The Silver Collection

Four poems telling the story of the 'exhilarating risk' of opening yourself up to another.

The Beckoning Sea

Come down to the sea my love,

Sunshine and salt will kiss your skin.

Come down to the sea my love,

See soft bleached colours of blue, gold, green.

Come down to the sea my love,

The shells will sigh on the shore.

I will feed you treats at the water’s edge.

Strawberries, chocolate and more.

Saltwater’s touch will tighten your skin.

You taste of the ocean deep.

I will kiss your brown skin and drink you in,

You’re silver, and mine to keep.

Come down to the sea my love,

Where the ocean green and blue

Will wash away our striving,

Revealing just me and you.

Snarl

Idle Sunday morning chat.

Sweet talk in the bedroom,

gently swapping notes on future plans,

our hopes and dreams.

Then out of nowhere

a misplaced word sours the air.

A flash of anger -

we both lash out.

Mean words hit their targets hard,

then fall to the floor,

take root,

    grow tendrils.

        Creep round our ankles like trip wires,

trapping us again

- our downfall every time.

Choking foliage wraps around our bodies.

You and I entangled, snarled.

Suffocating, unable to move

until the green monster weakens its hold

and sets us briefly free.

A whisper falls from your tired lip:

'This place.

This place.  Again.'


Thin Skin

Pin prick pierces the skin.

Ice cold touch of surgical steel

- and the burn, as it discharges its fevered load

into the streams of rage beneath the surface.

You in a white coat

administering the medicine I need.

Relief from symptoms of confidence.

With care, lowering the mercury of my self-esteem.

The Deep

Our love begins in the sunshine –

tastes and smells of the beach.

Emotions run fast like white horses.

We’re surfing above The Deep.

Plunging beneath the surface -

underwater, an altered view.

We’re swimming: eyes open, love swelling.

Limbs like wings we soar in the blue.

***

Our love is like the ocean -

beautiful, fathomless, deep.

There are storms that leave us stranded, apart,

but hidden treasures restoring our hearts.

This is our love to keep.

***

With young ones, the storms come,

tossing sweet romance aside.

Stranded alone on an island strange.

No way back, so strong the tide.

[whisper] No way back, so strong the tide.

Tide turns.  We find ourselves coming round at the water’s edge. Dredged up.  Hurting.  Skin torn by barnacled reefs.  Blinking in the unfamiliar daylight we are lifeless cast-aways.  Limbs heavy as iron on the sand.  Can’t move, so flattened by the ocean’s rage.  Subdued, but at least alive. 

Waves lap at the sides of our bodies.

Current building – stronger – faster!

Pulling our weight away from the sand.

Dragging us back to the open water.

***

Our love is like the ocean -

beautiful, fathomless deep.

There are storms that leave us stranded, apart,

but hidden treasures restoring our hearts.

This is our love to keep.

***

We drop suddenly, further and deeper

down to the depths, The Deep.

Deep down here the creatures are strange,

where daylight is out of reach.

Long, tendrilled faces, pulsating light, 

perverse to the people above.

Gelatin-bodied. Transluscent. Weird. 

This low-oxygen love.

Can’t return to the surface.

Can't return to the shore.

Have to keep plunging deeper and deeper,

and further than ever before.

Further than ever before.

***

Our love is like the ocean -

beautiful, fathomless, deep.

There are storms that leave us stranded, apart,

but hidden treasures restoring our hearts.

But this is our love to keep.