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Victoria Wood Poem
Leaves a’ rustling
So near to me
I feel your hot breath
I smell my fate, close
Wild
Wild I started
Grew too fast, too bold
Grew beyond myself, grown far too old
Yet looking back now
I regret, I fear
If this is really the end...
How did I get here?
My skin, now so dry
So vibrant it was
My colour now gone
Gone forever, anon
As thoughts peel from my frame
My solid roots fray
I glide through sky blue
I drift in breeze fair
I’m watching all again
As if I were yet to press play!
I land on moist soil
I rest on this rich earth
Eyelids heavy
I’ve found my last hearth
My resting place
My journey complete
My adventure has ended
I cecum to fates grace
That breeze was so sturdy
That wind so forceful
It carried me quickly
As if remorseless
Yet as I lay here
Thoughts are so peaceful and clear
I see myself, I see my worth
What I did to this world…..what I left in my berth
I now know why
As dawn becomes dusk
I’m finally satisfied
They saw enough.
Copyright © Victoria Wood | Year Posted 2015
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Victoria Wood Poem
I used to dream of a dark hall. Dim. Empty with thick cheap navy curtains.
The breeze. It felt hot and old. It shivered in the curtains that lined the walls on both sides.
The breeze. It must have been a stiff breeze to blow those heavy curtains. It makes them appear as if gentle waves, moving ever so slowly. Rising and falling. Mockingly.
The hall reminded me of my school assembly hall. I’m still not sure though if it was.
The light. Was dark. Pitch black to my eyes only I could see.
The light. It was as if fluorescent. The kind of light that you would find in toilets at a mall.
You go to wash your hands. Look in the mirror and see 20 years into the future.
Every pot, wrinkle, freckle, dry flack, burst blueing irreparable cluster of veins.
You stand, staring at the reflection with revulsion.
Do I look like this now?
Yet, that is not truly my reflection. It’s the light.
It glows pale and hums. Old electric heaters sound the same. I can hear it.
Maybe the way it refracts. Such a harsh light must slice through air. Sever it. Leave it thinner.
The light. The way that it seeps inside parched flesh. A sallow tint and vile shadows.
That was the light in the dark hall.
The hall reminded me of my school assembly hall. I’m still not sure but I think it possibly was.
It bounced. Off the frayed navy curtains and the bulk buy wood tiles with a diamond pattern.
It bounced. Off jaundiced walls with sticky fingermarks.
I can see every scratch as if they were fluorescent themselves. Every speck of dust.
Parasites and dead moth wings are clear to me. They seem enlarged. Not clustered. Every detail of decay individual somehow.
I wonder why I’m recalling this dream. I can’t shake it. I don’t think it’s the dream that bothers me. Not that dank, dim hall that stays with me.
It was the curtains.
They moved so naturally, yet they didn’t seem so.
I remember.
As they undulated back and forth feeling queer.
The hall reminded me of walking home on biting winter nights. Dark short days
The curtains. They watched night appearing. They mimic its gloom shadows.
The curtains. Every rustle, creak, crunch of dead leaf, pebble mistakenly kicked underfoot along the icy pavement in front of me. Magnified. Tuck my fingers inside pockets and twist. White knuckles balled into fists. I sensed something. Pressed mute. Looked behind me. Nothing. I pressed play.
I remember thinking the shadows were stalking me. Eyes hidden to stare. Just watch.
I stare back at bulging bins outside a block of flats putrid with rotten food. Nothing.
A hum of white static. That was the queer feeling when I watched the curtains in the dream.
I remember I looked for them. Eyes in the shadows. Eyes Hiding.
Behind curtains is a good hiding place.
I regarded them, watched the rhythmic inhale then exhale. Chalk dust choking lungs.
Do I dare look?
The hall reminded me of that feeling. That queer feeling as it began to mutate. Multiply. Violate.
The chalk. Surrounded me. It wasn’t chalk. It was derma taken without my consent.
The chalk. It reminded me of a spring I saw when I was 13. A mundane day. Dragging my heels;
tripping on sharp rocks, crushing parched pebbles into fine sand. Clutched my hair.
Filled the air with sharp fine white asbestos. Clung inside my blue lungs. Body parched. We reached the spring. I craned to see above my hostage takers matching rucksacks. Saw a tap.
A tap that’s been running for days. Years. Pressure slow. A mineral cleansed virgin snaked a path downward. She gets musty from chalk. Slicing scars into the rock with bitterness.
I watch her descent until disappeared into a dank black hole.
That reminded me of when I played catch in the driveway, losing the ball down that overgrown dark hole at the left of the rust flaked garage door under the house. The driveway steeped;
a way to let rain pour away unseen through the gutter. I didn’t care! Let the basement flood!
The hall reminded me of that feeling. Black behind curtains.
The black hole. Let the whole house flood if that’s what it takes!
The black hole. When I would have to retrieve that ball. Reached my hand.
The shadows of the drain pipe hid the tip of my fingers. A chill dread would infect me.
A snake sinking fangs into me, letting my own blood do the rest. That dread;
I would feel as if sunburnt. A warmth. A gradual cancer while you lie there and crust.
Except the blisters are cold. Burning ice venom tiptoeing up my arm freezing the blood.
I snatched. Blisters burst. Forgotten until the ball taunted me again to play hide and seek.
I watched, they looked heavy the curtains. I studied them intently. The way the breeze trickled slowly strumming invisible fingers along them. The air snaking through folds of faded navy.
I thought it was dancing. Charmed. I watched as it slithered upwards bloated belly inhaling.
It wasn’t. The curtains were shifting uncomfortably.
The hall reminded me of a disco we had at school. Stand shuffling feet and barely touching just fingertips on shoulders.
My shoes are shrieking. Leaving thin layers of black tar etched on the polished wood with a diamond pattern. Tips of my ears began to scold. I think they are all watching me.
That feeling I’m fire fresh timber with bone dry kindling. A pet store mouse taken home for a snakes dinner in a box. I can’t remember his name. I don’t care. My head ached.
I looked upward to gasp cool air while flames licked my face. I try to scrape the embers off.
A fluorescent light is shining. It’s the one from my dream.
I realise I haven’t moved. Apart from my eyes chasing the shadows away.
I wonder if I tried I would turn. I’d see a door and run. Even if I tried would the doorknob be there?
Or are 1000 black arachnid pupils staring at me. A necrotic skull sockets empty just two black holes.
Daring me to touch it.
I remember those curtains. Rising and falling. Mockingly.
I’ve seen these curtains; I’ve seen this room. That smell should be ambrosial but my nostrils burn as I suck in dead, scentless air; I suck hard. If I were a flame I’d be blue.
A stiff breeze lifts the curtains; curling their lips up at me. Mocking me. I’m behind the curtain.
Copyright © Victoria Wood | Year Posted 2015
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Victoria Wood Poem
Clipped Wings
An icy salt spray begins to tarnish my feathers,
The salt is corroding.
That salt. It’s ingesting my plume, diluting true meaning
Teal turned navy. Crimson now brown.
I had keen pearlescent eyes,
Now clouded, they see nothing, nothing at all.
I can't even step foot behind the silver mirror; it's broken.
Shattered.
Shards of thick glass tease, reflecting,
Me.
I’m falling on the other side, no one’s there to catch,
I’ll just be a mess on the floor. A sad grey reflection.
I hid for a while, from the salt.
But I just knew that shelter
Wasn’t for me.
It wasn’t my home.
Tearing.
Splitting.
Moaning.
Begging.
Cold, salty concrete scraped my dignity away.
It tore my skin, left dirt in my bleeding feathers.
So again I hid. Not from the salt, I can’t hide from the salt.
I’m hiding from me.
I’m hiding from the reflection I can still see.
I chose to linger. I chose this. I didn’t choose this.
I watch as she stretches her magnificent wings wide, takes flight,
Ascending, dancing gaily between wisps of pure white.
I search the bare sky, salt is still in the breeze,
Taunting me; try fly with tarnished feathers.
But glinting, I see the green trees on an endless horizon
They are not a reflection, I tell myself.
So I stretch my broken wings and timidly I take flight,
Away from the salt, back towards myself under a silver moonlight.
Copyright © Victoria Wood | Year Posted 2015
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Victoria Wood Poem
When I was a child ‘bout five to six I used to dream that this were me
I’d peel back frame from toys, take apart their guise to see what was beneath
I was ever so careful, every tiny pin, kept safe in a sealed plastic case
Just wanted to see, what a heart looked like, I was told I had my own.
My patients name was Beryl.
A gossip. I didn’t care for her spiteful chirped lies!
Her sideways remarks… and even less for that wondering eye
She followed my each and every move… felt just like papa in one of his moods
As I sliced ‘scalp from Beryl I mused, had she no brain!
How could that be? Why must you make me think of mother again!
Beryl’s chirp had now stopped she stared at me, eyes glazed
Yet I saw her cold eyes glint, had I gone too far?
Tears flooded my cheeks, smearing lines through built ‘grime
I’d only wanted to see her heart!
In shards my door smashed apart like cannons wreck
I didn’t know papa was home! I coiled my wasted skin and tired bones erect
‘It wasn’t your fault ‘nor mine but you’re just like me’
Ok muttered I… just wanted to see a heart!
He pointed to what he called a ‘circular MIL’ then said
‘That’s as close as you’ll get you dirty little flea!’
Then he said his last words… well, his last words to me
‘If you don’t fear me by now, you and the world were not meant to be!’
Then he grabbed me strong by my throat and shook me hard ‘till wires came free
My legs axles departed, left my body completely!
As I fell silent, t’was strange I caught a glimpse of myself
A dirty rigid specimen dissected on the floor
Wires stripped back to copper, ‘cept my copper were white
As I looked at both hearts… Beryl and me… I thought
They were the same!... White began clouding my sight
My heart may not have looked like Beryl’s… but we both just needed that spark.
Copyright © Victoria Wood | Year Posted 2015
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Victoria Wood Poem
A Fisherman’s Tale
Out o’gloom, her pale siege comes to menace our humble dwell
I look to celeste fix, yet no stark smile to traverse me
So I grip my girl, now graceful, as she slides in churn swell
My girl’s effete bones shiver, I hold hand tight, she begs flee
‘No my love’, so steel she plough’s on fierce, ice slapping her cheeks
I plea for celeste fix!.... yet no stark smile to traverse me
Enraged, her howls come screaming! shakes my lass ‘till skin comes weak
I say ‘be farer my girl’, shy, she tries turn forth our scow
‘No my love!’.... so bold she ploughs on fierce, ice slapping her cheeks
Her fury hurls, first flot then ice floe… splints… fly from loves brow!
Marred…. lets cry! bones cleft, I whisper ‘we have each other now’
I say ‘be brave my girl’, so steel, she try’s keep float our scow
I slide aged hand across my beautiful salt licked bough
Out o’gloom, her pale siege came, broke apart our humble dwell
Marred tried ‘vain, bones cleft, I whispered…. ‘we have forever now’
So I sooth my love…. now peaceful…. as we slide in churn swell.
Copyright © Victoria Wood | Year Posted 2015
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Victoria Wood Poem
Mute hues of dusk gone, still ‘cept for clerid
Sight is slight, sloe murk taunts with ‘a whisper
Shadows come creeping, silence grows trepid
Twilight so stark, not ‘beam of pale lunar
Seeps through this chill shroud of ritual arcane
Sight is slight, sloe murk taunts with ‘a whisper
My thoughts become smart as my wisdom fades
No sense or viscera to ‘vert brae’k bone
Seeps through this chill shroud of ritual arcane
I lone am the wolf whose fangs turned to stone
Close my feigned eyes, yearn for glimpse of sea green
No sense or viscera to ‘vert brae’k bone
Barren confines for this degrade machine
No solace comes for a soul like me..... so
Close my feigned eyes, yearn for glimpse of sea green
I spied too late what I chose to forgo
Mute hues of dusk gone, still ‘cept for clerid
No solace comes for a soul like me….. so
Shadows come creeping….. silence grows trepid.
Copyright © Victoria Wood | Year Posted 2015
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Victoria Wood Poem
LUCY
Born on ‘break dawe
Amber seeping across
Eyes th’were slumber behold
Her rise slow from dep’s azure
Pregnant buzz, breeds through chill moss
Brims ‘vr damp leaves
An unchasten world longs
Amber seeping across
A dilute earth humming
Awaiting warm release
Anticipation
Brims ‘vr damp leaves
Aware…There’s something coming
Slow spread of sparkling teardrops
Dancing at ease
Captured by richness
Awaiting warm release
At once cyan erupts!
Beauty blinding, she reprieves
Dominating clear sky
Warmed teal ‘wash moves spry
Dancing at ease
Evermore affords her lucent centre, underneath yarely
Here, she comes beam'ly
Glow, rising warmly
My divine… Lucy.
Copyright © Victoria Wood | Year Posted 2015
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