Guinevere Clark - Author and Poet

 

Mothering Under : poetry samples

from Guinevere's new unpublished collection

 

 

I had a Baby

 

Turned into a foetus,

folding up my legs

to the sulk of my bulk,

the       slow       mend

of red muscle.

 

              Nothing to say

 

from these thinned teeth,

                  gaps    in    bone

on that funereal drive home.

 

Unslept. Undressed,

kicking through the rift

             to the hard flesh of you,

                                     my lover,

elbowed from this kiss.

 

 

Window Cleaner

 

He didn’t take off his boots,

just trod softly - as if the mud wouldn’t loosen.

All he cared about was the sky -

waving at it until it rushed into every room.

 

He knew every cloud pattern, spire cross

valley slit and fire pit of Swansea.

 

Nose and finger prints, dog licks, mildew,

drips - he’d massage them off the glass

closing in and in on perfection with his green

and greener eyes each time -

 

like his windows they could not be more clear.

I don’t even know the colour of his hair,

only see the fractals in his eyes.

 

I should let the view sink into me too.

Instead I pace, mutter jobs, follow the dog,

as though to share this space,

stand by his clean, silent gaze

would be just two halves too powerful.

 

All corners saluted to, he leaves

with a few small warnings -

the coming of hail, a leak in the leading.

 

The air smells cut, a different breeze.

Even the mirrors dream,

calling the tides.

 

The night drums

with a wind wrapped sea,

traffic, electricity.

I tie back my curtains, uncover

the moon’s tilt - like a lover

sent back to my side.

 

First Steps in Fishguard  

            

Your arms outstretch.

The world is a tight-rope.

 

Gulls lodge in the rocks to watch.

We are in the highest street, hiding

from the sun. The horizon domes

through our lungs; the last breaths

of one phase, prepare to pass.

 

Your eyes lock on my face.

I am the target – low, alluring,

a nursery rhyme moon.

I beckon you

in the silver-spun

dust of this rented room.

 

Your blood judders. Muscles

just hold you up, incongruous.

Still, pausing

on the edge of the Persian rug,

the cottage gate grinning.

 

Then, a launch – electric,

scuttling like prey

into that safe collapse, the clasp

of my limbs, my lap,

the jigsaw of us, more in love –

the more we are alone in this,

twisted together like addicts.

 

 

Poet

 

You hold the grit of my days:

skin traces, cookie crumbs,

traces, leaves and seeds –

fixed in your slackening spine,

gliding around in the bags of my life.

 

Your perfect alphabet –

hot under my armpits,

lugged into supermarkets, toilets,

trains, beaches, splayed wide.

 

What words did you hear, search,

what made your wrists twitch

as you scribbled into the sense of it.

 

I wonder how you get to the point

of each line. If your words

are hung up in libraries,

trains or lost in transcripts, pillowslips.

 

Are you lolled in bed or

perched at a desk,

arguing with your mind.

Or summoning freely, fingers

rippled with spirit.

 

Do you rip open the night

to write, have a way to process

all that is: corroded,

loved, lost, plain, pervasive.

 

I fold back your corners,

pressing petals.

Flick for more, relish

your scent in lulls

of time, throw you to the floor!

Another bruise, back veining.

 

Resident resonance,

tea stained, romantic poet.

Indestructible heart.

 

Slide with me into the next

verse of this irked

and epiphanous world.

 

 

 

---

From Fresh Fruit & Screams 

(2006) Bluechrome Press

 

Bats

Oh lover!

We
have
hung
like
bats
onto
the
bad
times
for
too
long
now.

Let's spread our toes a while .

 

'Put Me into Words,' Screams the Cherry Blossom

If only I could.

Let me engulf you
by you engulfing me.

Let down your fresh,
white hands,
maul me.
Unearth your seeds,
seat them on my pleated navel.

Loosen your roots,
stick that waxy reach
in my path.

I can trip into your lifted trunk,
burst out
with wise old swirls,
spinning in spring's tow,
with my green hair
unfastening its shapes
and my trussed thorax peeling.

Our arms will sift light
through petal nests.
Fingers will buzz
with roused bees
saving our sap
for the sweet retreat.

Words Cherry Blossom!
Give me all of your words.

Or do we need
a bigger gash to fall in?
Some cavern
into the brains of life,
where majesty sits,
all records were writ.

 

---

 

Wired

The wires have bred
and spread like ivy.
There's a little machine
in everything.

It's a digital quest,
a strange test.
You may lose your head,
perhaps you want to.

It's as fascinating
as Mercury.
It's space playing hard to get.

It's virtual like asepsis.

It's the sloth of accomplishment,
a fat money pot,
million dollar deals, despot.

It replicates
like a lizard's tail,a signature.

It's a prime player
under this grainy sky
as the pixels part
and the dreamscapes start.

.

Ocean Bed

It is dark-o-clock.
The perimeter is mapped with stars.
Incarnation-
your shape sparkles through the sky.

Down here, I am the sea,
the sea that smelts through me.
I am the green hair of mermaids,
whelked nipples
that harden to your face.
I am a pearl in the mouth
and I can vomit up a beach,
as the seaweed wraps
her warted arms around me.

I am holy
from the world bath,
shaven
from the grazing shark
that tracks.

Like a boat,
I am time-tabled into this space-
a definite vessel.

Yet,
I guard my eyes with a mirror.
I let the waves create,
find the way by mistake.

I keep myself guessing,
staving off the whispers
from the she who is me.

And now, my daughter,
a cell or two old,
it is light-o-clock
and you can see
from your balcony,
the studs of silver horns,
the eyes of fish,
crabs, claws,
more than I could ever imagine.

 

Onion Girl

She shall yield.

She shall unfold.

 

The Onion Girl,

woken by air

and a frightening knife.

She will dry up and be used

in some peculiar dish.

 

Middle Ground

 

You sleep bedide me

like a baby.

I am the placenta.

 

The Fling

 

I was going to write,

I love you!

 

I'm so glad my pen ran out.

 

---

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