Cast
30th August 2024
I am clay
claggy and formless
fuelled by this endless river
enormous open
Life. Platelets slipping over each other,
sliding soft incremental flow from me and
I am my neighbours heart, only
by moments of motion I move
by the will of the great mother
I pattern the miracle truly.
Until one day,
a vast hand, forge-weary
fire-holding tears me
from Gaia, with
Good intentions abounding, but
my neighbours heart
my neighbours heart.
I am lifted into a sky
I never knew and moulded into
new patterns and shapes I never
knew. Suddenly,
erratic,
sharp as clock-tick
pricked to burst the bubble of the thread
which held me on,
I am cast, formed,
mixed with divine madness and laid down
to bake in the sun.
I forget the river, as each moment
I forget my neighbours heart.
I wait
eternity by,
on crumbling earth,
an entity
dry, gasping for breath,
and blood, and motion,
and sigh still as sickness
the sand rolls by
from my neighbours heart.
(my neighbour. parched.)
Until.
I am inspired –
Oxygen lifting the weight from my waiting
i begin to move,
etching my motions in a rhythmic groove
of the river remembered
(faded sunburnt symbol in the desert
dismembered), a cloud in me
wells up curiosity
portended by these rustling lungs
expanded with life, I sing:
I whisper,
I howl and screech and yell and scream the sky,
And speak
I cry for my mother
whose face has dried up,
and feel my blood like music move
and wander as I wonder why
this pain in me runs river-deep,
new through teeth and toes and bones.
How might I journey home?
How might I journey home?
One of the things which has got me through the past year or so, with all its attendant darkness, has been the community at Morocco Bound, Bermondsey. Attending Ruth Beddow’s workshops there is one of the best decisions I ever made. Of course I was terrified but there is a moment when you sit among people that you feel are in some way, your people that feels so natural. It is thanks to this gathering, really, that I call myself a poet. So getting together and creating an anthology was a beautiful continuation. To then read it out infront of friends was thrilling and terrifying and exhilarating (I think you can tell from the video).
The poem was written after a workshop on Mythology and Poetry. I took the myth of Prometheus and explored what it might mean to all be made from clay: ‘my neighbour’s heart’. For it to be in print, is beautiful – there are a few pictures on this page. I am very proud of this – the first of my poems to be really published and edited properly. And it is shone through with the love and warmth of the wonderful community at morocco bound. Thank you Jx
