SALT
SALT LUCINDA LLOYD
In memory of my beautiful Mumma 1945 - 2014
Foreword It is rare that a poetry collection gets under the skin and haunts you, but Salt does exactly that. With echoes of Patti Smith & Francesca Woodman, it combines poetry that is brave, naked and raw with startling images – sometimes macabre and sometimes delicate – of vulnerability and disempowerment. Together they tell a story of lost innocence; something that we all share, as the purity of our youth gets tarnished by life and bit by bit the years ravage us. Here there are poems about love and loss, abuse and healing, entrapment and freedom, fury and forgiveness, as savage as they are sensual. They speak of the people that break us and build us; what it is sometimes that keeps us clinging on to them – for good or bad – and what it also means when sometimes we find the courage, or are forced, to let them go. Inevitably, perhaps, there is an over-riding sense of loss threading through but these poems are not just about the struggle to deal with death, they are also about the struggle to somehow deal with life. Taken complete, Salt is beautifully sad, but there is hope here, too, with poems that peel the skin of us away to reveal not only the dark and angry places within our soul but also – and most importantly – the glimmers of light that somehow keep us afloat. Jason Hewitt
Until We Meet Again, 2014
Why Are The Birds On Fire? Scorching their little beaks, soaring above the steps of the city streets; silhouettes of wings, scarlet sparks, feverish yellow wisps, itches of white, nips of blue; deathly dance to the fiery tune. Feasting on love, burning wings, falling in flames to the tarmac below. Lace like ash tracing the firebirds final kiss, as they metamorphosize into particles of dust, thrown up into the sky to breed stars of light.
Still I can still feel your arm around my waist. I can still feel your lips on the back of my neck. I can still feel your voice in my ear. I can still feel your hips firmly etched into mine. I can still feel your fingers moving over my breasts. But, I can’t feel myself. Only sand between my toes and a tail between my feet.
A Butterfly & A Bird A butterfly beating its tender wings against the glass window where a bird’s blood is smeared. The butterfly came to hear the bird sing, but the butterfly melted the bird’s eyes; flicked his wild wings which lit her pupil wicks. A white hot flame too soon snuffed out.
The Sea I am the aching sea. I am a tangled weed. I am a table for birds to feed on. I am a mirror to what is above. I am a veil to what is below. I am a burst vein. I am a liquid memory. I am a glass slipper. I am a constant whisper. I am the aching sea.
The Swing I was sitting on a swing, I held the chains tight. He placed his big strong hands over mine, he whispered in my ear; ‘Look at the birds, see how they blow kisses through the air, would you like to blow kisses through the air?’ I smiled into his big blue eyes, he kissed me on my forehead, he placed his big safe hands on my back, he told me to close my eyes, he swooshed me high up into the air, higher and higher and I was blowing kisses through the air like a little bird. He taught me how to fly, and I did, I did; but now I’ve forgotten. Now I just feel like a worm eating its way into an empty apple.
Welsh Bitch What’s that? Graffiti sperm spurting filth for your little girl to observe. Thick black capital letters purged on the orange double garage doors at 8.15 on a cold Monday morning just before school. WELSH BITCH I turn the other way, all will be washed away by the end of the day. What’s that? Graffiti sperm spurting filth for your little girl to observe. Thick black capital letters purged on the orange double garage doors at 8.15 on a frosty Tuesday morning just before school. FUCKING WELSH BITCH
I turn the other way but now with a memory which cannot be washed away. Your 6ft fists beat in my brain. I internalize the aggressive stain. I look down. What’s that? A china Pierrot doll fallen from my hand, chipped white pieces marking the black gritty sand.
Waterloo At any moment you will be stepping off the train. I will see you again. I’ve been waiting 21 years. I sit patiently in a cafe in Waterloo Station. My eyes are wide. My breathing narrow. The fast paced people blur into slow motion. I grip the arms of my metal chair. I think I am calm. A father and child fight with plastic toy soldiers next to me. I realise I am not calm. I remember you screaming through the letterbox in the middle of the night; I don’t remember what you said. I remember you pushing down the garden wall
with your bare hands; I don’t remember what I said. I remember you waiting to pounce at the school gates; I don’t remember how I felt. I remember your threat to break gramp’s legs; I don’t remember if I cried. I remember your promise to throw acid in mum’s face; I don’t remember when I began to hide. I remember your cheque for 18p addressed to me enforced by the courts of justice; I don’t remember any birthday cards. I remember wanting to be a bottle of whiskey; I don’t remember your hands holding me. I don’t remember your broken heart; I remember mine. And yet I’m here, waiting for you, to put the past to sleep,
to wake up the days ahead. I look up. I see you. I charge into your arms. I hold you tight. You are shorter than I remember. You are older than I remember. You are quieter than I remember. You are kinder than I remember. I see your broken heart. You see mine.
Bye Bye Sweetheart This is not my home. I am not a little girl. But when I step into your living room and see you there in a hospital bed I want this to be my home, I want to be a little girl, I want that bed to be my old tree house, but it burned down and we did not rebuild. I tiptoe around your foetal shape, your hand strangling the pillow, your teeth grinding in writhing moans, your eyes seeing no light as they tightly close. I wash your battered skin with soap, I dry you softly with silken towels, I smooth you with soothing cream and delicate kisses, tuck you in to crisp white sheets. I see your pain, I hear your struggle to breathe, I whisper ‘Goodbye Dad I love you’. He whispers ‘Bye bye sweetheart’. The lifeline bleeds. There is no more.
Is no more. No more. No more. NO. More. Please more. Please.
Guilt Tea We meet over a dustbin just near Union Street to talk of sex and pleasure. We walk down the filthy steps, each step closer to the last. We sit by the river, unable to look into the other’s eye, as you spray your armpits with a choking smell, offer none of your cling-film wrapped sandwich. We go up in a lift to drink tea; you pay which is strange, and I realise the taste of guilt. I splash the tea against the clean white walls, curl my hand up tight inside the empty white cup, reshape the teapot lid with my angry little fists.
You scrawl inside the cover of a treasured book; no thought, no care marked inside the fragile leaves you then give to me in a sterile white plastic bag. We stare through strands of fishing wire and I realise the moment of separation. Untangled hands, my finger points one way, yours the other.
Soap My heart of soap I gave to you. You washed your hands; you became clean, I became dirty.
Stuck Stuck.
broken up
We are
standing up
stuck.
without each other.
A chapter.
As two
A verse.
under another
Stuck together.
laying down
I’m stuck to you.
with another.
A song,
Stuck.
you’re stuck to me. A dance, stuck together. We are made out of the same glue, everything we do we do as two as one sticking out bending in sticking up for each other. Bending out sticking in bending up. But will we become unstuck? In two
Naked I took a walk in the park, looked up at the trees as the breeze detached another dying leaf. My fur coat buttoned up, my wooly hat pulled down, my scarf wrapped round. Perfectly warm, but these clothes are old, they belong in the grave. I want to feel my naked skin tingling from the burning December wind; and as I look up, I realise, even the trees want to be free of their leaves.
Imprint I want to clasp my hands around your wrists, press my thumb print deep into the side of your blue veins. Hold your gaze, whisper my mind into your mouth. Thumb print, press Thumb nail, press.
Crochet Kisses You are loved by me, intricately inexplicably. Centre of my pulse knotted, lines of my veins knitted, like holy wire barbed to a softened fence, innocence tickled into crochet kisses.
Monkey Climb A ladder between us, face to waist, ascending, descending. Bars marking the steps to the other. Naked hands, chalked to grip to prevent a slip slide down. Dangled feet, free to fling to cause a swing glide across. My monkey, climbing to my entry line.
Milk Milk White Milk Liquid Milk Thirst Milk Pure Milk In a saucer
White tears
Milk
Milk
Lick
Glass hope
Milk
White promise
Spilt
Pure morning
Milk Spilling tales Guilt Gulp Pure night White love Milk Liquid love White ocean Milk Drunk sight
Piss Kiss You pissed your kiss into a stranger. Confessed it up in the dappled light with an unusual peace, preaching out your conviction, whilst sealing in me the stench of you.
Drunk I Am Drunk From My Own Tears
Goodbye I wave you goodbye at the station, I watch you disappear into the crowd, I continue to wave even though you are no longer there, and I wonder to myself if this is how it will feel when you really are no longer here.
Unsure I’m not sure I will live till I’m old and grey. I’m not sure how long a lady can survive with a leaking heart.
A Tribute To My Cunt I tripped into adolescence, I skipped out of time, I chewed on the cud of deceit, puked on white musty sheets, violation was too soon complete. Acid trip, purity ripped, blurred and bloody. I swirled like a marble twirling my fractured memories in a watery skull on a washed up ocean shore. A fishing line swallowed in, bait to make me choke, my flesh flattened down. Spit out your pigeon perfumed vowels, your cankered chiseled consonants, your mouth belching a bitter sermon as I bear your bulging eyes into my crucifix-swollen lips.
Stained in havoc, my bleached voice oozing saliva. Your stinking desire, cockroach infested bed trapped in your mouldy mildew head, infesting slimy fleas of shame. But now my glare bears its lighthouse eyes out of the black corner of dust, out of rusty rules out of slimy self-denial. My cunt knows the cunts who made me feel like a cunt.
Trying Trying to get on this bus. Trying to listen to this song. Trying to put my make-up on. Trying to block out the siren squeal. Trying to close my eyes. Trying to see what’s going on inside. Trying to send this email to get a job. Trying to be a shoulder to cry on. Trying not to drink this bottle dry. Trying not to finish another pack of fags. Trying to try. Trying to not try. Trying.
Street Unnamed This rolled tobacco could tell you how I feel. The longings and failings mixed tightly between the leaves, burning through the paper thin dreams. This cold bitter tea could explain to you the dilemmas diluted in this worn out cup, as I spill the dregs on the cold black pavement. But as for me, no, nothing. The air offers a sooted embrace, with a familiar taste of defeat. But I will hold still, sitting on this stiff, uptight bench, and gaze out with vacant eyes on a street unnamed.
Hurt I hold words inside myself. I am caught in words. Each letter a flick knife cutting my insides.
Dead Bird I saw a little dead bird today, tiny little bird. It was just there, right in front of me. I think it flew into a window, it was on its back, its little legs in the air. Then I saw my own skeleton, its vacant stare undressed my flesh as we became one right there on the pitiful ground. The little death dressed my mind with words, sharp as arrows pointing out the way to fly, right up and out of frame.
The Cage A maddening beak, a sickening tweet, a fractured wing. I cannot move. Every direction dark metal bars, bastard that you are.
Quiet Time You say you love my stomach as your palm purrs across my centre. You say you love my back as you trace figures of eternal eights up my spine. The tips of your fingers listening to my body, taking time, taking care. I am quiet as your fingers begin to talk into me, quietly sensing. You want to give, I want to give in. Your fingers find my lower back but more than just a place on me, you find me, quivering under your touch. I want to cry at being found. Fingers tingle around my throat, simply, elegantly, thoughtfully, knowingly.
A finger slips into my mouth, I allow. A squeeze of sensuality fires deep down flames in our bellies, gently we rock in waves, tightly you clasp your forearm to my chest, belted in our heavenly seat as we lovingly swim in our beautiful sea.
A Potent Sea Cathedral ruins, walls wilting languid and grey. Ancient echoes, seagulls moaning putrid and lame. Azure air spins the worldly wind, stroking the blades of grass. Blast of window light, explosion of sin. A lost feather lay bare, whisper of a white beak all frilly and fair. I feel the crimson wound, the diligent frown inflicting ripples as the nail takes its plunge. I feel the emerald touch, the bare teeth marks as we deliciously delve into a potent sea. Cover my eyes
with liquored leather, tombs of majesty, army of stones upright as I downward tread. Death decides, dictates the empty breath as I swallow into the salty sea.
Ghost Lover I sense you’re here. You are not. An empty chair next to me with shades of infinity. You are here, with my nails now scarring the wooden frame. I hear you, with your ear bending, beckoning to hear me, with your eye scorching into mine, mine into yours. A solitary smile contained in your soft leather lips. A slither of eye posting out its letter of intent. A touch to my calf splitting me in half. A warming in between my thighs melting my attempt to hide. A sway into my chest. A beat of music. A sip of wine. Tips of fingers swim through my hair. Back to front. Front to chest. Breast to mouth. Mouth to mouth. You’re here like ivy growing around my wrists, like petals plucked, like birds rising.
Turned Today you turned 69, Happy birthday mum as my brother and I turn left into the hospital waiting room. We wait, we drink tea we try to smile we try not to cry. ‘Gloria Eterna’ escapes from the radio and hangs in the air as mum and my stepdad turn right into the consultant’s room. Time chugs by waiting for the verdict. Fish swim aimlessly round a tank. Chat magazines shout out from the coffee table as mum and my stepdad turn left back into the hospital waiting room.
I know the news as mum turns her eyes away from mine. We all turn right into the hospital lift and turn left out into the car park. We drive home. We turn left into the sitting room, and eat sandwiches with the crusts cut off; smoked salmon, chicken and ham with crunchy vegetable crisps. We watch mum blow out candles on her birthday cake and open her birthday cards and open her birthday presents. My brother is quiet and still as I arrange birthday cards around the room and light perfumed candles and eat sandwiches and crunch crisps and make more tea. Then mum turns to her left,
asks my brother and I to listen; to not interrupt until she finishes, to ‘be brave and don’t cry’. I hear the words ‘Be Brave, Don’t Cry’ boomerang around my head as I focus on a black spot on a cushion and I secretly dig my nails into my thigh. My mumma cries. I breathe deep offering every bit of strength I have. She composes herself beautifully; ‘It’s not good news. My bowel is covered, so is my liver and its spread to my lungs. If chemo does not work, then 6 months. If it does work, then 16 months.’ I turn to my left, my brother cries uncontrollably; something I have never seen. I stand up, hold him in my arms, watching beads of sweat trickle
from his forehead. We both turn right, sit either side of mum holding hands. Mum whispers, ‘The Three Musketeers’ but I can’t fight my tears begging to fall. I excuse myself from the sitting room, I turn left, go up the stairs, turn right into my old bedroom, turn off the light head in my hands kneel down to the ground and cry as I realise my world has just turned upside down.
Biblical Cord What can I do to keep you in the world? The umbilical cord between us bloody and blurred. I’ve prayed with you. I’ve prayed on my own. I’ve prayed with others. Others are praying. Some are fasting. I’ve used Holy oil. I’ve sung songs of adoration. I’ve taken bread and wine. I’ve kneeled. I’ve begged. I’ve pleaded. I’ve screamed. So just where are you God? Where the fuck are you?
Looking Glass I’m looking through your looking glasses, seeing how you saw the world because right now I feel blind. All I have left of you are these thin gold frames with thick clear glass. As the past blends into view I reflect back at time spent listening to your words, the way you carved them out in rich, earthy tones; sat in your favourite arm chair, perfectly positioned by the large bay window, one eye on the world outside, the other resting on me. The way you could see ahead reflected in the way you walked mirrored into the soles of your feet gold framed streets. Perhaps looking back, that’s why I touched your feet as I watched you go, holding them,
to handle the loss chewing at my toes. I peer again through the thick gold rimmed glass, and realise the ache, the squint, the limp is part of looking at the world framed in gold, with my feet ready to walk in blind faith.
Heads Or Tails I saw a penny today lying in the dirt, head face down, it’s tail upturned. The raindrops fell. I picked it up, held it tightly in my palm and I remembered my wish dissolving away.
White Spirit Ink from his mouth, permanent words swallowed down, etching into her organs black lies. Her thick skin softening with one touch from above. The white spirit dissolves and rewrites the havoc of sin.
Black Fire A black raven mountain, gurgles of cancer stiffen the rock face. But I see the fire birds inside; giggles of hope crumbling the crater.
Jewel Walking towards the train, you’re not on the other side of the platform to wave goodbye. You’re laying in your bed, curled up, with the weight of death in your sheets. I have the weight of your jewellery wrapped up in a shopping bag, full of time gone by, when you turned every head with your stylish steps. A cream lace choker, a snake bracelet, a pearl necklace with a ruby stone, beads of amber with trickles of irridescent blue, silver balls with silver chains, black jet flowers with whirls of white, an ivory beaded tie, a scarlet stone butterfly.
I will wear the weight of each piece you have given to me in the times ahead. But I wish, you would just give me the weight of your fear. For I would wear it with love, and will it to disappear.
Click I took a picture of you in my mind, as if from a dream. My third eye clicked the switch, and there we were, caught in time. The image unrealised, undefined, as if from a dream, not yet in focus, not yet in form. It swirled and twirled, the edges curling up, wanting to come to life. But the cloudy image remains in my mind, as if from a dream. Just a dream, an image unseen, unfulfilled.
Fruit We linger in pithy skin; juices swirling into splashes that mix a palette of agitation. Appetites waging war within, we wait, waiting until, we bite into a parched kiss. Sinking into flesh skinned into core. Pleasure froths into licks sucking into seed, into deepening shades of a new found fruit.
Eat Me/ Drink Me Dark chilli chocolate stockings, absinthe knickers, a fire skirt twirling round, my thighs drip down. Cherry top finger tips tease over mint leaf lips. A wooden corset, whisky filled. Key in my mouth, ice cube enclosed. Tongue pull, push into you. Unlock my chest, treasure flows into my river below.
The Weight Of A Tear A heavy bag of water packed up, ready to leave my eye. You’re leaving. Not what I expected from being down on my knees. I hoped for more of me and you; drinking tea, sharing time, sipping wine. I have no choice but to let you go. Plucked out by cancer, your roots stolen, re-planted in heaven, your place of rest. I contemplate the coffin which will hold your body, the black dress to contain your flesh, the diamond earrings to grace your ears, the gold plated plaque to display your name, and the white lillies to offer you a fragrant end.
The weight of my tear trickles down my cheek, onto my hand. I watch it slowly sink into my skin and disappear.
First Published in 2014. UK Š Lucinda Lloyd & Jason Hewitt All rights reserved First edition a little bird whispered Publishing www.alittlebirdwhispered.com Poetry and Photography by Lucinda Lloyd Design by Lucinda Lloyd & Ewan Eason Lucinda is an actress & artist. She lives & works in London. www.lucinda-lloyd.com ISBN 978-0-9930700-0-6
‘These are poems of searing emotional honesty that combine startling imagery with heartfelt passion’ Aoife Mannix