Bells

Patterns are transported across the river
in complicated ripples, like the river
on a windy day of confused reflections.

I know someone is pulling a rope
attached to a promise. I know
my heart is in the right place.

It's just the way they come to my ear,
one second hidden in cloud, the next,
take care, take care. Do I ever.

All this knowledge of being in debt
they carry over; the explicable grief
their airborne phalanxes even up.

 

Blame

The calendar, sticky tape, sea shells, public transport:

Naivete is forgivable when both parties
are unaware they're innocent,
sleep being no kind of excuse.
The taste on my tongue
belongs to a better liar.

The state of emergency we're living under:

Appetite is for the rich and vapid,
who want to discuss French windows
while the frail hang on to anything.
I am not your woman, although
I'd still like to finish the dark chocolate.

Waves, Baudelaire, my music teacher:

History is a war, or what we dared
feed each other. O yesterday
I had forgotten kissing this
shadow; my compromised heart,
£2.99 in Woolworths.

The constantly uncapturable:

Tenuous moral concepts depend upon
where anyone stands. It's easier
to lay down, groovy-single,
playing the same track
over and over.

 

Copyright © Sandra Tappenden, 2006.

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Sandra Tappenden's first collection Bags of Mostly Water was published by Original Plus. She writes poetry, short fiction and reviews. Small press travel dep. Slowdancer, Scratch, passing through The Rialto, Orbis, calling at Terrible Work, The Journal, with stops at Stride, Raunchland, Litter not forgetting Etc, and on, on.