snapshots by peter edgell (bookstand for reading .txt) 📖

of men

Beyond daydreams

Mist came,
hugging the ground like a
chinese whisper,
changing with every bush and tree,
every shallow and rise –
stealing the colours and
leaving the canvas clean.

The wide-eyed boy
watched from the helm of his
bedroom starship,
placing new stars in this
unexplored space –

beyond simple day-dreams -
transported.


he walks

he walks as a fat man does
swaggering
yet soft on his feet
as if dancing
lost to the beat of his
girdling motion

immense and immune to
the world's little worries
buried in strength and
soaking his shirt
he rolls off the crowd
a prow through the waves
shoulders for sail
billowing wind with a
puff of his cheeks


timeless

when a man stands so confident
clothed in a suit
a street, the night
or any casual dream
he cares to drape round his cooling body,
he becomes the centre
the magnet for all worlds

the woman waits behind him
the wife at home
he thinks on cash and stars
and how the night is where
his power belongs

he lights a cigarette,
calling up his personal djinn –
the world drifts on its back
smoke
cruising under straining lamplight

time, just like his women,
hangs upon his opium smile


reading on the train

the train runs against the
spin of the world
fearing the sunset

the man sweats
letting his eyes drift
above the edge of the book – razors
shaving the woman opposite
ankle to thigh

as he fakes a glance out the window
he catches the shape of her face
he tries to disguise her
replace her with lovers gone by
terrified she will notice
yet strangely afraid she will not

she slides her
long and porcelain legs

though his mind finds riot
only echoes rise to the bait –
age has shackled his shark

he grinds his teeth softly


dark alliance

he watches coffee thicken
skin across the cup

crumbs upon his belly
belt and zip undone

cigarettes change texture
bend away to grey

curtains hang like bat wings
closed against the sun

mouth undone
he breathes the dark alliance –

loneliness
and afternoon tv


as men do

he sits with his legs held apart
as men do
locked to the image
he paints in the mirror -
naked, just after a bath
as if sweating through strength
pretending to power
ignoring his paunch
and the tide of his hair
receding


Mr Penny

Happy lay nervous Mr. Penny
who’d passed on to richer lands
for at last, in death,
he knew just when
and where to put his hands

of women

jazz and lonely clarinets

nothing defeats her on this day –
not tug of billowing sky
nor tears

sand and shadows are her friends,
sunlight binding up her
bright red dress
as she reaches back,
releasing the song of her hair

she turns away –

white gulls
wheel on the breeze
like jazz with lonely clarinets

there are moments
when even the sea gasps


student by a window

she is blond
and full
but all the light conquests
just leave her lonely
nobody runs from her touch
nobody says
I dare you to come and be fooled

outside the window
one autumn leaf
is chased by the wind
eager within a figure of eight

the low grey sun just
mocks the game –
she lives in a cave, an echo
waiting for sound


young woman by a car; b&w

somewhere behind the serpentine lips
lies the borderline, clapboard;
tears or a smile
the hat and the jacket, chosen for style,
weigh heavy as hips
where the polka dot dress merely fails

some ham-fisted lover is letting her wait
making a point
fixing a pin to his tie

she sits on her luggage,
clutching her dog

a car grins in chrome
a camera shoots once
but no-one is buying the drama


Small town, status quo

Daddy, she murmured,
surely, the more I get, the more I deserve.

For a moment
her eyes held a diamond line.

There’s a world of cameras waiting for me
where men talk of more than the
size of their paycheques
and less of their thin wives
or skittery kids;
where bellies don’t dance on their
belts as they walk
and a wink in the morning
don’t make a news headline by night;
where dollars respect the weakness I have –
that all that glitters
deserves to be in my pocket.

It just needs my foot on the gas.

All that’s sticky, he chuckled,
deserves to be in your mouth.
She dropped the lollipop
out the car window
and unzipped his fly.
He counted out notes from his wallet –
a necklace, a bracelet, a link in the chain.

A radio crooner lied about love.
A dinner got thrown in the bin.

As she mussed her hair,
the small town sighed,
the balance held
and fortune and fame went begging.


drive-thru waitress

a fly landed on the back of her hand
she waved it away
it landed again
she waved it away
it landed again
just like men, she thought
flies on shit
and wiped her hand on a worn out dream


timing

the balcony is balanced
hanging strapless from the night
filigreed to hold the women tight

cinderella leans into her smoke
the cigarette extended like a diamond pin
a torch for moths to anchor on

her sister swerves
between the window’s wooden shell
one shoulder raised to match a curving hip

they watch the bright parade approach
like drunken fire stumbling to the door below
shadows swim, artist hands across the skin

dressed in black, holding back on bruising words
they quietly caress the street
the dancing yet to come


afternoon dreams

still, by the glass
a servant in uniform colours
trembles in thin separation,
fades like a statue
into the afternoon

a curtain
held back at the edge
brightens the line between
autumn and hollow,
trimming the tracings
caught in her cheeks –
the tracks of grief
so cruel for those that live on

the servant, a widow
watches the gardener gathering leaves,
plays with the vaguest of dreams:

toys of the heart


a last cigarette

for half a century
more than a lifetime
they’d fought –
he with bravado and
cut of the tongue,
she with the power of will

she wavered that day
at the stern of the ferry
then lit him a last cigarette –
as one does
when a man is
condemned

for more than a lifetime,
a long cruel lifetime,
they’d fought

she threw out his urn
into the waves
but left the lid on

chaining his spirit
as she sailed free


Martha's Secret (Bricks)

I still have jewels:
stones that sit like blisters
weighing heavy on these days
like bricks to drown unwanted cats
stuffed inside a canvas sack.

I have my darker memories...

This is my husband’s photograph.
He simply left.
He did not die in body
but war makes widows of us all –
I could not be as she was... so exotic...

These are my children –
dead before me, all bar one;
a waste, we do not speak –
in truth, he’s just his father’s son.

There’s no such thing as loneliness –
I keep the TV talking
and hum in tune to cracking knees,
climbing breathless up the stairs
and coming down again.
Now and then,
a cough excites the lungs...

In the prison of the bath,
I sweat but cannot scrub away
the seep of age, that sour decay
that smells like urine in the skin.

Time, the artist, paints me as
pornography:
the wrinkles of our nature that
we should not show,
much less declare a love for
but lines are waves of life
flow and counter-flowing
round this belly,
these emptied bags of breasts.

I buy the food whose wrapping
is easiest to undo
and dress so very, very slowly,
balanced like a tightrope walker,
palms against the smack of air.

I smile a lot these days –
only flies annoy me.

I still have jewels
to wear inside the coffin
and memories of his brother
grinning in my husband’s bed –
sweet revenge
pouring out of gleaming bricks
like sunshine in the devil’s sack.


Naked, at the window

Time’s Crone digs
with fingernails
and all around
neglect reflects her sighs –
bricks revealed
beneath the tears of peeling paint;
wood
levered out and stripped away.
This house bows down
before the drums of waning moons
and clocks of chewing weather.

The Maiden sails upon the sill, the beach
where layered snow forms wave caps
waiting for the sun to turn the tide.

Branches send their shadows for her,
old men send their histories,
artists send their selfishness
and bland imaginations.

Is she Joy, deceived by Praise again,
or merely naked
captured as she turns?
Does the maiden come or go
or merely close the curtain
with a smile...

of Pitsea Girls

Pitsea Girl

With a face like a ferret, dainty she eats
Like Puss In Pink Trousers with chocolate treats;
Pulling some virgin boy, screwing the rules,
Shoving the muff to get out of school.

Fat, with like friends now, pushing the pram.
Tiring, she shouts at the rest of her clan.
Stands by the infant school, hopelessly bruised,
Chewing more chocolate and shooting the blues.

With a face like a fish, its eyes ever still,
She sucks at her vodka and swallows a pill.
Lives with a man, now, as young as her son,
Pays for his age, their drugs and her fun.

She passes out, pissed, in the market downtown
Shopping for tights and a grey dressing gown.
Comes to with a spit, a kick and a curse -
Some bastard's made off with her pension and purse.

With a face made of paper, shallow she breathes,
To the beat of her cancer or some cheap disease.
As the hospital walls drift in the sun,
She dreams of pink trousers, is dusted and done.


Pitsea Girls flirt

They stand there, less than flowers –
More the parrots of their
Broody mothers

They stand, a day, and taunt their boys –
These girls who’ll never have the time
To learn the arts of life,
Of love, seductive...

These Pitsea Girls,
These girls who haunt the
Corners of the world


Pitsea Girl’s Third Tattoo

I see you there
Cigarette and uniform
Between the arc of earrings
More graceful than the manicure
Older than the chubby cheeks and lip gloss
Schoolgirl in the tow of growth

I hear you there
Loudest laugh
Deepest curse
Stepping where the others follow
Guiding light to trouble

I know you there
The bravest and the coarsest
Who, secretly awake at 4 a.m,
Licks the wound of something,
Something different,
That marks you out as gold among the
Shining rocks of Pitsea girls –
A third tattoo:
Moon upon the ankle
Bluebird where the breast begins to