gifts

I don’t want roses
I don’t want department-store affections
your sickly-sweet scent
I don’t want to stab the pads of my fingers
on the thorns you forgot to remove
I don’t want roses
you’ve cut from their sister-blooms
and left for dead in shallow water

I want you
to plant a dream-big seed
or a hope-small sapling
dig your fingers into damp earth
sift through the stones and the worms
I want to see your nails trimmed black
as you tease hair-soft roots loose
into a cradle of earth

I want you
to tend to a trust-tall ash
we can shelter –
then be sheltered under
where we can sacrifice our fears,
our blind eyes for wisdom

I want you
to make mulch from eggshells
to grind bones into bread for a cypress
that will grow however it wants
over the names we leave fading
on our graves

I want you
to give me wisterias vines
so I may brush aside their pastel-soft queues
from the windows of your inherited home
and peek inside

I don’t want roses
wrapped in ink-fresh paper
that will stain my palms

I want you
to give me something new
in wrinkle-crinkle pages
from your diary

I want your lifelines
to touch mine
and grow
into new dreams

© chris DINGLEY 2014

lethe

it’s an unexpected visit
a sudden face you recognize in a public space
that calls out your name
and waves

it’s a song you haven’t heard in a while
that reminds you of hours spent
writing lab reports for that class you hated

it’s the smell of humid plant life
after the first warm rainfall
that transports you to sunny lanais
and failed attempts at making juice
from the neighbours grapefruit tree

it’s the way your hair curls just so
that makes your throat seize
when ghost hands try to cop a feel

it’s the tang of aftershave labeled for men
that smells like your father, your uncles,
like strangers on the bus
their thighs pressed against yours

it’s the sight of the first shoots of spring
that make your limbs shrink
your hands stinging from the acrid sap of flowers
that your mother labels as ‘plants’ or ‘weeds’

it’s the displacement
the way your sight shifts ad distorts
and you have to chant your new name
listen to some new tune over the radio
anything to bring you back to now
away from the names you can’t quite put faces to
and the faces you’d much rather forget

© chris DINGLEY 2014

wintershold

The siege is broken, and the enemy retreats.
The land is marked where they stood,
dark stains upon the asphalt
thick with the smell of wet and rot.
They fall in upon themselves
stained black and grey and brown
no longer the pristine white
of fresh troops.
They pull back,
revealing the cruel deeds that had been hidden
beneath their cloaks;
death in waterlogged cigarette butts
and crushed aluminium.
The siege is broken, and the enemy retreats,
but I still have to wear my coat.

© chris DINGLEY 2014

fin

BRACE YOURSELVES –
this one’s off the Rictor Scale
bones trembling and pale,
leaving splintered shelves
to burn

HOLD YOUR BREATH –
hear the howling of the flames
as the black smoke claims
in a hot-tar sleep
drowning

DON’T LET GO –
the waters gorge themselves high
on the bleeding sky
wet lungs gasp star-bright
and shout

TAKE COVER –
a spark leaps across chasms
oxygen spasms
embrace your lover
waiting

this is how we end

© chris DINGLEY 2013

THE archimedes PRINCIPLE

Light skips across the water
And below it pierce jade spears
That refract, break, and shatter –
New galaxies blink and appear.

Above me tower gold-green spears
To a sky that burns to coals.
I blink and this world disappears,
stranded on a grassy knoll.

© chris DINGLEY 2013

Gordon

They burned this island
three years ago.

Bleach-white bones splinter
fall upon themselves
into the blackened flesh.
The deer have left the island
only the flies remain.

This corpse explodes with life –
a stag turns its branchéd crown.
The stone oracle still stands
but in the end it crumbles
and only the flies remain.

© christine DINGLEY 2012

common IDIA

Soundless
flitting by my ear
a flash of brushed tin
by the lamplight

Cautious
I cup my hands together
mid flight around it
in a living cage

Hopeless
this fae creature bumbles
its blows more gentle than
the bat of an eye

Joyous
flees my touch in a heartbeat
of tiny grey-gold wings
dust painting my palms

© christine DINGLEY 2013

Aubrey

I listen for a heartbeat
in the jade-green vein,
touch it through the shifting
skin of rhombus glass
that catches the sun.

I listen for a heartbeat
in her ancient bones,
the copper and olive age spots
flake under my touch
and smells of damp.

I listen for a heartbeat
in the fresh-washed body,
the black velvet wrinkling folds mould
around my fingertips
and broken tree nails.

I listen for a heartbeat
in the creaking sinews,
groaning as she breathes a sigh
of a thousand symbols
green-gold above me.

I listen for a heartbeat
in her daily musings,
the chittering of squirrels and
the stuttered rapping
of woodpeckers.

I listen for her heartbeat
in her blushing face,
I light a dancing fire to warm her
she dresses in her finest
jewels and perfume.

I listen for her heartbeat
in the fire
in the moon
in the dark
in the loon
that swims in the river roots that pass me by.

She beats
in my blood.

© christine DINGLEY 2011

hunting dogs

The wind hushes through
the tall grass and dry reeds
of the frozen marshland.

My father and I walk
along tire-worn furrows
that the dogs ignore.

We pass under towers
thundering to feed
our electric hunger.

The sun hovers low
over the horizon’s
ridge of trees.

We trace the woods
until the dogs dart in
on the ghost-trail of deer.

The woods are splashed
golden Lothlorien
untouched by winter.

We follow the remains
of a stone farmer’s wall
and rotting fences.

The earth is muddy
but the cold air still
makes my cheeks sting.

© christine DINGLEY 2011

victorian green

If I were to speak to my love in nature trappings

I would be sure they are in green rose wrappings.

 

My lady would wear burgundy and smell of spices,

with long hair I would put in green braid wrappings.

 

Image by metabrilliant via Flickr

Though I am not one to share and drown in down,

I would like company in my green bed wrappings.

 

I would find her under an apple tree in full bloom

with her skin dressed regal in green sun wrappings.

 

In a clearing in a hollow of the great woods, laughing.

I would offer myself to her in green gold wrappings.

© christine DINGLEY 2011