via “enough, Enough, ENOUGH!” … and other poems in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

via SUNDAY ANNOUNCEMENTS: Calls for Submissions, Contests, Events, and Other News and Information

You Ride

the dog
when you recall
the third hand
message
that your only child
your daughter
has died
in hospital
of her cancer.

You ride

the dog
as your hubby
of sixty years
does not know you,
Shits in his underwear
then takes them
off and turns them upside down
on your bedroom carpet,

You ride
the dog when you get
up, clean him
off in the bathroom
whilst he squeezes
your arms till you scream,
put on a fresh clean
pair for him,
sit him down with a harsh
Don’t move
while you scrub
his shit off
the carpet,
put him to bed.

You ride
the dog when on holiday
in Bournemouth
you get a call
from your only grandson
to say your only granddaughter
has died
in a car crash
and you pay
a taxi driver
to go the 300
miles
back home.

I ride the dog
at your bedside
because you fell
in the old folks home
and have not yet
opened your eyes
and your breath
is on automatic.

Turn On Thee

Some folk are dogs.
Slightest tha does
their liable to turn on thee.

Even when tha
just play, roll them on
their back an tickle,

their teeth are out,
and might not mean it
but soon tha forearms

a bloody stump
an tha wishes they were
behind bars or muzzled.

Yon were like that.
Like she’s all peaceful like
laid there, but one time

She’s all pleasant as pie,
Next she bites chunks
out of thee and asks

“Have I hurt you?
What kinda questions that?
No lass thas just bitten

off me arm an clobberin’
me with the soggy end.

“Be Vague” my eighth ekphrastic response for National Poetry Month prompted by another painting by the awesome Marcel Herms.

Be Vague

Recognition follows your
strive to be vague.
Lose sharp edges. Fade
A little at the corners.

This will define you.
Nothing must be prominent.
If it stands out make it sit down.
Don’t make an exhibition of yourself,

blend into background.
Urban camouflage expert.
Stealth worker. No loud clothes.

Self efface, deface your selfies
If you must. Annunciate in whispers.
Mumble. Stay off the interweb.

It is only self publicity and aggrandisement.
Aver bright colours keep
to the colour of shadows.

King Of Grief

I am. Shot through the heart
so the bloodstain spreads

on the wall behind me.
I suffer more than anyone else.

I list my griefs, you list yours
in competition as to who suffers most.

Competition is not empathy.
It is seeing who can fire higher

up the wall, who can show
the biggest because biggest is best.

If more people close to me died
I would win. Patience, my head

tells me. Longer you live more
close to you die. Soon competition

Will be nonsense as you will be
the only survivor. King over nobody.

Journey

Distance between one shore and another.
Each dip of her oar is a Cheyne-stoke breath.

All I hear is the sink of paddle into water
in a mist, not the direction of her craft.

Perhaps she works her way towards me,
rather than away to the further shore.

When she stops it is time for her to disembark
on this or the other shore. Eyes shut she is

blind on this shore. Distance is between one
breath and another. In vigil I wait.

http://whispersinthewind333.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1

Eyelids

To see her eye lids risen,
brightness in her blue eyes
a glint that she knows.

Lids risen on bedraggled eyelash wings
so she is not elsewhere but here.
Corners of my mouth would lift.

It would be a heaven on earth
rather than this purgatory,
this wait not lifted.

Angels occupy upwards and devils
downwards. Perhaps heaven
Is six feet under and hell in the stars.

Hand Biters

Always snap at the hand that feeds,
cossets, cuddles and hugs,

fists, hits and kicks. Oppose,
depose, make of it yourself.

Pull on the leash, snap the manacle,
challenge this ships captain,

sit on your plastic chair. Tell
your voices you’ll decide yourself.

If she does not wake you know your job.
Before she closed her eyes she rehearsed

tasks that you must be complete. How
to empty her home, sell it, pass

your childhood on to others. Be firm
In what must be done. Make yourself.