Love, Poetry

Something Like This

by JustinLeave a Comment on Something Like This

I don’t know what love is
but perhaps
it is something like this:

When she
comes home from abroad
and tells me proudly: ‘I saw
a squirrel
and some daffodils
and a tree, just like the ones we saw
in the park
that day’
and I remember these words
when I wake up in the night
and next day at my work
and I long
to hear her say
the same words once more
and for her
to look exactly the same
with the same smile
and the same brightness in her eyes
as when she said them –

I think that is maybe love
or something rather like it

Poetry

How To Be A Man

by JustinLeave a Comment on How To Be A Man

Scene 1

too young to know anything of death

get sent upstairs when someone
knocks on the door on a Saturday

Scene 2

too young to come back down until you’re told   eavesdrop

auntie    are you sure you’re OK?
dad        I’m fine

Scene 3

see your dad return from hospital after overdosing

the kind of overdosing where the body forgets itself slowly
how to walk    how to speak    how to swallow

Scene 4

watch your sister hugging the would-be futurefather of her child

go to the other room    computer    television
a comedy impressions show and a joke
about someone’s stature
laugh harder than you should have or wanted to

Scene 5

go back to the front room
recount the joke about stature to the seated family

dad       I know    we heard    are you OK?

say you’re fine

see your dad’s face like an empty box

Background character notes
you thought you knew how men
were meant to grieve
you thought all men were punished by their fathers
you thought all men grieved like small Greek women
in black who say the bread still needs to be baked
you thought men simpy carried on
when your dad unfolded in front of you
nobody had taught you how to fix him back together
and then he died

Love, Poetry

Finally

by JustinLeave a Comment on Finally

a day will come when
woken by the xylophone
of sunthroughblinds
you’ll realise

that the beach was not the place
where horses tore the sand
to ribbon

that the scent of her has lifted
from the last of the sheets
that she isn’t coming back
and that you don’t want her to

that it hasn’t rained
but the birds are pretending that it has
so they can sing

Love, Poetry

Slam

by JustinLeave a Comment on Slam

isn’t this how the best of it should be?
or the worst?
taking the body to the point at which
it almost breaks and then returning
having had your faith restored
in the miraculous fragility
of the self
the morning we almost ended
it was your sobbing brought me back
after the endless smashing of glass
we talked ourselves together
and   the next day   still wearing the mark of your hand
on my chest as you slammed me to the bed   I found I was struggling
to swallow    every mouthful
was a labour   I became aware
of the mechanics of my own body
could feel parts of myself that would
usually go unnoticed
after your hand had slammed into my chest
I learnt the pain in possessing
capacities that are never
quite fulfilled   almost being broken
almost leaving but deciding
to tough it out
until it broke