stilted words
stillborn
slide out
from torn
slash flesh
blood red
lipstick mouth
spews out
bloodless ugly triplets
‘I / love / you’
I choose ‘I’
not love
not you
not seeing eye to eye
but
fighting tooth for tooth
forebears cry out
they see
everything
from top
of swaying
family tree
daant ke lie daant
don’t lie Continue reading “Hir Qing Sorrow by Iain Fraser”
Rewinds
Peel open and peek:
inside the flapping, lolling mouth
of our mother’s photo album.
laminated with a sticky-wash skin
in grainy, colour-locked glamours.
encircled as we are, backlit and gypsy-like,
upon the retina of her old kodak.
Leaf through and look:
at our mother’s postgrad bungalow,
and the cats she found and raised alone.
and here, in burnout red, our ex-brothers,
with their lucid, low alley guitars.
and these polaroids of nameless children,
in some backyard mummery we long forgot.
Browse, then burrow:
deep into this picture house novel,
framed by weddings. birthdays. sleepovers.
reunions. divorces. second-hand toyotas.
painted kitchens. political borders. the first dog we ever got.
Then her final photo. Book ends.
Snap shut.
The film roll clicks.
And our lives rewind again.
Dementia
come to mind cloud
come to cloud mind – Marie Ponsot
& every now
& then,
i sit by her feet, on her porch
never ever talking.
& together,
we watch the soughing
heavens mutter, str-
etching their
cotton-silvers
in lulls & retorts
of
nearly went & nearly wait
– crossed & crossed all over.
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 