Here are a few samples from Guinevere's new evolving poetry chapbook collections, which cover the cataclysmic to the joyous on: birth, motherhood, relationships and sexuality, set along the South and West Wales coast.
Scroll down for samples from Fresh Fruit & Screams (Bluechrome Press, 2006).
Poetry samples from Guinevere's new unpublished chapbook collections, Gift of Venus, King Mattress and Bone Maker.
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.
Evergreen
Garden shrine, cone-clad,
ice-wed, berry blood lighting
your endless centre.
The Window Cleaner
– didn’t take off his boots, just trod softly,
as if the mud wouldn’t loosen.
All he cared about was waving at the sky,
until it rushed into each room.
He knew every cloud pattern, spire’s cross,
valley slit and fire pit of Swansea.
Nose and fingerprints, dog licks, mildew,
drips – he’d massage them off the glass,
closing in and in on perfection. His green eyes
gleaming greener with each wipe.
I don’t even know the colour of his hair,
only see the fractals, floating 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
reflection, would be two halves too powerful.
All corners saluted to, he leaves
with a few small warnings – the coming of hail,
a leak in the leading. Air smells cut, metallic,
a different breeze. Even the mirrors
will dream a new dream.
Under moon’s tilt, I part night’s curtain,
breathe on glass to find him.
Lockdown Seeds, 2020
Orange poppy petals drop by your legs.
We can’t lean in, half-kissing
to examine them, collected
like a fiery amulet in your palm.
We just talk – you on the step,
me hanging from the door in the March air,
wheezing into a cup.
You came to collect a poetry book.
Yet, it is loss, a new yearn in your eyes
that you leave, book skimming
the seed pod as you turn.
I save your absence, knot it
as a seedling to a stick, watered
on moon’s rise, know that you see me
pearly faced in dream, draped at my door,
wishing for your root.
Shade drops from that first duo
of synchronous life – new leaves
reaching to muster light.
If only it was just poetry, birdsong
deciphered, the journey into flower,
but it’s miles of rift, a hermit spring,
desk scattered with mud and vitamins,
the guidelines of a pandemic.
Though every poem that you take
to your chest, every poem
that I write from this wreck, will burn
for epochs as the poppies on the step.
Strawberry
Hang with the nights a little longer.
I don’t want to twist you too ripe.
Mid-summer glistens, I imagine
dips of you, places not yet touched.
Late light, waves through our hair,
we fill with weight, yet are still far.
All eyes, slow motion growth.
A soil-rich rhythm, you glow purple
in starlight, risking sea gales,
my slippery path, mouths of the wood
to be near me.
I watch your pores deepen,
stubble glitter, as you float,
so close to my door, edged red.
Dew pearls at your nub.
Shaving at my temple,
a universe, sky, us in dawn’s
mirror. We eat a long breakfast
in sun’s throb,
but have not yet made love.
Until I kiss this swollen strawberry
into your open lips, root-nerves
weaving between our legs.
And look at you now, love,
steeped in summer’s heat,
dressing me in your seeds
Poet
Held in your spine –
skin flakes, seeds, feathers,
receipts, a pen to underline.
You glide under my armpits,
sweating in the bags of life,
lugged into shops, trains,
splayed on changing mats,
toilet edges, beaches,
You don’t open your eyes
to my nakedness, require me
to hide, just rise
from your sandy pages.
What words do you hear.
What makes your wrists twitch
as you scribble into the sense of it.
Are your stanzas hung in libraries,
graffitied, on posters, or lost
in transcripts, pillowslips,
memorised as a party trick.
Do you compose, statuesque
in bed, skin pressed red
or lowing at your desk,
arguing the point of each line.
Throw your alphabet to the sky.
Do you rip open the night to write,
jab keys, tenacious, fingers
clawing vision, have a way
to process all
that is corroded, loved,
plain, pervasive.
I fold back your corners –
as rose petals kept,
relish your scent.
Romantic poet. Tea stained,
back veined. Resident
in your resonance. A shining
pencil to start.
Share your indestructible heart.
Choose.
Write with me,
on epiphany,
into the next verse
of this irked
and beautiful 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.