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Index of poems:
- Affettuoso Tempesta
- Earworm
- Footsie
- (intimate)
- Kiss
- Sleepless
- Unawares
- Vikings at Hadeland Glass
- Vintage Beauty (for Karin Skold)
Cloudburst and your music resonates exploding globes to my lips, in the trickling rivulets sucking hair to cheek; drumming delicately on exposed shoulders, summer sweet sparkle notes, pizzicato waterfall melody for first violin. Pianissimo, legato, lento the Earth slows to listen to a natural tremolo. Intricate compositions arrange droplets queuing to be played, falling into each other, glissando into hushed, warm wetness.( Affettuoso Tempesta literally means "a musical term used to describe to the musician to play with affection" and "storm" but basically, I was caught in a storm in the local Tesco's car park and I was struck by the hushed, musical quality of the rain)
Published in Reach Magazine
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I know a song that'll get on your nerves.......
Joe Pasquale
In a dark and silent room, the family's asleep,
words are flirting with the mind, a thousand kisses deep.
This poem wants to be a sugar cube
blocked, rigid, ornamental words
constructed perfection in 3-D glitter,
crystalline text lined up row upon row.
This poem wants to roll around your mouth,
- linger awhile -
(a lifetime on the hips)
and vanish on your lips.
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Meeting you was a home-in-slippers affair, quite unexpected for a dreary afternoon. Next time, naturally, was ripe for frivolous, flirtatious strappy inconsequentia, quickly removed for an exploration explosion upstairs. Fresh from holiday, I met you in flipflops and then when I thought I didn't care, chanced trainers. Barefoot is the only way to revisit you, taste shingle and grass, revel in remembered richness and textures, the hushed swoosh of skin on skin, the flavour and weight of your smile, your kiss.Back to top
February Sunday sleet: in smooth, white sheets, I'll picture you battling adrenaline; dark, mellow contrast in endless eyes pulling me close (shut out the World) eyes squeezed tight, deep-breathing, released only for water, and a memory branded white-hot as you pause, naked (for me) in the doorway. Shaken, stupid, overcome: I run.
Here to waterproof your memory, evaluate the leakage: diffusion prevention enclosed within damp skin. Here to waterproof your memory so the goodness doesn't drip out.
Awake, mindful of languid, liquid lovemaking too slippery to catch. Even the sorry evidence from love-encrusted musksheets will be washed away with the retreating tide of darkness. In the predawn, I fear my lips could lose your gentle, welcome kiss, my hands might forget how your skin and hair can resonate such that your body shivers, my ears bursting to recall love-murmurs; yours have already forgotten. Morning comes to bury us, chanting a birdsong and we will shower in absolution, not quite listening to Radio Four, fingers unentangled, eyes averted. We may share such conversation over breakfast as the far too long married, easy friendship out with the dishwater.
He says that his hands are cold, oblivious to the physical effect on his companion; the mind-rush chest-flush goose-bumpy heart-thumpy thrill resulting in a shudder. His eyes meet hers fractionally longer than they did before as he relaxes into familiarity and she feels her pupils swell, burst and blossom, wide eyes averted, lest they give her away. His mouth shapes ordinary words, his lips part gently and then touch. She speaks of something ugly, a diversion as he places his hand on his stomach and his dark hair waves at her, laughing.
Vikings at Hadeland Glass
© Paula Brown
They should have been Vigeland bronzes, bare-torsoed Vikings, basted in honey-sweat rippling golden in the furnace-light to delight the tourist gaze. Fortunately, just outside, there is a fijord, pure, clean and icy fresh to extinguish disappointment.
(For Karin Skold) You draw your pencil 'cross the page and trace the softened lines of age: with muted tones and quiet care, you murmur light through silver hair. Breathing soft, your eyes will smile upon the beauty you compile. Absorbed, enlightened, you engage in vintage beauty as she forms: your pencil pirouettes, performs the dance of fine and ageless grace. Beauty, gazing face to face.
