me, this to remember: How can a child
love Christmas morning,
when they live in perpetual
December? With snow on their soul
and icicles,
that hang there even in June; that have never asked
for all the things
they know now, they were owed and due…due perhaps,
but not deserved;
no gentleness of tender words to teach her
how to love;
only left herself, to discover
what it means
to give, and touch in velvet gloves;
this sleeve, this shell,
some cursed, pretty angel’s
spell has always hidden the worst
and it wasn’t safe to lift them,
instead she sat
among the grains and salt to sift them
through fingers that sought to cherish,
and shoot like a lost little bird,
something to come
and claw at its door
and instruct it to speak new words, of giving,
and gentleness,
blessed it with
a much-wanted caress to share
and stall others from the same…and so, a thousand
names were whispered here,
all tender, all beautiful, all clear as
their crystal hearts,
and all of them taking little parts,
of the words
to make their worlds turn and be whole,
all of them leaving little marks,
that cleansed and freed a bound and selfish, 
blackened,
unclean soul.

Checkmate

Inspired by a Leeds Savage Club task entitled: Games  

Games played between us,

like fire and water,
flowing as time like wild pawns to the slaughter,
of spirits and side-steps,
only to lend, with garish bishops and counters,
inside, to bend,
standing behind us and up
on one end, with the light of the moon
gazing down upon them,
and touching their delicate,
elegant grace,
tracing with demons and dice, the edge of their
faces in starlight,
above any blue night, when the roulette
connecting
stops spinning in flight beneath
angels and ladders, whilst we just take the time,
to stop,
and to touch;
a meeting of eyes;
and the play will continue, avoiding the rain,
hovering above
quiet snakes
of the king for yet another
gentle day will pass,
where it matters not if I feel,
for it will not be said lest the turning
of the wheel is halted and held at
stand still, and it is acknowledged
that I am, in fact, whole
and real;
the white rabbit can come with his funhouse
and cards,
and lay them down; tenderly now;
before the generous Queen of Hearts,
tearing her emptiness
apart with his rooks, his gentle words,
and paws…
and his silver tongue will be
keeping score as he offers a way to the gate;
passing through dust, he counts his spaces,
and moves his piece according to fate;
and the knight
soon falls upon his sword of longing;
and rocks us; with passion;
into splendid checkmate.     

Best Laid

  

“We must give up the life we had planned so as to embrace the life that is waiting for us.”

- Joseph Campbell

“This night is frigid, relief

long overdue; all the stones
of the planets are turning to
you and all gentle and ochre-pink;
…sinking in sandstone
if only to think
about moons and deserts and
the skies overhead,
as I crawl beneath the blankets
of lonely reed beds of seaweed
and stars above clay…
that sinks fast enough;
just;
to draw you away from my reach
when I stretch out my fingers
and suddenly know
that I long to linger here
among birth-light and
moments renewed
to be ever warmer and
nearer to dew…and grass
and to morning’s sweet haze,
that evens union with life;
a dirty-glass gaze; and the want
to buckle…or fold…and fill beautiful days
with sapphire and gold that holds only
my tightly locked doors…

If I lay down and ask you

for soul-aching more…can you say
how far you would go?”

“Darling, I need not even
follow…leave no breadcrumbs,
no trail of deceit…
for what has never had
a head; can surely never have
feet to walk on, on transitory
sand; no art, no substance
on which to stand; only
heart, and feeling;
sacred, older things…
bleeding until
we could staunch the sting of past
and hold it all
down and back
with all angels and empty dunes…

Elves (and I) will always reside

under the very same
sky as you; granting wishes
that often ring true; but promising
this,
and this alone: whatever
was planned we were meant to let
go; to free us now,
to tomorrow’s hold and the evergreen sprites,
for who are we to kick and fight against
more noble schemes;
in honour of something
so small
and stunted
as chasing lost
and unintended
dreams?”