Tag: kitchen

The Haystack in the Kitchen

When you eat sponge cake at ten minutes to midnight,

and rain clatters on the roof above your dinner table,

and the French mustard pot seems wrapt in conversation with black peppercorns and pink salt,

you might as well drink the mug of tea while it’s hot enough to warm your tummy.

Otherwise those pens on the counter, alongside the scribbled page of names you meant to invite to Clubhouse, might accuse you of neglect.

I ran out of drinking water.

Thirst, dry mouth, swallowing hard against the draining of the light,

that used to support my fetish for

mammy’s food before bed.

There’s a learning opportunity in a haystack, even when you can’t find a pitchfork

and your calling is to notice things out of place.

Moving

IMG_9960

Moving

(for BKB)

Our kitchen clock has ticked,
time to pack up,
time to clear out,
cardboard boxes,
still life on the living room floor.
A full-stop.
Another paragraph written.

This house has done its work.
Candles burnt.
We were here,
a joint composition,
major and minor keys,
melody,
atonality,
dissonance,
harmony.
Unfinished symphony.

More than poetry.
Infinity of haiku
silent rooms between
characters.
On this stage,
we voiced parts,
fashioned scripts,
co-authors.

I’ve written my way through this house,
stepped beyond the deck,
out into a backyard
to trees and stream
underneath snow.
(Memories in parentheses)
Our kitchen, hearth of home,
chairs, a shrunken table,
furniture that made space grow.

Chicken noodle soup from a can,
potato chips,
grapes,
milk from a carton,
silver spoons,
our last supper.
I don’t know where we’ll eat tomorrow.

Never known the next phrase,
the sentence to come,
the chapter after this,
the story’s conclusion.

Like a hummingbird’s nest,
where we eat, drink, love, grow, sing,
shall we weave together twigs,
plant fibers,
bits of larch leaves,
shall we thread spider silk to bind our nest
together
and anchor
to another forked branch.

Over-thinking as a way of life

Overthinking as a way of life

You have hurt me

Don’t think for a minute

I don’t know you’re about to deny it.

I know you’ve done that to me before

and

you’ve  probably forgotten

or

wiped it conveniently out of your memory

because

it suited you.

You’re always doing that

so

don’t go letting yourself off the hook

because

you’re the one who started this.

Aren’t you?

You might at least apologise.

But

you’ve apologised before

and

that hasn’t changed anything

so

what makes this time any different?

This time you’ve really hurt me

and

I suppose that doesn’t mean anything to you…

(And  so on…)