The City Bears Fruit: Poems from Granada (#2)

Fehu (Prosperity)

Prosperity – she spelt, as the water made a snaky trail– prosperity, she whispered, carving the symbol into the sand, the waves crashing behind her and seeping in the outlines. The symbol resembled a tree – a straight line with two parallel branches extended on its right side – the wind whipped at her headscarf, strands of her hair veiled her face, and she licked her lips to keep them from sticking. It was winter – February – it was winter and windy and she wrapped her long coat around her body that was all scrunched up into a ball, her limbs pressed together, all the energy she could muster tucked up inside – all of this counts, all of this is leading somewhere – she coughed and drew blood, wiped it off her cheek – she thought of summer fields and roses creeping up a stone wall, and the smell of honeysuckle on a warm breeze, and the dumb, placid happiness of rising with the cuckoo. Prosperity – she cried out – and she was in need, of a change in energy, of a new purpose, who knows what will come, all I can do is make wishes, set intentions.

                  Things blossom as slow as the seasons, and yet they always come by so fast – what is that? When you observe something, tease it out, does it halt, become static – look at me! Study me! Like the subject of a painting, observation creates still life. And when we put our attention elsewhere, on the small moments of daily life, suddenly – Oh! I am met with fate! Someone has rolled out a carpet and shown me the way – how delightful, what a surprise! Great truths abound, lesser ones crawl through the window and skulk away with their heads bowed –

                                     I am beautiful and I am strong – I hold the world in my palm and I will write forever – I present and conjure – I symbolise the flow of life – caught now in the middle of it all, the juicy core, where I am solidified, strengthened.

                                                       And so the tides of time will seep into the grooves, and I will keep carving, evoking, letting shapes form around my crystal body, around the fleshy parts, waiting for nothing, waiting for it all. Everything is contradiction, we flow with one hand open and one eye closed, swimming and dancing.

                                                                        I float when I separate myself, I float as I come down from the tree. Do you see me, lying naked on the bark? Eyes are glinting, there is light mist. Mosquitoes hover in their shapeless flight. It's as if the river is full of jewels and we are the miners, and the protectors.

 

______________________________________

 

Crops

My tear ducts

my chest

my womb

- all roots to my tree

to that sleeping body next to me

When will I learn

it's the gaps that are fertile

Lotus flowers born

from unlikely beginnings

The promise of greatness:

in my pigeon-fluttering heart

crops of vegetables

line up for sustenance.

 

______________________________________

  

The First Week of January

Rain falls

after thunder

before snow

I welcome it -

bring me everything

I said

I want it all!

not realising that I was inviting

emptiness, disappointment, fear

in all empty things lie truths

all that dead space, full of truths

cascading

in the back of a brewery

drinking black beer

from heavy black glass

and it's cold up here in the city

as things line up for tragedy

I turn it over in my palm

this exquisite pebble

this eternal conundrum:

fleeting love

like a passing bakery

with its tease of warm odours.

 ______________________________________

 

Fruit/Space

Marital scenes -

grinding coffee beans

sandwiched between musical scores

the fruits of a mistake

the knitting contemplation

monotonous, satisfying

Hand me another jar!

These scenes -

the slow waltz of routine

timetables, appointments

Where to live?

Here

The danger?

The flimsiness of plans

Everything exists in the ether

And the ether?

Doesn't exist

So where does that leave us?

In the space between a song

and some loud-mouth cosmic joke

______________________________________

Space/Fruit

I become a lesser self

as you shoot off into space

the fear of cliches

greater than

the fear of slipping into nothing

when to fight

and when to lie back in mud

those murky masks,

moments alone

crying to no one

these low dips

into puddles,

rural wastelands

There seem to be textures:

beyond a tired mind,

unimaginable depths

beyond a bruised heart,

friends not yet met

beyond

is the same side:

a gossamer flower,

an onion

These things I need:

I pray for them with tiny hands.

These thoughts:

I bear them no fruit.

Is life really like a Catholic church?

The City Bears Fruit: Poems from Granada (#1)

Behind Mountains, Before Sea

There is a city somewhere, framed by mountains, capped with snow the texture of icing, of melted swan feathers or heavy-laden clouds, with skies that burn pink and nights that shine blue, with bells that chime into dusk, hills that sprout cactus, caves built into the earth, and an ancient fortress that defies the tides of time, standing there amidst shores of glittering modernity, the very proof that time flows back and forth – concrete evidence that history lies within us – what came before, runs back twofold – what stood, still stands – what falls, will rise again. 

So, this is what we call progress – from the Mirador we see the stretch of lights inching towards that towering ancient structure – lanes of traffic fluctuate, moving back and forth, this way and that - swirling city life creeping up on the sleeping steady stillness of centuries past - time travel made visible.

And all around, smooth, rolling hills. Behind them, the faint sense of the sea, and beyond, somewhere, the desert, the edge, the skirt hem of the continent – that fluid space between a lace rim and the dusty earth.

After years of inhabitants and influence, the land has been corrupted with the spillage and overflow of magic - without reason, without intention, the earth glimmers with the memory of spells and wishes and curses and songs – of manifestations, prayers, prostrations – the symphony of voices calling out, that one chorus.

And here we are, in this particular aftermath, this particular moment.

And that is why, in this city of sweet jewels, where the mix of spice and gristle and wine hums with playful contradiction, there is no such thing as luck or coincidence, only strategy in this big game. This is the place where paths cross, where fates are handed over on silver platters, hung from branches ripe and dangling, and up to you, if you dismiss it all as folly, without recognition these signs sink back into the material, become empty objects in this museum of reality – but! If you are awake and forever reading, your inklings will blossom into view – the gaps are filled, matches struck.

Softly, softly, even the wildest pockets jangle with ease.

The city sighs:

Wails of conflict, battle cries.

Deep laughter made scratchy with cigarettes.

A thousand strings plucked into the night.

Claps – of hands, hooves, lightning.

 

_____________________________________________________

The Beginning, The End, The Beginning

I dream of you in hotel rooms

your face

clouded by assumptions.

Is this the process

I'm destined to realise -

the beginning, the dawn,

and the end?

This natural womb-flow

of life and death

and all the sticky sweetness

in between.

Cold wrapped around,

elbowing past layers.

Each day a world in itself

leading on to the next.

Cloth wrapped around your head,

the dust settling

in the crevice of your ear.

Your scarf around my neck.

My breath,

hot and stale in the morning.

The squeeze and tinker

of the percolator -

and what is this taste of

petrol and cloves?

Questing,

requesting.

You are me,

she says,

and with tears in their eyes

they greet each other like old friends.

Commit,

fly away,

to this petri dish of blossoms.

_____________________________________________________






 

Time Travel

As I travel through time

moments arise -

I fish them out

gut them

line up the bones.

In this dining hall

echoing rooms beckon -

if I'm not careful

they'll lock me behind

while I'm busy arm-wrestling

and spitting in palms.

Midnight promises

riding past like bandits

like cowboys

lit up by moon.

 _____________________________________________________

The More I Smell Roses

The more I smell roses

eat grapes

tread forests

the more I know

that this is home

Have faith in love

Have faith in my love

These mantras like metronomes

ticking me

This is my life now

a dreamscape

where I dance in caves

POWER in my ears

the sky flittered with

expansive clouds

baby dove wings

blessings

and the mountains

the sun

all one

the earth dusty and loose

and I move

punch – kick – channel

this love

this prayer

Moments tied together in matrimony

I never thought I could believe in marriage

let alone a love that transcends galaxies and time

let alone,

no more

  _____________________________________________________

 

Fortress

We sit in silence

as sweet

as rice pudding

the sun setting

sultry and thick

That skyline

that midnight blue

blending

into red into peach into smoke

These elements -

that ancient fortress

These elements -

the hills of Albaicin

Silhouettes -

the tops of churches

bells cradling dusk

frozen hands,

beer sipped from clay cups

the bubbles thaw

in an instant

October in Summer: Poems at Can Serrat

Magic Woman

We stand in the middle of the woodpile, flames spitting, licking our ankles, burned at the pyre for laughing too loud, for running naked in the woods, for cackling and scheming and spending nights in the forest crouched down bleeding into moss, unconcerned as the animals watch, deers and hares and the moonlight glare, and the crunch of leaves as we dance internally to the goatskin drum of our fathers – distant and absent and here's their support, the rhythm of a heartbeat, a long flowing river of genes, an inheritance etched on bones and traced invisible on skin.

  We command ourselves, we spell us into being.

     We are connected to the underground network of roots and we sing in the morning, listening to birds, and the echo of wolves leftover from the deep dark night and carrying with it, a resonance, metallic and clanging, and thick in the air so that owls dart around it mid-flight, an airborne circuit, swooshing and gliding -

           my grandmother, one of my many mothers, said to me in our tent as the fire glowed inside, she said, 'Never expect anything, just know or don't know', and I understand now that she was referring to a sense of presence, a here-ness in the body, my stomach knows, my whole body alive and beating with all the knowledge needed to know -

                                      I am an ancient remedy and a modern tonic

         - I admire bubbles as they pop up on the edges of lakes, and tadpoles and reeds, and those unknown depths where tragic heroines are left lamenting, where ghosts live and swords go to die, the death and the wonder of deep deep water.

   A sneeze may wake me from my dream but I will still be in the fire, it is where I burn eternally, and all these lives are mere projections, spells I cast to distract me from the pain.

I am a magic woman and I have a thousand more lives to conjure and lead until I am ash. 

 

____________________

I Make Myself Clear

Banana peel held in a half-open palm

the birds alight and

wasps in their pristine costumes,

glossy yellow, petrol black

they would be skinny and cold if they were human.

We sit together at the watch-tower

up the steep stone steps

in warm shadow

the sun not yet come.

Yes I was chosen

Yes there is space

I wonder, were we all meant to meet in this way?

I forget,

I was not born in a pond

there was a jet-stream at my birth.

We all take up space

and this is my open enclosure

this is the invisible parameter

between fiction and truth.

We are ghosts reborn

skeletons on loan

funerals at home.

Creation beats us bloody

tears off our skin

so we feel the day's every detail.

Begin with an image

begin at the mountain-top

on hollow ground

the tree-bark snaps.

 ____________________

Referendum

Grapes hang beside cobwebs and lightbulbs

Dying sun shines peach against mutating clouds

The town sleeps, in the wake of sirens.

 ____________________

Communal Living

Rat-a-tat groaning of a waking house

the clang and chink of dishes

footsteps, bare skin on tiles

creaking stairs,

thin plasterboard.

Outside

the garden fluctuates and blooms.

Elderly crows recall bluebells in June.

Bugs in their circus flights.

We look through cardboard telescopes

only to see grooves of a palm

skin soft, colour mute and reddish,

glowing with trapped light.

Though these minutes are empty

people switch positions -

chess pieces unsupervised,

in flux.

  ____________________

Coasting

Toes planted in wet sand, how the waves crash so softly in the drizzly grey morning, all of us expected to chime in with wholesome-hearted wonder, the serene faces of nature lovers. But I do not feel these things, I feel a deep, sad rawness. I thank God, the creator (how hard it must be, all those blank reluctant pages, prescribing hang-ups, personalities, DNA malfunctions, addiction, delight) I thank God for the transparency of skin, how it soaks its surroundings, how I glow so alive, so alive, so alive, like the rock pools, the crags, the dainty formations of sand. How the sea spray plays with the sun ray. How we stand at the precipice, our faint stories floating above us like lost children. Walking in a quick stride, we are the process.

                                                           I am a body and I am not linear.

 

    ____________________

Sunbathing

The chink of ice against glass,

with open faces

bodies tread past.

Someone wheels a barrow

then carries it.

The way your lips feel against my finger:

that's how October feels in summer.

The way cigarettes smell on your jumper:

I would say stain

if it wasn't so fragrant.

 

    ____________________

Spirit Animal

The leopard sleeps in a smoking cauldron at the foot of my bed. My toes curl up with his thick breath, condensation and meaty vapours drip down between them, the smell reaches me, musty and primal, and I wonder if he is just a cub now what will he grow into? He doesn’t even know his full strength, he has yet to notice himself bulk up in the mirror, to check his weight or practise his growl alone with the window closed. He just is, and is fierce with it too. I did not birth him but he is a part of me that grew too literal and large and had no other option but to escape. His claws tighten around my big toe. He licks the edges of my nail and it tickles. I think of sandpaper and fetishes. So many animals in this house already, yet more buzzing outside the window.

  ____________________

 

To Dream

When I dream I let them float and disappear in the morning. There is a certain grown-up wisdom in that, a Buddhist calm that receives and lets go. Perhaps we really do travel every night, is that why I’m so exhausted every morning, jet-lagged with time difference. Vulnerable and open to all the interpretative power of the dream world, filled with shadows and symbols, and seconds that mean days. Skylights welcome me when I wake and most days they are blue and wispy-white. The farmer’s engine growls, gates clang, dogs call each other hoarse, and the silent twitter of birds line each moment with the faintest of shimmers. Like a fish gliding with its whole body, let us swim confidently and surely towards a new day.