Sinister: songs of innocence and experience

[Archel1978 at xxx.com]

hello sinister.  sorry for the delay in your weekly, ornithologically 
inspired, poem, but there seems to be a bit of a poetry kick on the list 
lately anyway, which is of course GREAT.  (must be the autumn.)

as ally 'old bastard' cook and owen 'blackmailing sod' aka the narrow wizard 
hinted, i (and the poetry parrot) was in glasgow for the weekend.  i won't 
bore you, but i had a lovely time and thank you everyone who made me welcome. 
 i also had the knicker-wetting experiences of a) handling an original copy 
of tigermilk for the first time and b) seeing struan's church (which hasn't 
even got a bloody steeple - what's a church without a steeple?)  but at no 
point did i try to initiate attempts to stalk band members.  at all.

anyway, here's the poetry.  and yes mr narrow wizard, one is by me, but i 
thought i should give everyone an alternative as well.  so there's also one 
by the american poet billy collins, who i rather like (and have in fact met, 
but that's another, and quite boring, story).  you have to guess which is 
which. (not very hard.)

On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light -
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly 
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.
It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I would shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees.  I bleed.


Holiday Romance

A dry, bleached
beach day.
You come back smelling of salt wind,
open spaces.
Each grain of sand
you brought with you to bed
is slicing through my skin.
They irritate like grit
in an oyster,
worm their way inside
my moving flesh,
rip tiny, ragged holes
along my thighs,
roughening, thickening my blood.
I turn towards you;
they scrape across my breasts, 
embed themselves inside.
I spit out pearl.
------------------------------------------------------------

ahem.

and the poetry parrot liked glasgow so much it's flying back there next to 
Calumn Shearer, to say thanks for putting me up and because i know he has 
something to share...

luv archel xxx

ps: everyone who submitted to or was interested in buzzwords - slight change 
of plan.  i'm now doing it as a web zine instead, due to budget and other 
stuff.  i'll keep you posted though.

*********
Rachel Playforth
archel at iname.com

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