Poem - MAG Poetry Prize 2010
Race to the sky
by
bradford, UK
Dead of night and where it begins,
Is in that spacious
attic room.
Old toys and dust bunnies tumble from split boxes,
Spiders
webs lit in moonlit shafts and troubled
Imaginations light
fires in worn books.
The secrets we learn, we learn them here.
And
flee.
And the way it goes is just that way you know,
With
tear-drops and tea cups and sunlight sun spots,
Know the
faces, love them, love them.
Love them even more in memories.
Creeping over cracked worn floorboards
Knowing where to place your feet
While
your heart pounds and imagination flowers in
The young black
night. Be cloaked and calmed
While dust winks in the
moonlight
And she from the other place
Nods her
quiet approval.
And the way it goes is just that way you know,
With
tear-drops and tea cups and sunlight sun spots.
That's just
the way it goes with love,
We change and yet we stay the same.
The
other place is down the hall
and across the lane.
Through
the rusty old gate at the end
Of that old garden path.
The
weeds are growing thick as the leaves
Turn burnished gold and
shed memories
Of youthful explorations into new worlds of
vision.
Where that old path is not a path, but a voyage
Into
discarded new universes, shed like animal skins
Which envelop
our diminutive selves.
For a little while, that's just the
way it goes.
Hers is the face we never see in windows.
But
in mirrors and fractured purple skies.
In blue padded days we
find our friends
And sit together as we rise and fall
together.
The guitar strains and pulls us back to those
Abandoned
homes and blistered wallpapers.
And the way it goes is
just that way you know.
We run and run, the river at our side,
The
sun at our back, the city is our horizon.
Follow me, follow her, take your own path
Or forge through bramble and snicket.
Collecting spiderwebs and fine trails of blood
On your delicate teenage legs.
Commit the ode to memory, I shall not
Look behind me lest my step quicken,
Heart begins to race and trees
Begin to stoop as each sound reminds
Me of black bruises on skin and stifled cries
Through walls.
The revelation is clear, the meaning is lost.
Follow me, follow her, take your own path
Or forge through bramble and snicket.
Collecting spiderwebs and fine trails of blood
On your delicate teenage legs.
Commit the ode to memory, I shall not
Look behind me lest my step quicken,
Heart begins to race and trees
Begin to stoop as each sound reminds
Me of black bruises on skin and stifled cries
Through walls.
Sit
back, expand and breath in, keep breathing
And hold still,
hold their faces in your mind.
The revelation is clear, the meaning is lost.
Cos' that's the way it goes, that way you
know
That faces and smiles are lost like rings,
And
found, and found with bursts
Of clarion bells which ring from
your flowing hair
And tender lips.And the novels, the music, and the pictures at the cinema
Are only faint vibrations
of matter.
Follow her, follow him. A race to the sky,
A
race from weeds in pavement cracks
To cracks in that volcanic
sky.
And the way it goes it just that way you know.
With tear-drops and tea cups and sunlight sun spots.
That's just the
way it goes with love,
We change and yet we stay the same.Added: 25.03.2010
06.05.2010
Distinctive repetitive style creates resonance, an incantatory effect.
06.05.2010
Very good poem. You have a natural flow to your petry.
09.05.2010
A very deep and sensitive work. Well done.