Sprawled on a grassy bank, drifting in and out of waking, quiet summer day.

Playground

Theirs is a flashing sort of ecstasy.
It melts into grief
and returns in moments.
It takes my own heart for a ride.

Public Awkwardness

He was suckered by a noise in the bathroom -
A boy and girl laughing.
Which one was displaced?
Only he, himself.

Flipped

ʇsɐʃ ɯɐ ı ʍou puɐ
ʇuǝɯuopuɐqɐ ɟo uʍoɹɔ ɐ ɹoɟ
ssɐʃƃ ʇno pǝɹnod ɐ ɹoɟ
ʎʇnɐǝq ɯoɹɟ ʎɐʍɐ pǝʞʃɐʍ ı
sʃɐoƃ ʎɯ ʇoƃɹoɟ ı
ssǝuısnq pǝıɟıɹɹoɥ ɥƃnoɹɥʇ
ʎʇıʌıʇɔɐ ʃnɟǝɹɐɔ ɥƃnoɹɥʇ
sǝƃunʃ ʎʃıɯɐǝɹp ʇɐɥʇ
ǝɯ ǝɥʇ ǝǝs ʎʃuo uɐɔ ı
ʎʃpɹɐʍʇno ʇou ʇnq ǝɯ ɯɐ ı
pǝddıʃɟ uǝǝq sɐɥ ǝɟıʃ ʎɯ

Welcome to the World

I awake with a feverish pull
And my guts tell me what I must do.
I pace and I breathe, slow and full -
Working to open the world to you.

I swell and I shrink through and through
As your father massages the dull
Ache in my back till it feels black and blue

Now harder and closer together they cull
The midwife assures me that it’s almost through.
I focus and charge like a bull,
Working to open the world to you.

(c) Tasha Chinnock 2008

Found

Crook of limbs unhinged
worm-eaten and skinless
a club, a weapon, a tool.

(c) Tasha Chinnock 2008

Yearning for Freedom

Were it merely adding a few concubines to the harem
Or joining several willing hearts
To a connubial orgy
Were it only the pluralism,
The multiple partners,
Accompanied by the sad plight of necessity
All this, I could consider
Religion
…………………… Legalism
…………………………………………………… Folly

If never a little girl
was wounded
Forced to conjoin
Bred to likewise breed
Robbed of value or purpose
Caged and beaten like a dumb beast.

Sacred defiling

If never a little boy
Was marinated
In hate and lies
In suspicion, and savage misogyny
Stewed in corruption
Until competitive fear seals his exile

Sacrilege sanctified

If never a mother
Was manipulated
Pummeled to submission
By husbands, or wives with seniority
Doling out intimacy like a duty
Between laundry day and Sunday service

Sacrosanct perversion

If never a family
Was made inferior
Not worth supporting, indentured by their betters
Held under the fear of stolen children
Granted to a more worthy mother
Spirited away without a warning

Sanctimonious maleficence

If no innocent one ever kept the horror
of a secret ceremony,
a sordid night,
in the dark bedchambers
of her nightmares,
I could tolerate
So much that I don’t agree with.
I could uphold freedoms
I could shake a fist at judges,
If no victim ever
Fled
…………… called
……………………………………… cried out.

(c) Tasha Chinnock 2008

The Waiting

I’ve born a thousand careful words
I’ve held in hand your dogged chin
And listened for a risk
And hurried through the endless fits
Through slits of eyes
And gapes of lips
It came in choppy bits.

As time has written down our words
Your figments barely peeking in
That fought for yesterdays
And calmly pushed us through the dim
With slabs of palm
And steady hips
Bridged with writing over them.

When under plaster skies a lamp
Was burning blaring yellow white
It all became so final
We reached to pull the curtain down
It stuck half-way
And light blazed out
Leaving you staring at the ground.

(c) Tasha Chinnock 2008

Microscope Families

Beautiful protist
Invisible life
In your puddle home
Do you have a wife?
With a flagella
long and wavy
Does she cook up
puddle gravy?

Paramesium
in the slime
Bean shaped
since the start of time
Do baby amoebas
climb on your lap
and snuggle up
to take a nap?

Hypnosis

Take all this thickness of thought
These foggy recollections
My clouded version
And pull from it
The hard-handed facts.
Dissect my soul mumbling
And tell my story back
Like a lesson, like a lecture
I saw something coming
And I shut my eyes
For years
And I shut my eyes, I shut
My wincing eyes
Tight so as not to see
And so I was not there
It may not have even been me.
I will fish it out and tell it
I will sketch it out in greys
And you tell me what it says
Tell me, tell me
Who I was and why this fog
Obscures the words
And fills the skies
And calls to me
Open your eyes!

(c) Tasha Chinnock 2008

Financial Stress

I say hello
To that old crimp in your voice
I’m familiar with the drum skin pulled
- taut over your throat
I hear it and my forehead reacts
Pulling up into tight pleats – ironed in place
By years of these calls

Circumstance is a fickle companion
Left wild, it will always turn on you
And you and I have never quite
Gotten the knack of training
:Shush our rowdy children to hear you speak
:Grab a cigarette and pace the walk
How do you train circumstances?
The whip flails in a useless Q
Over our heads without a crack
Never accomplishing anything
Nothing is subdued or controlled

So I hold numbly to the phone
And sink dully into quiet
No point really in listening
I know the words already
We’re screwed.

(c) Tasha Chinnock 2008