Burning the Midnight Honey
Rhea Seren Phillips
Contents
1. A Rare Winter 2. Madness 3. Stitch 4. Periwinkles 5. The Water Spider 6. Sainsbury’s Own 7. Wishbone 8. Our Primordial Nightmare 9. Burning the Midnight Honey 10. The Cunning Little Vixen 11. Parasomnia
A Rare Winter
Wordlessly the odd girl eloped into the rare winter. Numb ash cast a cutaneous net that cherry charmed the pea snorter into an unfed cot; the clairvoyant ewe lied to the doe and hopped the gap down to peace, together they enacted their dead mojos with a licked quill that blotted aeon perfume; the hero glanced in before retreating.
Madness
A distinct madness has snagged me today. I seized it and dipped a hand into its gore, let’s huddle and listen to its sickening decay.
You arrived; braying for me to delay my retreat, but I spat aside our rapport. A distinct madness has snagged me today.
Keep hold of the rope; it's clear today. Spittle gum fills crevices that we deplore, let’s huddle and listen to its sickening decay.
Lost in the netted shoals my mind will fray up there with the seagulls above the shore. A distinct madness has snagged me today.
Tell the painter not to lead the sun astray; break bones until you reveal an opal core. Let’s huddle and listen to our sickening decay.
Lost in netted shoals my mind will only fray; sizzle the barbecue with our salt bouquet. A distinct madness has snagged me today, let’s huddle and listen to its sickening decay.
Stitch
A ripple displaces her face from Heaven; thicket of plastic ferments with a leaven decay of beetles as black shadows twitch thread across her lips in a blanket stitch. Last month breath bubbled a cautious seven as blues glared up at him through a distant Heaven; the soul frustrates patience for bodily replevin, ensnared in weeds hides her uncured flitch. A ripple displaces her face from Heaven. Shrapnel of abandoned bottles gouges eleven wounds yet to be stitched; the beetles must be forgiven. They've misjudged the day in a haste to unhitch their gear, but it won't be long till idle fingers twitch and play forget-me-not. Tomorrow: still seven. A ripple displaces her face from Heaven.
Periwinkles
Take her hand and hold it in an oyster's grasp, rub the pearl with an oiled cloth. Don't sigh.
It will be the death of you. Pack those troubles for the rain, suck dry that vinegar-fly
with salted kisses that will warm her cockles and draw out ruptures that once went awry.
Grasp periwinkles of hope tightly to your muscled side, and calm her oceans with lye
promises, ruthlessly dredged, yet come up dry. Sludge the truth, smoke it with a vapid dye
in sodium pentothal. Acknowledge her side but quash truths that you can't abide.
Decanter her and pour the preferred vintage of plunging necklines, then turn a blind eye
as your pearl seeks comfort from a deliquescent mate; pummel her kiln with potash
until Campanella tells you to stop baking for china; smoke ruins a mackerel sky
more refined than the coarse salts that still love her sullen ash. Ignite Aniline and don't sigh.
The Water Spider
Pull the comfort blanket of obscurity tight; anesthetise the flesh as setules descend. There’s a consciousness lurking round this parasite.
Walk the path of fog with a stumble to ignite a deeper book of breath which must only transcend. Pull the comfort blanket of obscurity tight.
Wrench perception through a besotted neophyte. Weeds entangle an abject mess; wait, suspend; there’s a consciousness lurking round this parasite.
Beads of sweated candle wax shine like anthracite. Skewer the stakes, there’s more than your life to defend. Pull the comfort blanket of obscurity tight;
I choose banality and weaved stars watertight; distil leukocytes’- watch reality bend. There’s a consciousness lurking round this parasite.
Constrict silver in splinters of meteorite, dear one, hurry, there’s a funeral to attend. Pull the comfort blanket of obscurity tight; there’s a consciousness lurking round this parasite.
Sainsbury's Own
Boots inhale sweat that steams bobbled tights, I sway against slumped shoulders, make a wish with clumps of glitter that crackles and ignites.
We wear each other like a charm bracelet, whilst I fish in a yawning purse, she scribbles onto crumpled paper; I's crossed with a kiss.
Relief stalls as taxis' shut their windows and curse; teeth rattle as cobble stones graze swollen ankles. The magic of cinema passes- we enter the alley's hearse:
velveteen midnight blankets panic that rankles against that earthly dew; we inhale, try to forget; sprayed on aged stones are atonement for scandals.
We escape. Against an orange pillar I am beset by Sainbury's Own plastic, besotted with dirt. She sighs upon my lips, leaving smears of anisette.
The creases of your skin push aside the chill and divert all thoughts. Waltz me between lined spaces of conformity. Sweat ripples down and reaffirms the convert.
A collage of ivory and tan glitters cordially and invites the rain that vaporises ice along my forehead. The money spider tattoos disharmony.
Giggling shadows catch her hem and prolong my agony as she brushes luck, intent to deny the congealed glitter who spit dulled sing-song profanities.
Against a plastic sky arachnids mock our fae. My head lolls on flaking paint as the swell breaks, fumes exhale; revelling as the earth finally quakes.
Wishbone
Something is spectacularly wrong; this bed is smaller than my own. Worn organs hide aghast at her wishbone and its shyness nudges a scowl into a bitter-long smear of faded lips that rust crackled
love songs.
Throw your stone and make a mess of me. Fibrous dysplasia of bone forces smocked cotton down to thong; and that voice of suckered frowns incenses a new panic at light; her hand on my thigh freezes. Humility beckons, fuelled on by a desperate pretence, but pride sneezes away that additional expense; enamelled bullets splinter as a dying organ
wheezes.
Our Primordial Nightmare
If you can't change the person, change their shape, cloister a kitty to reveal its make; flash the scud: splice the need to touch the breaks.
Was she worth the time to resuscitate? That clod flashed and gave himself an earache. If you can't change the person, change their shape.
Shaking hands sever her head from its nape. We can't all eat that lucid, sticky cake; flash the scud: splice the need to touch the breaks.
Hued words rattle their bars till they reshape. It's all just fun and games; her face's opaque. If you can't change the person, change their shape;
indite milky, creamed eyes that'll aid escape. Grate that face down till even the bones flake; flash the scud: splice the need to touch the breaks.
Catch the moment and let's videotape: hurry, pummel that sponge while she's awake. If you can't change the person, change their shape; flash the scud: splice the need to touch the breaks.
Burning the Midnight Honey
Crumpled flowers ripple stars upon a weary blackness as honey tears drop upon sour cheeks whilst the bees sting, a chance to reveal this witching hour sadness; a lark hums tunes of saccharine melodies as the nightingale teases
distant memories of flurried dances of activity. Remember: blooms in the night are fleeting and sour; the bees that drink poisoned honey do so from passivity, the cherry nectar reflects melodies of a nightingale's flower.
Beware tunes of sour curves on wet paper, the silvered bee stings the sweet cheeks of enthused youth and crumples flowers in ivy nettled cages, keys splash nectar eyes with the lark's truth.
The silvered honey bee heckles youths caustic remarks; the nightingale's flower rages against morning's sour lark.
The Cunning Little Vixen
Within minutes she'd collapsed and turned blue; Sharp-Ears glazed that voice with sucrose, chyle lilt. Its razorback teeth ground down their sinew.
Crevices hid caramel residue, spat into pulsating fissures and rebuilt: within minutes she'd collapsed and turned blue.
Those air embolisms aren't good for you. Plasticine arms loll as they pull the quilt. Its razorback teeth ground down their sinew.
Plump a harrow complexion and eschew the emancipated witch with bronze gilt; within minutes she'd collapsed and turned blue.
Shouted “crash” but got insulin that slew mottled underarm pricks that smeared his flue; its razorback teeth ground down their sinew.
Saw him “healthy as a dog”. If Nurse knew... “remember it hurting” then the bed tilt. Within minutes she'd collapsed and turned blue; its razorback teeth ground down their sinew.
Parasomina
Tall tales abound that strange things happen at the full moon. Any doctor will tell you: when the moon is full, all hell breaks loose. If night never ended we would hardly recognise what we become, succumb to sleep's inexorable pull, let your mouth slack and be done.
Tall tales abound that strange things happen at the full moon. He starts punching, desperately, and repeatedly; if night never ended we would hardly recognise what we become, let your mouth slack and be done.
He starts punching, desperately and repeatedly; dreamed of trying to save a child, only to wake, his fists making deep impressions in the mattress. “Ill met by moonlight. I'm not going back in there.� She said.
Let your mouth slack and be done, succumb to sleep's inexorable pull; if night never ended we would hardly recognise what we become.
Afterword
Burning the Midnight Honey juxtaposes fear with reality through the exploitation of a relationship that exists between mythology, urban legends and modern life. It explores the primordial experience as we perceive it and the realisation of our fears in the waking world. To do this the collection has been informed by history and modern events that I understood through quotations and journalistic resources that set the poems firmly within our reality and recreates a narrative that lends the poems an intimate tone. The collection seeks to create a grim, fantastical world that exists comfortably within the shady realms of reality through the constriction of traditional poetic forms.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my parents, Mr Jon Evans and Mr John Goodby for their unwavering support.