angst

Teenage angst poem in forties II

I know something will break and hope it will not be me.
(in the guardian they say sod's law and breakages
happen on Mondays, it isn't Monday)
Deep fragile pieces not soft sinking
lost for the moment
set adrift
by the stretchy tenacity
that wriggles deep
or may have slipped loose for a reprieve.

There it goes
beautiful blue mug.
I catch body and handle
before the rim smacks the floor –
four pieces.
Both Penny given mugs
pink and blue,
fit only for flowers, pencils or toothbrush.
After a stab at a bubbling dessert saucepan
I notice tea and leaves
down my corduroy trousers.

Dry tight skin of face
hot stiff eyelids
all speak of anger
that remains mute on a moist tongue,
that thumps clench fisted inside
as if there are no
thick, damp deep spongy lungs
set with a ripe red heart
and sunk over the quiet working liver.
A physical body slipping
into insignificance behind
a metaphoric symbolic jumble.
Is this the 'soul' crying out?
Neither quite body or emotion,
aching as much as a leg
but with no muscle to massage.
Or just tricks of a head
hell bent?
Wrench them apart: thought and feeling;
don't let them touch and muddle and flummox,
stop the one from urging
the other down some daft deep pit.

Is the rustle of a leaf real?
Why oh why is there a slug on the red carpet?

Lifted onto a green magazine
it moves a slow steady
move, curling turning
straight lining to where
it cannot know.
It slides to the music
swinging from the blue speakers.
I am distracted.

Only to return from releasing
the small slug
to the point
that I had forgotten;
a deep actual to the rage.
A grief for a losing;
an ache for happiness.
The pointlessness without the optimism
to create a reason.
Forgotten on a red carpet
with no slug.

I'd like to see you dance your way out of this one.

Catching the moon chasing Venus
low over the hills
is no compensation for a physical interaction
care unbearing grief folded tightly
like a starched and creased serviette
shiny smoothed damask
stained deep inside
with sweet pollen
gone nowhere.