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Douglas W. Gray
Published in various anthologies and Scottish literary magazines. For me a poem is a spell, an expression woven on the page; image, rhythm, resonance, something that remains...
Poems
GEOMETRIES FROM LOVE
Iceland you claim,
hold the look
of a child at this
uncharted isle.
Too cold
that climate here,
I counter with
the coast of Cyprus.
Softly we collide
in our continental drift,
a flesh frontier
for this stain
on the sheet,
smug as swots,
making geometries
from love.
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POSSESSION
We meet by McDonald's. Nine years!
You look a page from the good food guide
in a walk to The Regent and tea.
Talk and butterflies. That ink dot
on your cheek, dimpled quarter-smiles,
thoughts to punctuate forgotten lines.
An alphabet behind your name
I read a business card, stink boracic lint
and signing on, then melt upon the kissing
of our thighs... It's here that serendipity
shanghai's – your wet look, a squall in my head,
bleeding relationship hell, the shrapnel
for what might have been, its synthesis
that this is no romantic guff but something
God-sent fizzing soixante neuf.
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SON
The days of our age are threescore years and ten
(Psalms 90: 10)
To over-egg the cuddly pudding, all this in excelcis –
how he'd smile under rascal sapphires, come sleep
all tantrum and tears; from that carpet crawl
to a picture building blocks in the formative years,
hair like briars and a face from above.
The bairn, it was said, had potential.
Toddling home with a satchel full of dream
earned a kick in the pants for the swot,
who learned playground sticks and stones
were no match for the armour of old clothes
and Camelot, hacking at thistles with a wooden excalibur.
But it was books he bled from; books!
Torn in warfare, he'd set toy soldier limbs,
with patient look the dog was dressed in splints
from a spirit that would supervene anatomy,
and knew (tapping my ankle bone) cranium to talus,
our musculature, all those latin in betweens –
pulmonary arteries, principal veins, I was at pains,
lost, yet learning my own being, whose soft machinery
served to make him tick... Like adrenalin the Highers,
an August of straight A's. But these days I'm lifeless
from thinking, a thief in the heart and shaking from drink
as I edit, rubbing out that night, when uniform-smug
to a wrong look in a downtown light,
where Sheffield steel tore the guts from this marriage.
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NAILS
For Kristofer
Twelve days to Christmas and conscience is my sleigh –
listen, son, there's no way, no way... I think of you
as people pass, car and bike and bus, lost within the crowd.
And I have vowed to keep the album open,
a sorry midnight trawl, but days your Santa sits and sups,
sunk inside a mall, evil beard and distant.
Listen, son, remember how I'd read you story books,
howling through 'The Lion King', now daddy's full
of piss and pukes, prowling coloured light.
Tonight there's paper promise in my pocket,
a cross to bear and nowhere else to be – look at me
in Jingle Hell, where thoughts Noel like dud gift tokens.
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LETTING GO
For Sheila
Snagged in woods or too much freight
I frisk the Barbour you stitched,
shrug out a hug of our past.
My canvas bag unzips
to packed with a purl from the heart –
buttoned up, a fold of shirts,
socks paired to wool maracas,
creases, seams and briefs;
intimate denim, though flesh.
I'm into your fragrance
my pristine lover and pillow my cheek
in this chair, seeking words
for unthinkable loss, fixed at the bulb
ripping holes in my brain while naked
at the vestige of your touch.
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