Poems by Bariane Rowlands

NAKED SOBRIETY

An absence. The penumbral yearnings.
Sand grains billow across skin,
Settle to refract sun musings.
Squinted eyes shape light into trails,
Cold pockets turn to warmth between leafage;
The choice of whim to study simply
Just anything human or animal,
sympathetically frolicking or alone.
It’s all Superfluous.

Full heighted, coordinated, regal sprinting,
Ears taut and keen for breaking bark and crisp foliage,
Air howling, bouncing off water or out of mouths,
siphoned through shapes into thoughts and images;
Senses upon flesh that instigate involuntary action.
It’s all superfluous!

It needs fluid and fodder, oxygen, hygiene, expulsion.
Dichotomies and dialogues, the flash of neurons and nerves
Shrouds shelter from elementary assault;
It has such and the means to obtain it.
Dreams, hungers and fantasies are superfluous!

It expands into the glory of words received,
Conceived, grown and delivered,
Their refractions breathe into concrete medias or on surfaces;
Tastes upon its tongue internalise into obscured systems.
Its needs are edified, all else is superfluous!

Naked sobriety brings no joy!
Laughter is a transitory response upon request,
Desire is a frantic constant fear of meagre contentment,
The dark passions depressing the depressive, unrelinquished;
The relinquished, abandoned to its own loss
To reflect upon such superfluous illusions.

Others recommend it is depressed,
It is not, they reveal only their own hunger for happiness and distraction.
It scrapes off happiness painfully,
Fulfils its needs in an unwalled purgatory.
Its mind and gut grimace against each other,
Powerful hostilities held aside by a rhythmic heart,
Steady, determined, a massive, oblivious muscle
That in itself, wants nothing; it does not care.
It is Superfluous………………………


WHEN PUPILS HAVE LIGHT

She puts one hand and then the other in front of her face,
Palms forward, an exposed belly, it’s so very dangerous.
Her knuckles press in on either side of her nose,
Almost painfully to the point of sneezing, expulsion of what? Irritation
perhaps, hiding, expression?

Slowly, she makes a triangle of view,
Thumbs beneath nostrils with moisture and hairs
And she remembers briefly it is some kind of sun salutation;
She deeply does not give a shit and continues anyway.

She makes many shapes, a kaleidoscope of the somatic,
A synaptic whoosh of what is happening,
A place she hears inside with no words that can be formed.
But the other view, the peripheral, the shadow echoes,
The Camera Lucida, the refractions of the smudged knowing.

If she makes a hand cone, blinkers herself completely,
She will simply stare and nothing happens,
There will be nowhere to go, no thoughts beyond what is allowed,
No cerebral searching; it is infinitely boring.

She takes off her hand mask, her thought cape,
Cloaks herself in just what she likes,
Sees her real thoughts, they manifest behind her pupils
And she prays they are fixed and dilated,
Knows this way, they are letting in the upmost light;
The only place where nothing is actually fixed and cemented at all,
That view where everything is discombobulated and makes perfect sense.


FATHER CLINT

Sawdust has a sound, as does oil and the cranking of metal
They smell of blood and earth and tobacco
And feel of busyness, big hands, rolled up chequered sleeves
Topped with a red, gold quiff and Clints rollie
The squint of the blue eyes touched with humour

Bent and small but huge and hunched
He laughed alone, smiled alone, was irritated alone
Anger expressed; other things expressed
He did everything his own way

A man of Denim and hard work, a selfish man
Lewie, they all knew Lewie
Head beneath bonnet
A man that stole wood and built fences

I was afraid of him, spaced out and indifferent
But we were denim pals
Me the sports person he could never be
He loved me though, I always knew that

If I ran away, fucked up, took drugs, he loved me regardless
If I didn’t clean something properly, that was a different matter
I hit him back as much as he hit me, we were friends
I was not afraid of him, just scared, such is different

Covered in his blood, that smack and smash
His red all over my white ginger Welsh
His running fresh, his life all over me
He fought us off, to still be in control just like I do

We all laugh, us lot, we all control
To fight, to stand up, to be before we fall over with tears
Even those get laughed away, swept away with a flick of a hand
We are not afraid, us lot, but terrified, alone
Knowing we will always be such but so much more too.