I’ve been making hats this week
endlessly snipping, pinning, and
sewing little hats.
With a vague idea of
making money on the side
and even starting a new trend
if I get good enough.
It’s funny but I’d never
imagined myself a milliner.
My daughter said today
- they look like lampshades-
and it occurred to me that
she’s right, they do.
I’d been quite pleased until then,
you know, a new line in creativity
something I could do without having
first been taught.
Natural talent!
But…it’s true
I’m never going to gain renown
by making hats
that look like lampshades.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Sunday, February 18, 2007
A Sense of Place
Higher than my head stray stalks
of unharvested flax seem
to mock me with the spirits
of Kavanagh
and the poets of Ulster
for my Englishness
and therefore lack of soul
I could walk forever
the briar edged road,
with budding daffodil and marsh marigold
waiting for the magic to
slide over my left shoulder
The poet’s birthplace shrieks
PRIVATE - NO ADMITTANCE
in blue & white hostility
as I try to imagine
the window from which
young Patrick pondered
his father’s backside
The Muse is nipping
at my red city
ankles as I curse the formality
of my English tongue
while the Monaghan ranges
hide themselves always
around the next bend of the road
If there were a mountain
in sight I could believe
I were in Keswick then
the poetry of my
schooling would give me
a host of flaming
daffodils instead of the flaxen
ghosts who look into my veins
and see no race memory
of their history.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
of unharvested flax seem
to mock me with the spirits
of Kavanagh
and the poets of Ulster
for my Englishness
and therefore lack of soul
I could walk forever
the briar edged road,
with budding daffodil and marsh marigold
waiting for the magic to
slide over my left shoulder
The poet’s birthplace shrieks
PRIVATE - NO ADMITTANCE
in blue & white hostility
as I try to imagine
the window from which
young Patrick pondered
his father’s backside
The Muse is nipping
at my red city
ankles as I curse the formality
of my English tongue
while the Monaghan ranges
hide themselves always
around the next bend of the road
If there were a mountain
in sight I could believe
I were in Keswick then
the poetry of my
schooling would give me
a host of flaming
daffodils instead of the flaxen
ghosts who look into my veins
and see no race memory
of their history.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
A Game for Two Players
Please let's not play Mastermind
or Mstressmind
in bed at 3 a.m. It could be warm
and snuggly here wrapped in each other.
Rapt in each other after love making
I'm too exhausted for questioning
the ethics of why we're here
I know why I'm here
It's my bed and it's bedtime
Sorry - I got the answer wrong again
Why are you here?
Oh - I hadn't realised I'm not allowed
to question the questioner.
Why does sex create so many questions
when I thought it held all the answers?
Pass.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
or Mstressmind
in bed at 3 a.m. It could be warm
and snuggly here wrapped in each other.
Rapt in each other after love making
I'm too exhausted for questioning
the ethics of why we're here
I know why I'm here
It's my bed and it's bedtime
Sorry - I got the answer wrong again
Why are you here?
Oh - I hadn't realised I'm not allowed
to question the questioner.
Why does sex create so many questions
when I thought it held all the answers?
Pass.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Would Ogden Nash approve
my telling of how the
seeds of cultivated flowers,
purple anemone, white aubrietia, have
escaped over the garden walls?
Planting themselves in the cracks
of the pavement –
they can’t be tamed.
My heart is this way,
escaping the narrow confines
of what is supposed to be,
loving where it will;
Very Like a Whale.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
seeds of cultivated flowers,
purple anemone, white aubrietia, have
escaped over the garden walls?
Planting themselves in the cracks
of the pavement –
they can’t be tamed.
My heart is this way,
escaping the narrow confines
of what is supposed to be,
loving where it will;
Very Like a Whale.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Geri
Sixty-two hours before you leave this place
I listen to your spirit struggle
for release. Your breath comes low and fast,
panting. Deep and harsh. You
sound like a mother in labour.
And I see a full moon sailing high above
a Canadian forest, where the she-wolf
lies labouring, bringing you home
into your lupine skin.
The skin you wear now in these last
hours is so fragile. Dry and cracked.
Stretched by steroids and chemo
that ultimately could not hold you here.
Shed off your skin and move on.
I hold you. My life flowing through
the heartbeat in my hands
sharing your death as closely as I can
in love with you, my dyke-mother.
I whisper: Go…there is nothing to fear…
nothing to hold you here…see…the end
of the tunnel where you stand on the ledge?
When you jump you can fly…and when you land
you are born. She who’s heartbeat you hear now
will be there, licking the mucous from your coat.
You hear everything I say,
even though the tumours in your brain
ate through your hearing three weeks ago.
Thirty hours before you leave this place
I find you wide awake. The first time you
have woken in many days. You grip tightly
to both my hands with your own,
fixed eye contact between us –
although your sight left you last week.
Letting go of your hands, the hardest
thing I’ve done to date, I say goodbye
kissing you. Fear rising like a snarl.
I leave you freedom to leap.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
I listen to your spirit struggle
for release. Your breath comes low and fast,
panting. Deep and harsh. You
sound like a mother in labour.
And I see a full moon sailing high above
a Canadian forest, where the she-wolf
lies labouring, bringing you home
into your lupine skin.
The skin you wear now in these last
hours is so fragile. Dry and cracked.
Stretched by steroids and chemo
that ultimately could not hold you here.
Shed off your skin and move on.
I hold you. My life flowing through
the heartbeat in my hands
sharing your death as closely as I can
in love with you, my dyke-mother.
I whisper: Go…there is nothing to fear…
nothing to hold you here…see…the end
of the tunnel where you stand on the ledge?
When you jump you can fly…and when you land
you are born. She who’s heartbeat you hear now
will be there, licking the mucous from your coat.
You hear everything I say,
even though the tumours in your brain
ate through your hearing three weeks ago.
Thirty hours before you leave this place
I find you wide awake. The first time you
have woken in many days. You grip tightly
to both my hands with your own,
fixed eye contact between us –
although your sight left you last week.
Letting go of your hands, the hardest
thing I’ve done to date, I say goodbye
kissing you. Fear rising like a snarl.
I leave you freedom to leap.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Fragmentation
I sit and
try to write
a poem.
I am a poet.
I am a mother.
I am a sister, a daughter, a carer, a lover.
GET - READY - FOR - BED
The massed amounts
of a day
spent listening to the old.
Listening to The Old Grey Whistle Test.
Trying to like my brother’s favourite music.
Trying to like my brother.
THERE'S A CLEAN NIGHTIE IN YOUR NIGHTIE DRAWER -
PIPPA - STOP THUNDERING...
on the stairs.
The thunder threatened to come
today and
– all we had in common
was our musical taste
especially as his conservative stance
was pure.
Purely done to wind me up.
Yet even while he called me
Greenham Dyke a part
of me was pleased
that he recognised me
before I did.
Perhaps we're not so different.
ARE - YOU - TRYING - TO - DRIVE - ME - CRAZY?
The mood on the poet,
she strives to create art.
BOILED - EGG - AND - TOAST - FINGERS
it used to be battery egg and soldiers
until awareness got the better of me
- and I'll have to wake the baby up
the heat has made him sleep
but perhaps I'll write
the poem later, in a
quiet moment,
as a letter to my brother?
And I never did the washing –
the thunder threatened rain.
Will the poet try again,
awakening in fifteen years or so?
But the muse may
have died by then.
All day I thought
there was a poem.
There was a poem
I wanted.
There was a poem
I wanted to write.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
try to write
a poem.
I am a poet.
I am a mother.
I am a sister, a daughter, a carer, a lover.
GET - READY - FOR - BED
The massed amounts
of a day
spent listening to the old.
Listening to The Old Grey Whistle Test.
Trying to like my brother’s favourite music.
Trying to like my brother.
THERE'S A CLEAN NIGHTIE IN YOUR NIGHTIE DRAWER -
PIPPA - STOP THUNDERING...
on the stairs.
The thunder threatened to come
today and
– all we had in common
was our musical taste
especially as his conservative stance
was pure.
Purely done to wind me up.
Yet even while he called me
Greenham Dyke a part
of me was pleased
that he recognised me
before I did.
Perhaps we're not so different.
ARE - YOU - TRYING - TO - DRIVE - ME - CRAZY?
The mood on the poet,
she strives to create art.
BOILED - EGG - AND - TOAST - FINGERS
it used to be battery egg and soldiers
until awareness got the better of me
- and I'll have to wake the baby up
the heat has made him sleep
but perhaps I'll write
the poem later, in a
quiet moment,
as a letter to my brother?
And I never did the washing –
the thunder threatened rain.
Will the poet try again,
awakening in fifteen years or so?
But the muse may
have died by then.
All day I thought
there was a poem.
There was a poem
I wanted.
There was a poem
I wanted to write.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
One Relationship
The 23rd of April
is the anniversary
of Shakespeare’s birth
St. George’s day
Kath Fraser’s birthday
and the day you came to do your washing
at my house.
I know which I think is
most important.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
is the anniversary
of Shakespeare’s birth
St. George’s day
Kath Fraser’s birthday
and the day you came to do your washing
at my house.
I know which I think is
most important.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Fire
Our lovemaking blinds
me with orange light. Sacral
chakra. It overwhelms
and envelops me.
My fiery lover’s touch burns
hot on my breast, belly, cunt ‘til
I am tempted to look for scorched
flesh, witches burn, branded.
I drown in molten rivers, heedless.
Clammy skin sucking, breast
flattened against breast.
Our lovemaking cracks
the ice of our midwinter sheets.
Melting the frost on
the windows for the duration.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
me with orange light. Sacral
chakra. It overwhelms
and envelops me.
My fiery lover’s touch burns
hot on my breast, belly, cunt ‘til
I am tempted to look for scorched
flesh, witches burn, branded.
I drown in molten rivers, heedless.
Clammy skin sucking, breast
flattened against breast.
Our lovemaking cracks
the ice of our midwinter sheets.
Melting the frost on
the windows for the duration.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Willow
Oh! How the mighty are fallen -
after thinking I was god or
the devil for an eternity
I found myself in the same
sordid world as the rest of you -
where homophobes shriek abuse
outside Centra, and even work inside.
Feeling afraid I don't answer back but
walking faster, cheeks flushing with shame
that surely isn't mine.
Oh! How the mighty are fallen -
after thinking I was the devil or
god for an eternity
I find myself in the same
serene world as the rest of you -
opening up then to a vision of what's real
I plant my own two feet squarely down
taking my own space
growing upwards and outwards
like a willow, though surely no sylph.
Oh! How the fallen become mighty –
Supple and bending, spreading
over and onwards each delicate
green leaf a new feeling
each fragile green feeling a new leaf
in the rewrite of the rest of my life
no bible in my garden of hades to
guide or accuse but those other
travelling journeywomen whose names
are shouted unheard.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
after thinking I was god or
the devil for an eternity
I found myself in the same
sordid world as the rest of you -
where homophobes shriek abuse
outside Centra, and even work inside.
Feeling afraid I don't answer back but
walking faster, cheeks flushing with shame
that surely isn't mine.
Oh! How the mighty are fallen -
after thinking I was the devil or
god for an eternity
I find myself in the same
serene world as the rest of you -
opening up then to a vision of what's real
I plant my own two feet squarely down
taking my own space
growing upwards and outwards
like a willow, though surely no sylph.
Oh! How the fallen become mighty –
Supple and bending, spreading
over and onwards each delicate
green leaf a new feeling
each fragile green feeling a new leaf
in the rewrite of the rest of my life
no bible in my garden of hades to
guide or accuse but those other
travelling journeywomen whose names
are shouted unheard.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Holding the Fort
“…Three years after the end of the First World War the trenches were inhabited by rats, lizards, weasels and the as yet unburied remains of the dead…” Documentary – BBC Radio 4
I have spent many years inhabiting graves
crawling round the decomposed remains
dwelling in an ‘other world’
ignored by the living
as the dead were abandoned.
Call me vampire but I never
sucked the blood of any living thing
and I like to think that my presence
was small comfort to the souls of those
caught up in never ending screech of mortar.
Those who survived the trench experience
came home shattered, crippled with
rotting feet and scrambled wits
shaking in the permanent pounding
shells shocking, never ceasing fire.
Call these the lucky ones then,
whose bones remain without rites,
with a white cross to mark a resting place
never reached.
Small comfort the scavenging creatures.
The small and hot-blooded
or the quickening reptile
keeping watch, bearing witness, holding the fort.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Splash
Hook, line and sinker I fell,
was caught, enmeshed.
Fishhook snared on the soft palate.
The barbed lure,
bitter… Sweet? Pain.
All a bit S/M for what I had in mind.
What can you expect though?
When all we ever did was
talk barbed words,
hooking into flesh –
teeth bite.
I was hooked, a hooker
captured me, selling herself
at my cost. I her pimp
to use and amuse,
floundering, painfully out of my depth,
got thrown back into the water –
Plenty more fish in the sea, love.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
was caught, enmeshed.
Fishhook snared on the soft palate.
The barbed lure,
bitter… Sweet? Pain.
All a bit S/M for what I had in mind.
What can you expect though?
When all we ever did was
talk barbed words,
hooking into flesh –
teeth bite.
I was hooked, a hooker
captured me, selling herself
at my cost. I her pimp
to use and amuse,
floundering, painfully out of my depth,
got thrown back into the water –
Plenty more fish in the sea, love.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
World AIDS Day 1999
I’d like to name all of those
I’ve loved and lost.
But they’re not all mine for the naming.
Those ones that I’ve loved who stayed
were never mine for the taming.
The litany of names grows
louder each year.
More candles to light. And the
furnace of my grieving pyre glows
ever brighter
threatening to implode leaving
me, a black hole.
Tenacious is my name and I
will not let go of my dead yet.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
I’ve loved and lost.
But they’re not all mine for the naming.
Those ones that I’ve loved who stayed
were never mine for the taming.
The litany of names grows
louder each year.
More candles to light. And the
furnace of my grieving pyre glows
ever brighter
threatening to implode leaving
me, a black hole.
Tenacious is my name and I
will not let go of my dead yet.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
I Didn't Scream at Birth
Her aversion to water
I'm sure
comes from having been drowned
at birth –
in the womb.
Being thrust out of security
the greedy baby sucked too soon
filling her lungs with the water
of the womb.
Life came hard that day
as a still-born baby
blue as if drowned in a river
emerged
still life
means death
and for all of three minutes or more
remained dead
waiting for the midwife's pronouncement of
still life
means death
still birth
no life
and still
life/spirit lingered
water poured forth
gushing a small cupful
of infant mortality
SPARKLED in the sunlight
SPLATTERED against the living room wall
and with it
fate sealed the bargain:
This life is yours
(c) Liz Willows 2000
I'm sure
comes from having been drowned
at birth –
in the womb.
Being thrust out of security
the greedy baby sucked too soon
filling her lungs with the water
of the womb.
Life came hard that day
as a still-born baby
blue as if drowned in a river
emerged
still life
means death
and for all of three minutes or more
remained dead
waiting for the midwife's pronouncement of
still life
means death
still birth
no life
and still
life/spirit lingered
water poured forth
gushing a small cupful
of infant mortality
SPARKLED in the sunlight
SPLATTERED against the living room wall
and with it
fate sealed the bargain:
This life is yours
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Letter to the Collective
Sorry the cheque bounced.
The bank manager needed proof
that we can pay it back soon
and as you have pointed out,
I have no income.
The £11,500 house that you insisted
I get a mortgage on
while you paid the deposit
just to make sure that working-class women would own property too
so that your public Marxism needn’t suffer
isn’t selling
and when it does I’ll have
maybe as much as £2,500
to squander
on my
debts of £3,000
- which includes your £500
so that’s a problem.
But hang about –
here’s the thing,
if I don’t pay you back
it’ll all balance out.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
The bank manager needed proof
that we can pay it back soon
and as you have pointed out,
I have no income.
The £11,500 house that you insisted
I get a mortgage on
while you paid the deposit
just to make sure that working-class women would own property too
so that your public Marxism needn’t suffer
isn’t selling
and when it does I’ll have
maybe as much as £2,500
to squander
on my
debts of £3,000
- which includes your £500
so that’s a problem.
But hang about –
here’s the thing,
if I don’t pay you back
it’ll all balance out.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Wanting You
I want you!
Here in this café
sitting across from you,
leaning in, to hear
the quietness of you.
I want you -
not in any metaphysical way;
no subtlety here in my longing.
I want you -
now!
As your nipples tease me through the
thin fabric of your
blue and white striped
shirt… Oh I want you here
in the space where my head
loses all thought and instead
my fingers and tongue do
the sensing, tasting, touching of you
I ask you if you’d like to lick ice-cream
from the insides of my thighs
knowing what your response will be
Stop! You say,
pleading against the upsurge of sensation
Would you though?
I persist with all the cockiness
of knowing my conquest
Stop! You’re begging -
which you know by now only
incites me to greater boldness
I describe my desire more fully
leaning across hushed tones,
some semblance of privacy
where our whole body language speaks of
I want you!
Rocking on my chair I can hardly
contain this exploding urge
to take you here
pushing you down onto
the polished, well-trodden floorboards
where half a dozen people are
spending a quiet Friday afternoon.
I want you.
All the while in my imagination
I bite and lick and pull at
your teasing nipples through the light fabric
undoing your buttons and sliding
my hand inside as
I raise my mouth to yours
bearing my weight down as
you lie passively beneath me
- So now we know it’s a fantasy -
But still I want you
I want my hands sliding across your ass
as I pull you toward me
opening you up to me…
Now it’s me pleading
Come home with me?
You accept your power gracefully -
Yes, I want you too.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Here in this café
sitting across from you,
leaning in, to hear
the quietness of you.
I want you -
not in any metaphysical way;
no subtlety here in my longing.
I want you -
now!
As your nipples tease me through the
thin fabric of your
blue and white striped
shirt… Oh I want you here
in the space where my head
loses all thought and instead
my fingers and tongue do
the sensing, tasting, touching of you
I ask you if you’d like to lick ice-cream
from the insides of my thighs
knowing what your response will be
Stop! You say,
pleading against the upsurge of sensation
Would you though?
I persist with all the cockiness
of knowing my conquest
Stop! You’re begging -
which you know by now only
incites me to greater boldness
I describe my desire more fully
leaning across hushed tones,
some semblance of privacy
where our whole body language speaks of
I want you!
Rocking on my chair I can hardly
contain this exploding urge
to take you here
pushing you down onto
the polished, well-trodden floorboards
where half a dozen people are
spending a quiet Friday afternoon.
I want you.
All the while in my imagination
I bite and lick and pull at
your teasing nipples through the light fabric
undoing your buttons and sliding
my hand inside as
I raise my mouth to yours
bearing my weight down as
you lie passively beneath me
- So now we know it’s a fantasy -
But still I want you
I want my hands sliding across your ass
as I pull you toward me
opening you up to me…
Now it’s me pleading
Come home with me?
You accept your power gracefully -
Yes, I want you too.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
The Housewife’s Guide to the Rolling Stones
The only time I
stop moving
is
when
my
brain is tangled with
What’s the next job?
Wash the nappies, or the dishes?
Change the beds?
Feed the fishes?
Will I vacuum? Do the shopping? Start the dusting?
Now I’m hopping
from one foot t’other
Do I pick the kids up, or ring my lover?
Feed the cats?
Shake the mats?
Walk the dog? Scour the Bog? Mend that shelf,
or
be myself?
Roll a cig, brew up, read a book, make a picture, write a poem, have a long lazy
bath, even think about making love.
But none of those have any of the rhythm of the above.
Successful home management
rests
mainly with those
who
gather no moss.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
stop moving
is
when
my
brain is tangled with
What’s the next job?
Wash the nappies, or the dishes?
Change the beds?
Feed the fishes?
Will I vacuum? Do the shopping? Start the dusting?
Now I’m hopping
from one foot t’other
Do I pick the kids up, or ring my lover?
Feed the cats?
Shake the mats?
Walk the dog? Scour the Bog? Mend that shelf,
or
be myself?
Roll a cig, brew up, read a book, make a picture, write a poem, have a long lazy
bath, even think about making love.
But none of those have any of the rhythm of the above.
Successful home management
rests
mainly with those
who
gather no moss.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Writing the Handbook
I always meant to write you a poem.
This morning I read:
If today was the last day of your life
what would you have wanted to do with it?
I want to write a poem for you.
My son, my baby, youngest of three
and born at the wrong time I thought
having buried your brother
the year before.
But timing is never wrong Jordan,
my Jo. Jo-Jo that you’re too
old for, and makes you cringe.
You came along at just the right moment.
The right moment to share in my grief and loss,
the right moment to share in my addiction,
the right moment to share in my healing,
the right moment to help me learn to feel.
Jordan, my Jo. Jo-Jo.
Life so incomprehensible to your outlook
that people just be nice, and fair.
I wish, my love, for you that they had been.
People are people, and as you grew
seeing all the misery of others sickness
carrying it for them
bullies, addicts and the soul-destroyed
you kept on smiling. My beautiful son.
Always generous, even when hungry for so much yourself.
How do you survive in a world so different to your own inner view?
You know you are loved.
Even though I don’t have all the skills to show it, yet.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
This morning I read:
If today was the last day of your life
what would you have wanted to do with it?
I want to write a poem for you.
My son, my baby, youngest of three
and born at the wrong time I thought
having buried your brother
the year before.
But timing is never wrong Jordan,
my Jo. Jo-Jo that you’re too
old for, and makes you cringe.
You came along at just the right moment.
The right moment to share in my grief and loss,
the right moment to share in my addiction,
the right moment to share in my healing,
the right moment to help me learn to feel.
Jordan, my Jo. Jo-Jo.
Life so incomprehensible to your outlook
that people just be nice, and fair.
I wish, my love, for you that they had been.
People are people, and as you grew
seeing all the misery of others sickness
carrying it for them
bullies, addicts and the soul-destroyed
you kept on smiling. My beautiful son.
Always generous, even when hungry for so much yourself.
How do you survive in a world so different to your own inner view?
You know you are loved.
Even though I don’t have all the skills to show it, yet.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Martin
I
My ex-lover who is a man, carried
our baby's coffin to his grave – stumbling.
Later...pissed from one glass of whisky
I collapsed on the bathroom floor,
almost dead I tried to die.
My ex-lover who is a gay man, kicked
the door down, macho style, and
carried me to my bed. My body lay there.
I tried to die.
Watching as from two miles distance
were my eyes.
Watching the still, cold form
on the bed try for death
– my long distant friend.
My long distant friend the Methodist
ministers daughter, said a name but
I couldn't hear. Shouted a name,
I wouldn't hear.
Slapped the face on the body L I Z
SNAPPED BACK HURT HURT
RED HOT RAGE HURT STRANGLED
STRANGLING ON SALT BLOOD BILE I
HURT I HURT I
OH MY GOD MY BABY'S DEAD AND THE PARTY’S IN FULL SWING!
Drink more whisky, roll another joint,
we even gave my mother one.
An hysterical party in honour of Martin –
named for a bird, he flew away after
fourteen months. I should have guessed.
I looked at my daughter – still living
at my ex-lover – still living
at myself – still living
futures, still to be lived,
my mother ate toast all day
and a sister brought 100 cigs
thinking we may be in need. Oh yes.
Everyone sat, talked, laughed, moved forward.
II
To know me now you have to know
that Martin’s death made me.
The woman you see now –
the dyke in a dress with raw bulging eyes
and tinted glasses for concealment,
the grief ridden lonely woman
who feels sorry for herself
so writes poetry for comfort,
– she didn’t exist before Martin died.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
My ex-lover who is a man, carried
our baby's coffin to his grave – stumbling.
Later...pissed from one glass of whisky
I collapsed on the bathroom floor,
almost dead I tried to die.
My ex-lover who is a gay man, kicked
the door down, macho style, and
carried me to my bed. My body lay there.
I tried to die.
Watching as from two miles distance
were my eyes.
Watching the still, cold form
on the bed try for death
– my long distant friend.
My long distant friend the Methodist
ministers daughter, said a name but
I couldn't hear. Shouted a name,
I wouldn't hear.
Slapped the face on the body L I Z
SNAPPED BACK HURT HURT
RED HOT RAGE HURT STRANGLED
STRANGLING ON SALT BLOOD BILE I
HURT I HURT I
OH MY GOD MY BABY'S DEAD AND THE PARTY’S IN FULL SWING!
Drink more whisky, roll another joint,
we even gave my mother one.
An hysterical party in honour of Martin –
named for a bird, he flew away after
fourteen months. I should have guessed.
I looked at my daughter – still living
at my ex-lover – still living
at myself – still living
futures, still to be lived,
my mother ate toast all day
and a sister brought 100 cigs
thinking we may be in need. Oh yes.
Everyone sat, talked, laughed, moved forward.
II
To know me now you have to know
that Martin’s death made me.
The woman you see now –
the dyke in a dress with raw bulging eyes
and tinted glasses for concealment,
the grief ridden lonely woman
who feels sorry for herself
so writes poetry for comfort,
– she didn’t exist before Martin died.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Cathy
Friday night we both arrived down in Cork.
From Dublin and Kerry, separately. Unannounced.
Catching up on long-time-no-see friends.
Do you remember that awful woman?
The one who wanted me to take her home, but
scared the living daylights out of me.
You saved me then
and came with me instead.
I remember now how you danced that night,
knowing I could picture you in your underwear.
And coming home under the full Scorpion moon
you howled idiotically all the way,
and because I loved you, I wasn't embarrassed.
You pointed out your favourite star and told me
how your funeral should be ordered.
Monday morning parting. Until the next time.
Making plans for your trip to Kerry,
your Dublin jokes about needing wellies.
I got the card with the baby on it -
fancying me pregnant by your lust.
I wrote back sending you the first instalment
of a story you asked me to write.
We thought we'd meet in Galway, but
you stayed home to work. And then you were killed.
How did that happen?
(c) Liz Willows 2000
From Dublin and Kerry, separately. Unannounced.
Catching up on long-time-no-see friends.
Do you remember that awful woman?
The one who wanted me to take her home, but
scared the living daylights out of me.
You saved me then
and came with me instead.
I remember now how you danced that night,
knowing I could picture you in your underwear.
And coming home under the full Scorpion moon
you howled idiotically all the way,
and because I loved you, I wasn't embarrassed.
You pointed out your favourite star and told me
how your funeral should be ordered.
Monday morning parting. Until the next time.
Making plans for your trip to Kerry,
your Dublin jokes about needing wellies.
I got the card with the baby on it -
fancying me pregnant by your lust.
I wrote back sending you the first instalment
of a story you asked me to write.
We thought we'd meet in Galway, but
you stayed home to work. And then you were killed.
How did that happen?
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Sandra
I still imagine Sandra
in the deep blue velvet dress
with white Peter Pan collar.
Sandra’s mum
finding it all too much
put Sandra’s head in the gas oven
along with those
of her two brothers –
a strange meat and two veg. -
after giving them a sleepytime drink
of hot chocolate and tranquillisers –
they were all under six
so would have fit quite nicely.
After tucking her children up
making sure they’d never wake
Sandra’s mum threw herself out
of the upstairs bedroom window
breaking both her legs.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
in the deep blue velvet dress
with white Peter Pan collar.
Sandra’s mum
finding it all too much
put Sandra’s head in the gas oven
along with those
of her two brothers –
a strange meat and two veg. -
after giving them a sleepytime drink
of hot chocolate and tranquillisers –
they were all under six
so would have fit quite nicely.
After tucking her children up
making sure they’d never wake
Sandra’s mum threw herself out
of the upstairs bedroom window
breaking both her legs.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Duncan
Dancing to Stiff Little Fingers
with Duncan
leaping wildly, cavorting,
colliding. The last photograph
taken of him is at a party
in my home
the week before his death.
Sitting in a chair, wrapped and bound in wool,
a child's potty on his head, and a copy
of Playgirl open on his lap. Dead drunk,
dead to the world. Can of lager in hand.
That was the night I noticed blood in his ears.
How can you offer a mother a picture like that?
We didn't. Collecting money
from his mates in the Carlton pub
in Standish Street, we found a florist
who made a wreath. A replica of the illustration
from the centre of his favourite album,
Join Hands by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
His coffin was kept closed after all,
as his peacock tribe
of punk friends
gathered with his open-hearted family
at the crematorium
in Burnley, Lancashire.
Where for once only
the scratched copy of
the 23rd psalm
was outweighed by
SLF and Suspect Device.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
with Duncan
leaping wildly, cavorting,
colliding. The last photograph
taken of him is at a party
in my home
the week before his death.
Sitting in a chair, wrapped and bound in wool,
a child's potty on his head, and a copy
of Playgirl open on his lap. Dead drunk,
dead to the world. Can of lager in hand.
That was the night I noticed blood in his ears.
How can you offer a mother a picture like that?
We didn't. Collecting money
from his mates in the Carlton pub
in Standish Street, we found a florist
who made a wreath. A replica of the illustration
from the centre of his favourite album,
Join Hands by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
His coffin was kept closed after all,
as his peacock tribe
of punk friends
gathered with his open-hearted family
at the crematorium
in Burnley, Lancashire.
Where for once only
the scratched copy of
the 23rd psalm
was outweighed by
SLF and Suspect Device.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Platonism
This poem wasn’t meant to be written
at 3:24 a.m. (according to my red-eyed
electric alarm clock) I don’t think it was
meant to be written at all.
I couldn’t find the pen
beneath all the books
which habitually surround my bed.
My cigarette diminished and died,
abandoned breathless in the ashtray.
The corner of the duvet drank tea
in the feckless candlelight…
and the woman by my side
so easily asleep -
provoking my insomnia
- shifted, and spoke.
I found my pen,
cautioned sleep to my friend,
and started to write,
rather than seduce.
Averting a disaster.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
at 3:24 a.m. (according to my red-eyed
electric alarm clock) I don’t think it was
meant to be written at all.
I couldn’t find the pen
beneath all the books
which habitually surround my bed.
My cigarette diminished and died,
abandoned breathless in the ashtray.
The corner of the duvet drank tea
in the feckless candlelight…
and the woman by my side
so easily asleep -
provoking my insomnia
- shifted, and spoke.
I found my pen,
cautioned sleep to my friend,
and started to write,
rather than seduce.
Averting a disaster.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Out on a Limb
There’s me, hanging off the tree.
Out on a limb again.
I can’t be a coward – however hard I try.
Loving where I will,
less skill than importunity,
leaping off the cliff – as if both of us might fly.
The sweetest “no” I ever heard,
I swear that I too am afraid,
unable to be a liar – fired with a passion.
For all my eccentricities,
I’m really quite old fashioned.
But fit a scold upon my tongue – ration
my foolishness. Wrong this
time, this place. I have to face
that this is God’s will – not mine.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Out on a limb again.
I can’t be a coward – however hard I try.
Loving where I will,
less skill than importunity,
leaping off the cliff – as if both of us might fly.
The sweetest “no” I ever heard,
I swear that I too am afraid,
unable to be a liar – fired with a passion.
For all my eccentricities,
I’m really quite old fashioned.
But fit a scold upon my tongue – ration
my foolishness. Wrong this
time, this place. I have to face
that this is God’s will – not mine.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
One Love Poem
Silenced – eventually –
by you saying I love you
I longed to respond with equal depth
- or even fatuous cliché –
but I looked at you,
and fell silent.
Back home I slurped overripe plums
writing poetry.
The juice went up my nose and
dribbled down my chin as
I struggled for a metaphor
to describe
to capture you in words;
the way Rich’s VIII
captivated us both.
Breathless, voiceless in the presence
of the wordsmith who wove
the warp. I am clumsy in my efforts
to express a promise. A working
of an old story in a new tongue
and I fall silent.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
by you saying I love you
I longed to respond with equal depth
- or even fatuous cliché –
but I looked at you,
and fell silent.
Back home I slurped overripe plums
writing poetry.
The juice went up my nose and
dribbled down my chin as
I struggled for a metaphor
to describe
to capture you in words;
the way Rich’s VIII
captivated us both.
Breathless, voiceless in the presence
of the wordsmith who wove
the warp. I am clumsy in my efforts
to express a promise. A working
of an old story in a new tongue
and I fall silent.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Proper Order
I nearly rang you, wanting
to share the sunset,
remembering in time that you
are not that way inclined.
Could I have rung you instead
sharing the cool honesty
of I miss you.
I know that you would say yes.
If I can gaze on the sunset
here, knowing that you also
share this sky with thoughts
of me, intimacy remains.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
to share the sunset,
remembering in time that you
are not that way inclined.
Could I have rung you instead
sharing the cool honesty
of I miss you.
I know that you would say yes.
If I can gaze on the sunset
here, knowing that you also
share this sky with thoughts
of me, intimacy remains.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Another Bloody Love Poem
Why did so many poets
write about love
before I had a chance
to meet you?
Now, all my feelings
are dressed in the words
of others. Instead - describing all the
newness and ingenuity you inspire
in me, I hear a thousand
cliché’s tumble out clumsily.
You are my love.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
write about love
before I had a chance
to meet you?
Now, all my feelings
are dressed in the words
of others. Instead - describing all the
newness and ingenuity you inspire
in me, I hear a thousand
cliché’s tumble out clumsily.
You are my love.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Reflection
Pity the thirteen year old
as she arrives in school
bedraggled and unloved –
look in her eyes.
The other children point fingers,
jeering as she’s hauled before
the principal and named – Slut.
Listen – to the child talking
with authority about blow-jobs
with boys on the run from remand.
Between the lines she wishes she were
Enid Blyton’s “George – but
Gobbler is her name.
Have compassion – for the little girl
who takes alcohol and Valium in
exchange for sex with strangers
just to feel someone’s arms around her.
It’s hard. They call her Easy.
Pity the thirteen year old –
who passes off her semen stained
school skirt as soiled
with Horlicks from the café where
she works. Whore-licks the other
kids call her.
Let your pity bathe her, cleanse her.
Galvanise her.
Bring her into adulthood.
Name her. Call her. Me.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
as she arrives in school
bedraggled and unloved –
look in her eyes.
The other children point fingers,
jeering as she’s hauled before
the principal and named – Slut.
Listen – to the child talking
with authority about blow-jobs
with boys on the run from remand.
Between the lines she wishes she were
Enid Blyton’s “George – but
Gobbler is her name.
Have compassion – for the little girl
who takes alcohol and Valium in
exchange for sex with strangers
just to feel someone’s arms around her.
It’s hard. They call her Easy.
Pity the thirteen year old –
who passes off her semen stained
school skirt as soiled
with Horlicks from the café where
she works. Whore-licks the other
kids call her.
Let your pity bathe her, cleanse her.
Galvanise her.
Bring her into adulthood.
Name her. Call her. Me.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
Colouring by Numbers
I like a good sky.
I'll point it out saying:
Look at that - what a sky!
As my loved ones join in the
appreciation - or humour me.
There have been some great skies
lately, real biblical numbers. You
know - broiling multi-coloured clouds
in impossible unnamed shades where
all you are waiting for is God's
voice booming and His finger pointing
(and I've seen both of those recently too).
My only trepidation is that
all this aerial flamboyance is a sign,
that all those bloody 'Millennium
Doom' merchants are right.
But, if this is Armageddon - it's very pretty.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
I'll point it out saying:
Look at that - what a sky!
As my loved ones join in the
appreciation - or humour me.
There have been some great skies
lately, real biblical numbers. You
know - broiling multi-coloured clouds
in impossible unnamed shades where
all you are waiting for is God's
voice booming and His finger pointing
(and I've seen both of those recently too).
My only trepidation is that
all this aerial flamboyance is a sign,
that all those bloody 'Millennium
Doom' merchants are right.
But, if this is Armageddon - it's very pretty.
(c) Liz Willows 2000
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