Two poems.
Close Your Mouth
(for G.)
Close your mouth.
Your teeth are showing, sharp as moonlight,
And you will cut yourself on them.
Close your mouth.
Once again, the bar is closing,
The lights turning off one by one,
The coins rattling in their tray as Holly tocks them up.
Your lips are parted as you finish up your drink and droplets,
clinging to our lip like so much nectar catch the light before
your tongue draws them in.
Close your mouth.
Do you ever stop talking?
Word after word drips from your mouth:
You talk of mead halls and old songs,
Traffics and tax fraud,
Polished swords and nursery rhymes.
Are you so scared of the silence, shadow-stalker?
Are you so frightened of the quiet when it comes?
Close your mouth.
It’s not your fault.
I don’t need excuses, or prayers, or talking,
Let your lolling tongue rest behind the cage of your teeth,
And let us share the quiet.
Close your mouth.
Don’t say that, please.
Don’t you see how you wound yourself with words?
Don’t you see the way you tear at yourself,
like a frenzied beast?
Have you become so used
to your own blood in the water?
Close your mouth:
Let me speak.
Let me weave magic in the air,
and let me tell you stories you do not know.
Let me touch your hand,
and let let us share the silence
when the story ends.
Close your mouth:
Let me close the gap between us.
Don’t hurt yourself on your sharp words:
take mine, instead, soft and warm and seidr-full.
Let Holly kiss your tired brow,
and let us each enjoy your company.
You don’t need to keep us at arm’s length
on the other side of your wall of words.
Close your mouth:
let us love you.
Close your mouth.
Please.
To A Blind Man
(for M.M.)
Knees apart, feet upon the cold, hard floor,
hands loosely clasped about the cane’s head.
The pew’s wood is cold and unwavering,
moulding the errant spine to straightness.
Fresh air made biting with frost runs through your hair,
and kisses your cheeks and brow.
The draught is expected,
(When hasn’t a church been draughty?)
and it feels like a welcome brush against your skin.
You feel the cold, and the seat beneath you,
And the way your suit settles on your shoulders.
This is the feel of God.
The cathedral is quiet, and it lacks the
cacophony of whispers, rustling clothes
and disordered footsteps of the service.
And yet silence is not to be found:
you hear the way the breeze whistles between
beams in the high ceiling,
hear the soft scratch and flare of a match as Father Kennedy lights candles.
He has new shoes, and the leather creaks as he walks:
his robes rustle against each other.
This is the sound of God.
A thousand scents are thick on the air:
the sickly-sweetness of incense clouds it
and you can smell which candles are new,
and which will soon burn down to the wick.
You smell the cobwebs and musty corners,
and you smell the ghosts of the congregation —
perfumes, shampoos, and other products line
the pews like they’re displayed in supermarket aisles.
Best of all, the scent of pages and book glue,
the fragrant presence of half a thousand Bibles
secreted beneath every seat.
This is the scent of God.
And in our mouth smarts a new bruise
gained in the heat of last night’s brawl;
You taste your own blood, coppery
with an iron tang.
This, you tell yourself night after night,
is the taste of God.
God is everywhere, in every breath
and exhalation:
in every gap, in every pause,
in every punching blow.
Constant, and ever-present,
constant in every sense but sight.
This is the love of God.
Thanks for reading! I have books out, and I’m also on Twitter.
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