Guest Poet: Simon Daniels

Introducing  work from Simon Daniels, a writer of short fiction and poetry for children and young adults. 



Poet Blog...http://maybepoet47.blogspot.com/

Wednesdays Angel

On Wednesday I met an angel. Well, the friend of an angel. Well, not really a friend either, more of an Agent. Not a Literary Agent or, God forbid an Estate Agent, or even a Special Agent, although that would have been cool.

Anyway, the agent looked normal enough. No sprouting feathers or golden halo. Although, when she sat in the bay window the winter sun breathed on her head and shoulders, just like a halo.

Halo’s aside, we started off with a chat, well it was a series of unconnected conversations - topics ranging from my recent marital demise to the meaning of life and her well-fed cats.

Two hours tried on 10 minutes for size and liked the fit. I felt like I’d come home to mum’s hug and a mug of something hot and spicy, after wandering the cold streets wearing someone else’s ill-fitting Summer clothes.

She suggested we start and positioned a dining chair in the middle of the lounge like a mobile hairdresser. She told me to relax and place both hands on my knees in the back-to-school pose

She moved round behind me. I closed my eyes. I’d recently seen ‘Sweeney Todd’ and swallowed hard. She placed her hands on my shoulders with a light, lovers touch. Sensuality and trust becoming one, and after a few moments she moved alongside me. I sensed one flat trembling palm close to my heart like a kind scanner.

The heart is a fragile organ. Don’t believe all that bullshit about gallons of blood and a billion beats. The heart can break as easy as a butterfly’s wing, unless the hand that holds it isn’t human.

Next, the turn of my belly, and crotch. Oh, I forgot to say there was a brief ‘before’ bit as well.  With the aid of a tear-drop crystal suspended from a fine chain she concluded my Chakra’s were not so much blocked as impacted - (nursey) joke.

I digress. With eyes tightly closed slight dizziness took over. The way you do when you look over the side of a high bridge or multi-storey. I snatched my mind back just in time. Then, there was this feeling. Not quite holding, more like slow juggling as though I was being passed from one huge hand to another.

Behind my eyelids it was November the fifth. Pink tourmaline circles of light

pulsed before me, followed by red and gold. I didn’t want it to end.

Heat followed. Dad told me to “get away from the fire!” But I still singed my fingertips. Next, a building nervous excitement like when we take our clothes off for the first time in front of someone we love hoping they won’t giggle at that large dark mole creeping up our back.

I opened my eyes and the rainbow vanished in a slightly altered, better connected world.

 ***

Cobbles

By day, I am many things,

Overcrowded molars,

chewing rubber gum.

Grand piano keys

washboard melodies

Drum-drumming fingers,

to flavour nights' crumb

I yearn for the spark of a clog

Or the nudge of a log,

dropped from a high-stacked wagon.

I crave the squeal of a steel rimmed wheel

passing the 'George and Dragon.'

At night I dream

of bustling streets

when my repertoire was full

of sounds without insulation.

Naked sounds

raw sounds 

smash on the floor sounds

felt in close proximity.

Road works offer some relief

when I'm teased out with giant tooth picks

or flossed with high pressure hoses.

It’s only then that I can truly breathe,

and sense

and listen..........

***

            Snow on Christmas Eve

A soft,  insulated hush

Eradicated angles

Airbrushed unwanted lines and wrinkles

Smoothed out imperfections.

The night was so bright,

The moon wore shades.

Poor sighted owls caught albino mice

And the sun thought twice

About coming up at all.

Snowballs were moulded, thrown and dodged.

Feet creaked across hidden lawns

Cars wrote their names on roads

While cats probed snow for unexploded mines.

Children squealed.

Parents sighed, then tried to find sledges.

Pensioners appeared like hungry bears

Tipped out of hibernation

But ready to kill for a small sliced white

Or be killed trying.

After the melt

The last snowman standing

Mugged by rain

Blackened by soot

Smiled, as though he’d been told

The best joke in the world.

***

Jenny Wren                                                    

Real time’s too slow for you

Subliminal vision’s what we need

To see this ballerina at top speed

Arch her back and do a pirouette

Giving slower insects time to leave

Before supper’s served

Too exquisite to be real.

A celestial decoration

Plucked from God’s Christmas tree

This russet hussy flits into our lives

Steals the show, takes a bow

and leaves

***

            Many Moons

A bull’s-eye for NASA

A lyrical must

A slice of salami

A shilling through silk

A nail on black velvet

A barn owl’s PA

A lunatic’s mirror

A passion for drink

A speech after dinner

An X-raying spot  

A frigid ex-planet

A sliver of cork

A scab of white lichen

An alchemist’s vice

A mariner’s time piece

A future for earth

A crash mat for comets

A self-styled month

A lupine transmitter

A lover’s delight

A telescope’s motive

A plover’s blown egg

A waltz round a partner

in eloquent grey

A blue sky rehearsal

A cheeky reply

The infinite beauty

of borrowed sunshine.