He watches an actor playing a gipsy with a lamplit young beauty in the intimacy of a caravan, a double feature, D.H. Lawrence on celluloid. When the message flashes onscreen a nerve stabs as he realises everybody is reading his name. Speaker banging against the window, he heads in the direction of dreadful news, then looks back. Something’s about to happen any moment in the red silk glow of that gipsy caravan. His footsteps crack gravel under a black sheet of night studded by stars as he passes people who have pushed aside the shadowy curtains of a gipsy caravan. He hears the muffled soundtrack, kissing and groaning, but understands he must resist the urge to turn back again.
Showing posts with label Ian C. Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ian C. Smith. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Friday, November 15, 2013
The Whisky Voyages
by Ian C. Smith
He sails back through spent tears
Relentless in pursuit of clues
Consulting memory’s charts
To decipher the grief of years
Comparing his father’s life, his sons’
Across erratic seas, measuring
Passages between reefs
Waves smashed on deceptive coasts
From times then, echoes of ghosts.
Sometimes he yearns to go ashore
Trace his sins in greater detail
Pierce the shadows of crumbling villas
Glimpse pained faces, utter a prayer
As if they’d still be there.
He tacks past harbours quiet as lakes
Credits lucky navigation
Looks back even as the current pulls
Ever analysing mistakes
Hoping for what; redemption?
A kind of readiness at the wheel
Before plunging into the last gale
The accelerating descent
Future’s upended keel
When survival, the pain & the scars
Are swept away below distant stars.
He sails back through spent tears
Relentless in pursuit of clues
Consulting memory’s charts
To decipher the grief of years
Comparing his father’s life, his sons’
Across erratic seas, measuring
Passages between reefs
Waves smashed on deceptive coasts
From times then, echoes of ghosts.
Sometimes he yearns to go ashore
Trace his sins in greater detail
Pierce the shadows of crumbling villas
Glimpse pained faces, utter a prayer
As if they’d still be there.
He tacks past harbours quiet as lakes
Credits lucky navigation
Looks back even as the current pulls
Ever analysing mistakes
Hoping for what; redemption?
A kind of readiness at the wheel
Before plunging into the last gale
The accelerating descent
Future’s upended keel
When survival, the pain & the scars
Are swept away below distant stars.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Runaway
by Ian C. Smith
He is fourteen, on his own
with no heating, no phone
no savings, or late-night knaving.
This kid’s barely shaving.
In the shared kitchen he heats
inexpensive snacks, repeats
just one course, the main
then back to his cold room again
a shadow at childhood’s end
future man without a friend.
He reads movie magazines
wearing only a pair of jeans
lying lonely on his narrow bed
starring as a handsome hothead
or taking the jackpot with an ace.
He would like to press his face
between a woman’s breasts
like a gunslinger of the old west
seen from the dark stalls, his redoubt
on his weekly night out.
He is fourteen, on his own
with no heating, no phone
no savings, or late-night knaving.
This kid’s barely shaving.
In the shared kitchen he heats
inexpensive snacks, repeats
just one course, the main
then back to his cold room again
a shadow at childhood’s end
future man without a friend.
He reads movie magazines
wearing only a pair of jeans
lying lonely on his narrow bed
starring as a handsome hothead
or taking the jackpot with an ace.
He would like to press his face
between a woman’s breasts
like a gunslinger of the old west
seen from the dark stalls, his redoubt
on his weekly night out.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Dusk
by Ian C. Smith
Enlightening the garden’s shadows
its dark-green canopy
its backcloth of blue mountains
merging into one larger form
is a pathway of farewelled sunlight
beneath a ghost of a moon
like a heavenly message
or a torch beam for diurnal creatures
between softly rustling boughs
in this garden, my Eden, here, now.
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