Poetry

[bartolozzi]

Thank you, Adena. And I look forward to and enjoy reading your poetry and verse. Keep posting.

[Adena]

For Andie

You cry
I see the tears betraying how you feel
You call
I wish so much that paradise was real
You break
I know now that there's no way you can stay
You fall
I stand alone as your last seconds slip away

If you're reading this - I miss you.

[bartolozzi]

THE OLD WOMAN AND THE E.C.T.

"Well, what is the sense of ruining my head and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out of business? It was a brilliant cure but we lost the patient...." - Ernest Hemingway (1961).

The old woman has lost the will to thrive —
her home as unkempt as her hair.
Old, but nobody's grandmother,
she cries out, dreading her care.

The old woman is under a section —
the procedure's against her will.
But they say that she needs her treatment
so will force her to lie and be still.

The anaesthetist pumps her with sleep
and tells her to count from ten.
And when she is finally quiet
the psychiatrist goes to his den.

He returns with the gel and electrodes
and glues them to chest and to head.
Then forces the gag in her mouth
while we hold down her arms and her legs.

The old woman is fired with rockets —
"an induced epileptic fit".
She goes stiff, then she jumps, then relaxes
and her brain takes the force of the hit.

Now she remembers nothing —
who she was, nor the world that she's in.
Her memories are shattered to pieces —
more junk for the loony bin.

~ Bart (2010)

[Adena]

Time has not been kind to you
Your eyes are dull, your life is ending
I know your soul is hidden deep
I hope you feel the love I'm sending
I slept beside you for a night
The night that I was torn asunder
I let the tempest lash us both
And I cannot help but wonder
What would I have seen if the sun had fallen late?
Would that knowledge have prepared me for my final closing fate?

[Adena]

Death
for J. MB

Reading her fate off time-honoured walls
Still too young to hear God's call
She agreed with this so long ago
But back then, how was she to know
That the state wouldn't stop with those who fall
That one day she would hear it all
Recall the scratching, sketching pen
And read the words it writes again

Julia, Julia
Trapped in life's lament
I am here to break you now
When all your dreams are spent
Julia, Julia
Try to run away
You are caught within my snare and
I will make you stay

[Al Truest]

a heart splayed from a love it could not contain


a fortress forged from worldly clay
where rain and incessant seas batter
what can be said now that matters
what words unread can matter...

like a meadowlark in early flight
shot down at dawn's break
soaring free of fetter
now but scattered feathers...

a spiritual force that seemed so divine
'now shadowed by umbrage of an ominous kind
the dank and the cold of conventional ways
can rip all asunder whatever I say

luminous love so lavishly lush
a herald on high now only a hush
a timbre of pitch slightly off key
a city in crumbles falls into the sea

a world where nothing could pierce our abode
a place so enduring though hidden and bold
succumb to the siren and crash on her shore
live forever in loneliness turned away at her door.

[bartolozzi]

A Bloody Awful Poem

This is not a poem
but a cut —
a bloody ritual
to appease the guilt.

Unspeakable sentences
spill and thrill —
a bloody fault line
confessing the grime.

Red berried beads
obscene and mean —
a bloody fury
betraying the beast.

Corrupted conscience
crawls and brawls —
a bloody digression
blinding the scars.

Distorted interiors
stress and mess —
a bloody solution
barring the soul.

White washed wounds
the why and the lie —
a bloody stigma
purging the past.

A cut — unlike a poem —
springs a cardinal release
and a cut — just like a poem —
can be read as deep.

~ Bart (2010)

[Adena]

Self-harm

A drop of crimson blood
revealing what's inside
the secrets I keep hidden
that I cannot abide
it scares the silent viewers
spectators to my pain
I can only hide away
and wait
for healing rain.

[Adena]

In Sumerian Haze
Inspired by the song of the same name

I have always been your big disgrace
The one who told the truth
You tried to hide the monster
Got me to work for you
You tried to beat me down
Pretended I was wrong
I was beside myself when you broke the spell
This is a hidden love song
No tender words can mend the hurt
I don't want to hide
You tried so hard to break me
I will not stop inside
Living in sumerian haze
Keep on walking on
But still nothing can fix my heart
Now that your love is gone

[Adena]

Before the Wedding

Serpent's milk can feed them both
The serpent still between
Its coils are twisting round their necks
On threat of jealousy
I wonder what will happen
When both of them are lost
Their winter is still coming
And serpents love the frost.

I know about what happened
She was left to fall so far
Left without a hand to hold
As heaven killed the star
I will not ask her for the truth
Because I know she'll lie
I'm trying to kill the serpent
But ghosts just will not die.

[Adena]

My last memory
is of chill winds
and of rosemary.
I lay in the fields until late at night.
The song was soft
and I felt healed.
I never learnt not to trust.
Please do not bring me down.
Just lie with me and let me cry
for years ago I died inside.

[Adena]

Soul Seeker
For Elena Gloria

Hunting for her daughter's soul
The blood of fallen women
standing near
this is the forest of death
You are her Cosette.
Imagine the soul seeker
searching for a spirit that will never come
the truth entwined within her
knowing she will never be forgiven
lost within her sacrifice
the soul seeker cries

[Adena]

Yearning
for a fallen rose

Do you recall your summer?
It was hot there
and you began to grow

Do you recall my winter?
It was cold here.
I drifted.

Scraps of words
All that is left of you
In my memory.
I remember you.
The story girl
who crafts words so well
that they suck me into her world
for a fleeting moment

Do you remember the words, my child?
Can you still hold them on your tongue?

And in this moment
I wish
that you will fly.

[bartolozzi]

The Offering Bowl

My earliest memory
crept back to me
at twelve years old —
when the ghosts of the church hall
offered up this tiny pearl.

It was there I spied the Boys' Brigade
all fencing masks and draconian drill
and though I never wore the uniform
and scrammed before the camping thrill
from wall to wall the presence grew
till Déjà vu!
I had been here once before —

before my first step
before my first word
before my first sin
and before all my birthdays —

I saw waiting mothers
in straight-backed chairs
set against the church hall wall
with babes in arms
and prams extended
as happy as Jackie Kennedys.

And set on table, centrally placed
stood the Avery scales
their huge silver offering bowl
presided over
by Priest-Doctor
white-clad and with attendant nurse
High-Priestess of the goings-on —
an altar of sacrifice
a religious rite.

And through my sacred baby eyes
I could see
being lowered into the bowl
and being offered up
about to be weighed.

And there before me
exhumed in the bowl
the recovered trauma —
the green paper towel
soiled from the previous offering —
a dark pearl of moistness
like wept panic
transfixing my gaze.

And in the bowels of my mind
my tiny eyes saw
God's hand replace the dirtied green
with fresh
ready for my own foul offering.

And the hall was full of mothers
full of newborns
full of growing pearls —
absolute beginners
just twelve
light years
ago.

~ Bart (2010)

[Al Truest]

inside

inexorably steadfast
a bulwark hedging a relentless tide
i can never abide
those incessant lapping waves
that behave so predictably
inexplicably i know my way

days and days on end a blur
a blip
flippant the facade that erodes
that forgoes
this formality of congruence
truant
the soul that supposed all was well
not hell
no
a tale that is inscribed
inside
where forever is enshrined