NaPoWriMo 5

I’m sorry.  I do apologise.  I know that I’m not making this any easier for people to like or follow.  I can’t stand the irregularity myself.  Sounds simple.  A poem a month for April.  But as participants know, it’s not easy.  If it were, everyone would be doing it.  However this year the problem hasn’t been so much about the poetry, although this is always demanding.  It’s been with the technology.  But I’m hoping that come Friday, when I have the Internet installed and don’t have to use various phones, ipads, tablets, phablets, net books, PCs and Macs, things will have settled down for me.  And then, hopefully for you.

All of which has nothing to do with my fifth poem.  This poem underscores the old adage that some acts of creativity have a long, long history.  I realised that I started this poem thirty, Thirty! years ago and it existed in many forms over the years.  This is the first time it has made it out of any of my notebooks.  Hawthorns are common trees here in the UK and come in two main varieties, white and red.  They flower prolifically and if you see one, go an smell it.

Redthorn Blossom

May’s heat had not yet penetrated

the basement flat in Earls Court.

The walls, a mealy division

between excavated garden and subterranean bedroom.

Damp air presaging reclamation by decay

dark soil seeping through the wall

kissing the hanging wallpaper

with blemishes of black mould

 

outside the Redthorn blossomed

it’s musky smell, a false invocation

of sex, stained sheets, spent passion

 

you were there

and I faltered between your legs

uncertain in the

coldness of your passion

your knees scylla and charybdis

 

I sacrifice my self esteem

to give you something unwanted

lessening us both

equally inarticulate

unable to describe

what we need

 

footsteps pass by our heads

bisecting sunlight

amputating warmth

we lie wrapped in chilled air

scented with rethorn musk

 

Hope you like it.  Comments and likes as always, are welcome.