Winter studies of the African Renaissance at the diving board
(for Virgil, the poet)
You came upon me like a
graceful neck. The deception of marked
winter studies. The fabric of
the African Renaissance. In the end I had to
patch the tapestry’s planet.
A cold was all around the sofa.
Winter for sure when he
left. I carried that winter
in my heart for the longest
time. Found myself again
when I had concern for others.
Had time to knit the shark-net brown-stocking Jean Rhys-mirror of closure.
Went swimming at the beach.
Don’t waste what broke
you in your twenties. The kiss
that nearly destroyed you.
The man who held you in
his arms only to let you go.
———-
Prague, your skin reads like emptiness
(for Virgil, the poet)
There was a home and a
family that belonged to her.
She
revealed her true self to
me and now I must do the
same. The mysteries of my sorrows
are like a constellation beyond
the trees. Emptiness lingers
there. It will be hours until
I sleep. And when that fire
comes, I will dream under nightfall. A million stars.
It will be a quiet victory in
the morning hours. I search
for the familiar in progeny. Old photographs
pasted in wedding albums.
I find myself there as I pick up
this pen and begin to write.
———-
Why I blog about writing and issues of mental health
(for Virgil, the poet)
J. had schizophrenia. I had
bipolar. I told myself that I
was in love. Translating the language of
desire. Wings of desire. I was a
war kind of anything. A war
horse found in the desert. The
origin of Paris was his throat.
He made careful movements
with his hands. Played a cloud study of water vapour gospel with
his guitar. I was
composed when it came to
printing it on my winter-bodies and subconscious.
Now his mouth is alien to me.
Reserved for toasted cheese and
nightfall’s idiosyncratic gangs-of-ballet. I am still traumatised
by the hospital experience.
Stigma. The scholarship and foreign
tigers with dirty paws that I found there.
———-
I never promised you gardenias
(for Virgil, the poet)
It was Ray Bradbury that said (and you),
‘You must write every single day of your life.’
This letter to a brother in
rehab
has been a long time coming. I
feel rain. I feel fire coming on.
Once I called this road the debut of
pain. This, feeling, tastes like the working-class
experiment of the silence of
past loves, loneliness. The assembly line of futility and
you’re as far away from me
now as Arkansas and the dust
and rivers of Mississippi but
that doesn’t matter. All that matters
is that you’re getting well.
Away from here and away
from the rodeo of life. Of trouble. I can only think of this.
That you can’t take photographs of your healing.
The spiritual.
The parachute you’re carrying.
———-
Poems © Abigail George
Image: Nathan DeFiesta (Unsplash cropped)
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