NaPM April 22 2014

[Keith]

Ok so I have wrote five erm poems today so im entitled a cop out this is a piece of prose I would like to work as a poem so this is a start.


as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood--
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.

Pablo Neruda (Lost in the forest)


Pockets of Gold

Standing alone in my old house,
residents carried away by cancer,
yet still their presence remains in each coat of paint and flowerbed,
all now partly concealed by my much needed indifference.
The home is bare, stripped back to its shell,
except for the ghosts of old furniture that appear,
just for a second, as I enter each room.

I place my hand on the wall to check for a heartbeat.
Can it be that traces of lost childhood
are captured in the fabric of a room,
dwell in wooden handles of old tools
or crayon scribbling’s trapped behind wallpaper.
Can it be that if we close our eyes
and breathe in the essence of childhood haunts
then chemistry alone can unlock memories
once keyless and forgotten,
And in doing so can you retrieve something
so precious it can twist your body,
crumple your face and turn sobs into shouts.
I’m shouting now as I slide down the wall;
I felt its beat before pulling away.

Such places can be found in most of our footsteps
and if you know how to look they can almost be touched.
But my other places do not compare to this home,
I could linger here for an eternity, drifting as a child,
growing on thought and melancholy,
surviving on smiles and laughter unlocked from memories.

I cannot linger,
the house is sold to the highest bidder.
I have offered up my most prized possession,
my touch-stone, my portal,
for a pocket full of gold.
Now when I need to look,
how can I return to these places that hold me in their essence,
that tell my story,
Who now will listen to the beating fabric of my old home.