Dawn breaks,
With a fire whipped ocean
And the boatmen’s song.
Voices in waves
Sail the morning winds.
Tumbling from salt spray lips
Rhythm and hymns,
Caught on wings of a guillemot.
In a theatre of fog
Music takes flight,
Rising, like a streak of mist
To face heaven’s door.
And boatmen weep.
Sing goodbye, to the waves,
Lost upon the sorry sea,
As day dies still,
And the boatmen sleep,
And the boatmen sleep.
And we sleep.
©EilidhGClark
I wrote this poem in response to finding out an old friend and work colleague had died. While I never actually found out the cause of his death, I do know that in the months, maybe years leading up to his death, he was lonely. I spoke to him on social media on rare occasions, but never allowed myself to get close enough to ask the simple questions- are you okay, or, do you need help. I guess over the years we had drifted apart as friends, and for that reason I felt that it wasn’t up to me to respond to his very obvious cries for help. Now I wish I could turn back time and not scroll by his social media posts. Now I wish I could talk to him and remind him that he is loved and that he has brought happiness to so many people in his life time. Perhaps those words might have saved him. Perhaps those words would have given him peace in his final moments.
R.I.P my friend. A fragment of your life is imprinted on mine.
Samaritans – for everyone
Call 116 123
Email jo@samaritans.org
Papyrus – for people under 35
Call 0800 068 41 41 – 9am to midnight every day
Text 07860 039967
Email pat@papyrus-uk.org
Childline – for children and young people under 19
Call 0800 1111 – the number will not show up on your phone bill
I Knew You Were Weary
I knew you were weary. I saw
Bold, Black words repeated. Graphited
On a hundred walls. I scrolled
Past your weeping lines, ignoring
The beats. Broken sighs, dripping
Dripping morbidly into saturated
Sentences. I knew you were trapped;
Bouncing madness inside your own
Head. Half alive, half way dead – Hanging
Tap, tap. I knew it, yet I paused
I paused. Liking your profile shot,
A ricocheting lie – a knot. My conscientious mind
Wrought, wrung, tangled in a world-wide web;
I searched and found a better you, impressed,
Pressed on the back of my eyelids.
I never heard you scream your final scream.
©EilidhGClark
Funeral Parlour
They dressed you up like Christmas day. A faux
Silk blouse with ruffled trim – garnet red. Black
Pressed polyester trousers with an elastic waist,
The comfy yins. But the shoes,
the shoes were wrong.
Unworn kitten heels – black. The yins ye bought
Fi Marks and Sparks that rubbed yer bunions.
They dressed you up like Christmas day and put you on display. Painted
Your face back to life, with tinted rouge and peach lipstick that puckered
Like melted wax, concealing your smile,
Your tea stained teeth. They put you on display – Dead
Cold.
Jon brought you a school picture of your grandson Jack; slipped it under your pillow
Then squeezed a private letter into your clenched right hand. I
Gave you a card. A pink one with a rose. I placed it beside your left hand – sealed
Happy Mother’s Day Mum
They put you on display, dressed you up like it was Christmas day but without
Your love heart locket, your gold embossed wishbone ring.
Those damn sentimental things that might hold tiny particles of skin,
Fragments of last week – lingering in the grooves.
©EilidhGClark
Since writing this poem, I have begun writing a novel titled ‘Cheese Scones & Valium’, which is biographical fiction of part of my mothers life, and is embedded in memoir. This has a direct link to my poem.
Eilidh G Clark 