Christmas Homecoming

I reached here earlier today,
lit our fire to guide you homeward,
I built it bright and warmly wait
The return of your footfall.

Amongst Christmas preparations
In the twilight of a year
We’ll kiss beneath the mistletoe wreath
Hang holly in the hall.

This Christmas birth, twelve days of love
One tree, one Angel dear
Our family’s arms, our human forms
One day when heaven calls.

Come in, come on, come Christmas,
How sweet the choir draws near,
How we’ll embrace and feel the grace
And learn to love us all.

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PenDragons

 Dedicated to my circle of delicious poets: John Etheridge (http://bookofpain.wordpress.com), Elizabeth Cook (http://serialoutlet.wordpress.com) and Jordan Roe (http://tierceandhum.wordpress.com)

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Working virtually

the PenDragons are poetry’s

rough hewn ships on the tide of life

casting inky anchors deep, 

diving minds for matter,

sifting happenings for collateral

worthy of our keep.

 

We make no promises

seaweed catches on our bows

best intentions dashed

by errant storm, becalmed

by sleeping muse,

yet still compelled, we push

through ode and villanelle

divining subtle truths.

Family Ties

We meet to consider old stitches;

knotted to the past by red thread

which, dangling still between us,

is tensioned by remembrance.

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Our fragile family quilt,

sewn haphazardly by unpractised hands,

requires the nimble unpick of constituent parts

and the renewal of worn twine.

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Too long we sensitive seamsters

put aside the intricacies of a trying task,

when the damaged beauty of our creased cloth

can be redressed with candor, and restored.

The Sound of Guns

Parricide is not pretty,

but in a time of swallowed splinters,

there emerges a new confidence,

and no one is safe from

the absolute certainty of the Crack.

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When anger is awake and ungoverned

the Almighty Metal Guru draws near to tease.

The wheel turns as young wreakers and hoakers,

already tucking boredom in their belts,

dash through familial barriers

straight into the Crack’s improbable deathhole.

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Suddenly, we are all prey:

heavy weights flailing and falling

past previously pitted lives

towards our own bloody demise.

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Unable to climb smooth surfaces

society begins to fester,

scraping the walls with botulinal nails;

kicking itself with blister boots.

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Oh, those ugly days of lost heritage;

elders supping tears together, whilst

so many futures are crossed

by the star thin silver reticle

of the Almighty Crack.

Mother

When this apple tree is axed and carted to the yard

its old leaves stripped, its twisted branches cut and carved;

when birds and errant squirrels are summarily dismissed,

and mistletoe is torn and puckered lips unkissed;

somewhere beyond the function of its analytic brain

beneath the anxious beating of its heart, the alignment of its grain

we will get down to the nub, that grande dam the tree would be,

except artful years bore sweetest fruit contorting destiny.

Boxing Day Exchange

We are in the queue,

me and you, we know it too:

our front line fallen.

Best not push too hard

or we’ll be displaced

and lives could tumble.

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If we two could pick

any darn box we desired,

ours would be blood red,

filled with comrades lost

when choices were made

by God, them or us.

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But we can only

push on with compromised hope,

chipped swords and hearts drawn

in desperation.

Come, let us exchange

pretty distractions.

Christmas at Our House

How can we have Christmas at our house?

The rooms look like there was a riot

the table’s strewn over with gas bills

and the reindeer are all on a diet.

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How can we have Christmas at our house?

The tree is hung over and wonky

our turkey ran off with the tinsel

and we never did order the donkey.

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How can we have Christmas at our house?

It’s too cold to put out the fire

so Santa will struggle to reach us

and so will the heavenly choir.

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How can we have Christmas at our house?

but wait, well then maybe we can

there’s a bucket of love up our chimney

and hugs in the fridge and the pan.

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There’s sweet figgy pudding and music

our voices are merry and bright

we’ll hide nuts in a massive red stocking

and drink ginger wine late at night.

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So let’s all have Christmas at our house

we’ll cook up a magical banquet

and after the games and the laughter

we’ll cuddle up under our blanket.

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We all know the New Year is waiting

and we have to work hard and dig deep

but beautiful friendships will give us

the gift of this Christmas to keep.

Computer Generation

He was once a real boy;

distinctly she remembered him

holding her hand and looking her in the eye.

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These days, to gain his attention

she wore prescription 3D glasses

and sat in a life-simulating gaming chair;

unsure whether the blurred edges he exhibited

were the result of his stereoscopic obsession,

a definite change in generational perspective,

or the tears in her empty nest eyes.

Sunday

Cards, did you ever stand? Or was my brilliant house of hearts,

young fumbling fingers darting in to rebuild broken parts,

a childish and imagined thing dreamed up by chilly rooms?

Do you recall the way we played on Sunday afternoons?

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In our separate world were marbles, and a box of dominoes,

each indent to be thumbed, the numbers nought to six in rows,

each globe a tiny planet trapped, in subtle colour rolled,

all added up when I was very young and they were old.

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And when they called me in at last, I boxed and bagged my friends,

to leave disgruntled kings and queens and keepsies in the end.

One hand still cupped around a shell in which I hear the sea,

I peer through dust of lemon cake washed down with grown-up tea.

Offering

In the old place, as you snatched your gaze away from me

I saw our futures in the furniture behind your head,

carved from antithesis, set in stone;

you rolled your eyes across an over- stretched conversation

and years flexed and flew.

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While I pirouetted into semi dark,

you stuck your colours to the nearest domestic lamp

and remained  stoically moth-like. I hardly dare knock

at our last closed door, fearing the beat of distressed wings,

but I come with fresh baked anodyne,

and if you answer, it will make this new morning blossom.