Lakey Comess



And so

                               we shift onto hints of season in progress,
out of sync, atypical weather.

It's a long                               or a love                story.
Two letters make all the difference.

Visitors come and go,
as though born in a different dimension.

Few stand out, fixing in consciousness,
caught in web, sticky with leftover thought.

What's left to say has already been said, in rearranged phrases,
Kaddish repeated consecutive years,

changing candles and names of the righteous,
until whole families shrink and are gone.

Snow covers their breasts,
purifies something forgotten, historical curses.

One gift demands another (exchanged).
Water returns to its source.

We move forward, repeatedly returning.



Trumpet lilies surround pond

                From your balloon, mere specks on blue glass set alto relievo onto a sward. Timepieces sound out each singular hour. Cog wheels turn, jazz in background of vanished eras. Keeping track of the present, marking it softly, no echo. How many years does it take to return?

Forty times four seasons is a gap in any précis, elements of low energy reducing shadows to pinpoints on grid. Wrap up the party early, before it's planned, before it turns sour. What have you learned about loss, in the meantime, prior to locking up record of strange feelings, déjà vu, nine yards of disaster?

Heart, pinned onto sleeve, aching or broken. There must be a reason, vague memories, premonitions, re-runs played backwards. We end up where we just don't belong.

How far are you from the truth? Consequences are a whole other territory—booby traps, minefields, rogue cells of malignancy, peril at sea. What are the alternatives? I think we should be told.

Look for miracles under the holly, still fully in berry.



Mood, lowered in rain,

                               face frozen in sorrowful mask.
It's harder to bear in company—the strain becomes strained.

Mobius strips untwist into long velvet ribbons.
Sand castles crumble, swept under the carpet.

Every day is a story, unshared or narrated about someone else,
mythical bestiaries, bestial behaviour, really bad days

                               (cannot be fixed until broken.)

Disentangled, it seems to be all about your significant other,
needs, feelings, sufferings, who gets to be child, patient or injured party.

Upended, objects appear newly forgotten.



What happens when you stop

                                              trying to make a difference?
The notebook you use for a journal disappears at regular intervals.
Alarms pulse warning throughout an interview.

What have we been to each other
in time-ground remote history, too near for comfort?

Curiosity enticed the cat, prior to killing it.
Puss lost his spiffy boots. That much was avoidable.

Are you completely in command these days,
or have you lost all of your powers?

You always knew what you wanted
from preconception to pristine finish.

A different, personal courage sits down on a chair,
carefully placed ad infinitum.

Please leave the theatre as you found it,
soundless, empty, leaden with ash.



Lakey Comess, born U S A in 1948, has lived in Israel, South Africa and the Orkney Islands in Scotland and now lives in Lanarkshire. She has contributed to Versal, Big Bridge, Gulf Stream, Milk, Hutt, Otoliths, Hamilton Stone Review, Mad Hatters' Review blog, On Barcelona blog and other publications, also as Lakey Teasdale.
 
 
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