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I was young and fascinated with the whistle.
The deafening sound that came from your mouth.
They weren’t birds, but they can whistle as the wind!
Whistling, whistling
I was fascinated, looking at my brothers whistling.
How can I whistle? My question came.
My brother teaching me, while my father screaming at me.
You are a girl! Girls don’t whistle!
Then my father whistles.
It is unfair or is it just me?
A girl who couldn’t whistle.
It’s the day for a wild whistle competition.
let Ciaos choke
under miles of steel.
The train won’t let me
memorize its trails
nor commit to memory
the secret pleasure
of sobbing wheels
when they hit the rails.
Then flogged em off behind the pub so I could buy some
bloody grub to feed the kids and wife.
They adn’t ate for firty arrs wiv rumbling guts ‘n’ aches.
Saw the tears roll darn the cheek
fer yet another bleeding week
wivart some bread or cakes.
Worked me bum off day ‘n’ night to make a bob or two.
Ad a shilling left for rent
wiv all the rest already spent…
didn’t know what else ter bleeding do.
Couldn’t bear ter see ‘em starve or ‘ear the baby weep.
So like a little ‘ungry mouse
I snuck inter ‘is Lordship’s ouse
while ee was fast asleep.
Some bastard at the Bull ’n’ Bush seed me do the deal.
Ee recognised the silverware;
ad the allmark to compare….
and so me kids never got that meal.
They cuffed me ‘ands behind me back and threw me in a cell.
They put me in the Bailey dock;
and kept me under key and lock,
then sent me darn ter hell.
They said I’d ang at Tyburn, but then they changed their mind.
Instead they give me seven years
of labour ard wiv sweat and tears…
cos they was really kind.
Wivvin a week I’m in an ulk ‘n’ off ter Noo Sarth Wales.
They beats yer ard ‘n’ whips yer bad,
sends yer nearly effing mad
inside them floatin’ gaols.
I gets there March of 1812 and lives me life in chains.
It urts to work ‘n’ urts to walk
and even urts to bloody talk,
so few of us complains.
bears memories buried
in the corolla of a rose,
in the odours of my childhood,
barely woken from a dream,
our tryst abandoned.
Both knowing neither will compromise
Like traders glamorising a business deal
Ignoring anything that’s real
You know there’s a connection
Too busy, insecure of the reflection
The lads would think you’re under whip
Need to inform them if I stay the night
Being honest I can’t say much
Don’t want to be labelled slut
swims against the tides of fate,
clashes with uptight currents,
is buoyed by gentle waves
like a bolt into a dream made out of nothingness,
crowns of hope
along the touch of nature.No golden shoes enfold the feet.
They are bare and wounded.
your shoes are large and I put them
on, trying to ache through the miles
you had walked from this wild grass
I no longer mow. Pronged fibers curl
above my steps, gathering the way
smoke shoulders its particles up the
exhaust hood. But idle feet can’t tar
It has its ups and downs
You build me to the highest peak
But then I plummet down
You twirl me through the loop-de-loops
So I can’t catch my breath
And when you freeze us upside down
I’m falling to my death
I never know what’s happening
Until we’re at the end
But when you say it’s over I find
I want to go again
Strong, controlled, all eyes are riveted to him,
He gives your eulogy, an acclamation of your life
As he understands it.
He boasts your beautiful smile,
And of that he speaks the truth.
In that smile is the love of God he says
And like a bolt of lightning I jerk up straight.
Shocked to my very core I am sickened.
‘Liar.’ I yearn to scream, ‘it is not as you say.
Behind that smile was abhorrence, fear and loathing.’
You are dead and now you are at peace
But what of me, the daughter you leave behind.
I am your flesh and blood, the one you were to protect
You allowed him, you knew and did but not stop him.
You forgave his exploitations by your omission
And in denial continued to smile at all around you.
wrought from iron, glass, and concrete.
An old world under shadows drowned,
their conquest nearly complete.
Grotesque forms rise to the skies,
Heavens territory is ceded.
The old from consumption dies,
its ancient spirit depleted.
