Dark Atlas
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A journey through a collection of new poetry touching on many themes: childhood, love, self-identity, religion, memory, death. Neither poetry nor memory is about the truth.
Dark Atlas
1w ago
siódma fala
this is where she lives
this is her house
this cycle of a song and dance
see how she sways and swirls
whirls whorled in a world aroused
around and around the flow the waves
count them count the ways
cascade cataract maelstrom drought
the confluence of water echoed by the wind
tornadoes stretched to derechos the arabesque
flamenco and a tango she can do the fandango
solo ostinato there’s no control then there is
the calm the ..read more
Dark Atlas
1M ago
family album
and a here with a granddad unknown unknowable
indefinite epithets unilluminated a stern expression
a serious face of his age deftly inscrutable
a granny too indistinct crossing a distance
yet focused a deadpan gaze into a stillborn life
that stares back like a knife
then a father young almost handsome smug with potential
the future a wild animal to be captured and caged beside
a mother inside her beauty peering out with uncertain
apology in a smile that never quite reaches her eyes
and an Imago windswept with the then and the now
caught in t ..read more
Dark Atlas
1M ago
shoplifting
we’ve all given it a go
the gang identity the group skin
draped in insolence and arrogance
all that belonging that longing to be in
the chorus the song and dance of adolescence
that becomes a one-man show
how the mind becomes body
the somatic awareness of self
that sudden sweaty existential voice
the dare the dread that life upon the shelf
to take to pocket to make that choice
to move to the music the choreography …
and breathless the song ending
and the buzzing adrenal silence
that some can never switch off
the trinket in the hand ..read more
Dark Atlas
2M ago
Love was
Love was a party
two pumped up balloons
set free
bumping on the ground
clumsy with gravity
dead air
left to deflate
Love was a meal
haute cuisine
portions like leftovers
pushed around the plate
all the ingredients you learned to hate
the dishes
left stacked in the sink
Love was a dream
an IKEA bed
unmade rough wood
sheets rucked and stained
with sweat and blood
an atlas
left unwashed unchanged
Love was and is a door unhinged   ..read more
Dark Atlas
3M ago
Lazarus (post-mortem)
Imago remembers her mother
caresses the skin of memories feels its tightness
the hair rising at the nape of her neck
yet there are folds and creases in the story
where the narrative is hidden or erased
those movements the mathematics
the grammatical elisions of cause and effect
which have been wrapped in the warp and weft
of time trapped like bubbles in the blood bending
thought the iron bar of identity reshaping
the curve squaring the circle the slice of pie
the integer the Fraction the transcendental I
never escaping ..read more
Dark Atlas
5M ago
snowman
Imago watches snow fall
like slow rain each flake
unique a six-sided trick
shaped by its journey
to cluster on the surfaces
of the earth compound
as simple as water
a herd animal sheltering in a storm
the shrugging on of another skin
a snowball fight an Olympic event
a snowman atop a mountain
the reaching of a peak
an iceberg on the tip of the tongue
a glacier as slow as time
an avalanche as quick
an age advances retreats reveals
a fingerprint like a fossil
a Christmas card
the icing on the cake
How the heart melts ..read more
Dark Atlas
5M ago
such a thing
as a cake there
on a white plate untouched
there’s some kind of cake a fruit charlotte
the succulence of apple with berries bleeding into
the meringue mixed in with the crispy pastry crumble
a work of art colours texture working in the mind on the palate
the tongue the soft gush of saliva the plain white canvas of the plate
I take a fork break off a piece but am stopped the hostess leaning in over
me her hand holding down my own a cake fork she says insistent replacing the
fork in my hand with a cake fork and I am stopped for a moment a ..read more
Dark Atlas
6M ago
clear-out
the skip arrives unloaded like a burden
metal against metal the machinery
the grinding mechanics of what is still yet empty
with the attitude of a coffin chosen but unfilled sturdy
then the work begins years that have carelessly gathered
in boxes overfilled and spilling in black binbags stuffed
bursting and split amongst webs forlorn and tattered
are dragged and heaved through opened windows
to fall
cascades of childhoods a honeymoon and holidays
of clothes outgrown cast-offs and hand-me-downs
the bro ..read more
Dark Atlas
6M ago
Exuviation
Imago wakes one day to wonder if the soul
Of the child will accompany the soul of the adult into heaven
For in a dream from which he awoke in a sweat
His younger selves lay upon the floor discarded
Were draped over chairs drying had been folded carefully
Then stuffed into chests of drawers were hanged
In cluttered wardrobes unwashed unironed innocent
Blooded bloodied and fleshless price paid
Disingenuous unsung
Imago shivers in the skin he is yet to shed
Naked and cold with no hands to hold ..read more
Dark Atlas
7M ago
onstage
there’s all that waiting in the wings
other people’s time for you nothing
just a twinkle in someone’s eye and then
led to what you believe is centre stage
not yet spotlit the lights coming up
taking an age the crowd restless
and so many extras
and those first-night nerves that last
a lifetime even with all that prompting
and such a short run a premiere
an unending rehearsal ending
in Act VI the curtain closed
the auditorium empty
the stage in darkness
the caretaker’s
turning of the key
ev ..read more