Explosion #1 and #2

Explosion #1


This blackness first, through a window –
No stars the explosion
Hum-vibration through my body
Earthquakes the bedroom
Like we would do if we were in bed –

If we rummaged here in the bedroom,
We from earthquakes –
Because we are tectonic plates –
We would feel the explosion,
As black smoke blacks out the black sky,
A red to the left of the window
Embers like fireflies dance in the moonlight,
And you'd say: 'my heart is beating really fast in my chest.'



Explosion #2


Black night had wrapped its fingers round your neck,
Almost beside me, the fire burns outside,
Stockings now boil in a teapot
Beside an old, frail towel-hook,
In the shape of a clawed hand –
We are rustling like leaves in the dark,
Only as eyes and the occasional tooth-shine,
Or a golden onlay, broken on one side –
I imagine you: “Don't be so pregnant,”
Which then swells and bursts, or explodes,
And your other-side saying: “I'm getting married,”
As your heart beats in your chest
That is the same sound, or throbbing feeling,
In my neck or throat –
A woman, whose terrible blonde hair,
Is taken away for the embers of the exploded
Car outside, that rumbles us in shifting earthquakes –
Crossed in the air, Hail Mary full of Grace,
It was written all over your face,
A red to the left of the window,
Your heart was beating really fast.

Translation of 'Romance Sonambulo'

Romantic Sleepwalker
(Translated from the Spanish)

I want you to be green.
Green wind. Green trees.
The boat on the quiet sea
And the horse on the mountain.
The shadows around the girl
Who dreams on the balcony.
Green body, green hair.
Eyes like cold silver plates.
Green, I'd love you to be green
Under a gypsy moon.
They all see her.
She does not see them.

Green, I'd love you to be green.
Giant stars of frost
Under quiet fish of shadows
That open the morning road.
The fig tree rubs the wind
With its rough branches.
The world is a cunning cat.
The cactus has sharp bristles.
'What are you doing on the balcony?
And where are you?'
She is still sleeping there.
Green body, green hair.
Dreaming of the bitter sea.


Romance Sonambulo

Verde que te quiero verde.
Verde viento. Verdes ramas.
El barco sobre la mar
y el caballo en la montaña.
Con la sombra en la cintura
ella sueña en su baranda,
verde carne, pelo verde,
con ojos de fría plata.
Verde que te quiero verde.
Bajo la luna gitana,
las cosas la están mirando
y ella no puede mirarlas.

Verde que te quiero verde.
Grandes estrellas de escarcha
vienen con el pez de sombra
que abre el camino del alba.
La higuera frota su viento
con la lija de sus ramas,
y el monte, gato garduño,
eriza sus pitas agrias.
¿Pero quién vendra? ¿Y por dónde...?
Ella sigue en su baranda,
Verde came, pelo verde,
soñando en la mar amarga.

Novel Extract p.28

It's hard keeping up, I now write a novel and work 8 hours a day in work, I'm getting exhausted and I'm still doing the MA Writing. Not written any poems in a while but still on my novel. I've written over 22,000 words so far. Here is another extract:


I woke up on a hospital bed, my left arm wrapped up in a bandage with dots of red like a polka dot dress. There was a dark red/crimson colour in a triangular pointing-down arrow of the cubital fossa on my arm where the needle had intravenous access and burst through the tissue, and had kept on bleeding down to my hand. It was very warm, I remember. I'd woken up very tired and cold, my lips felt swollen and raw; the abscess under my tooth had taken ground after the lack of blood, and I wondered how much infection I'd succumb to after this escapade. It was dark in the room only because there was a heavy sky about to rain (it was afternoon). Melissa was sitting on a chair. She had a slightly miserable face, which I'd done, this having me feel the muddy effects of guilt. I thought of apologising to her, but thought against it. I didn't say anything, though I did look at her for as long as she looked at me without talking, her eyes on mine very cold like icy water – I began to shiver, breathing heavily through my nose, hoping that this headache was only from the vacuous space left in the superficial vein that was now a long dead worm that stretched up to my armpit where it ached – the skin all bruisy and tender, skin paraffin-white, skin very porous, cold and dry. Melissa looked away, glancing out of the window, now becoming the only light available, shining on my sister's face, a poor pathetic thing less pathetic than me – I looked at her for minutes longer, knowing she knew I was looking at her, could not find words with which to express whatever it was I wanted to express to my little sister, who, by now, had crossed a leg and her arms, sighed once and clenched her jaw. I looked away.