Closed, but also open

 

Did you know that shop down the corner here?

I went looking for it, but it was closed…

Son, it shut when the lockdown was imposed

and never opened again. How many years

 

have you been away? The last two have changed

so many things – how we work, play, buy and eat,

the number of shops shut down on this street

the entire neighbourhood’s been rearranged

 

a hundred homes upended, windows gone blind

livelihoods destroyed, a war without a war

shutting down our lives, never mind the store

the last couple of years haven’t been kind

 

where have you been, son? Stuck on the other side

of the world, waiting for the plague to subside.

Last two and a half years, I've been treading water as far as writing goes. Posted here regularly of course, and at WEP - these are like breathing, can't imagine life w/o them (Thank you my WEP and blog families!) 

But I made no submissions anywhere. Zero. I wrote plenty...I was just nowhere near up to editing the stuff into submission-worthiness. Hopefully, that out-of-control spell is now broken and I am now open, business as usual. For which I am grateful. 

Check out this link here - Portrait of a Garden, and if you feel able, please share on your sm platforms. Thank you for your support. 

Worm's eye view

Lomolomo. Juky 22.

 

The sun has almost touched the horizon

and I too want to stay close to the ground

to read the stories silken sands have spun,

where the ocean’s scattered seashells around

 

The tide is low and a tired old white kite

lies asleep, its tail like a mermaid’s fin

fluttering over the last of the daylight.

Their day’s work’s done, the boats are drawing in

 

My body is crumbed with glittery sand

and my hair is billowing with the tide

I’m neither of the water nor this land

and I’m neither the road nor still hillside.

 

Just want to stay close to the wash of blue -

never the bird, rather a worm’s eye view.

Incommunicado

 

Hibiscus schizopetalus. Common names

- fringed rosemallow, Japanese lantern,

coral hibiscus and spider hibiscus. From

the garden earlier today. First intro. 

Recognised it was a hibiscus from the 

leaves. So Botany Teachers, your lectures 

haven't gone completely waste :)

What’s a solstice? or even three -

I’ll still be reaching for the phone

till the last stronghold of memory

tumbles into ruin and is gone.

All seven seas and all time zones,

include the seven ages of man,

and seven more births that follow on

and the entire galactic gameplan -

 

it will still flash into the brain

instantly at anything new

that I must get back, call and share -

transmit this pulse of thrill to you,

before the surge ebbs out again.

You are out of reach, everywhere.

Harvest of hate

 

I'll go far away. Your hate and prejudice

will be like sand between my toes and won't stick,

fall off from my skin even as it dries -

not a grain nor crumb. Not an atom of it.

Not one yarn of this entire tissue of lies

will touch me, nested in a different life.

Nothing but rightful the balance of justice

not each thrust acid sharp silver keen as knives.

I will stand here steady on my own two feet

and what you've sown is what you'll have to reap

today, tomorrow or centuries hence -

food grains grow only where the waters run sweet.

You'll sit alone with your sharp words and weapons,

cold your fireside. And the harvest in ruins.