Something Special :)

Dear All,
I have been very quiet lately as life has thrown some interesting lessons my way.. however while I have been looking the other way my words have been found their way to be havened in a most perfect manner by beautiful editor and publisher Amanda Oaks of Verve Bath Press.
For your own copy of the hundred printed to have and to hold, please follow these links...
Verve Bath Press
Verve Bath at Etsy
The second will also link you to Amanda's blog which always leaves me smiling widely!
Enjoy!
with love
A.Joy
x

Drawn Resting

charcoal rasps
vespers
as I try to draw
from memory

a beach near Ise
with soft rocks
that turn to powder
at touch

a gentle slippage
of ritual and
desecration

All The Way Home

i

Beginnings deteriorate
Even the second knock sounds
an imitation

The scraping of shoes on the mat
the soil trapped in the tread
The space once travelled
which then feels known
arches back like a snare

There is a particular silence
only found under the feet
of a traveller at rest

As windows of hotels sing back
at the motors of aeroplanes


ii

To stretch your arms
around both sides of his body
Pull him close to your chest
rock the squalling flesh
into a curved hush like
a horizon


iii

These soft annunciations
breathed into frontiers
of hard flesh

dewclaw words coiling
beside a tangle of legs
agape in silence
at the look of things

The pigment darkens
as skin covets its own
articulation


iv

In summer
made pretty by smell
of frangipanis

There are these mornings
where heat deadens everything
where
you don’t remember your own name
until you hear it

What if you lay with a stranger?
What if you fell asleep and woke
beside him?
Recognised your shape in the sheets
your colour against the white

Could you coyly
become a sound?


v

Geometric alphabet
with its sharp edges
offers no security for the memory
It cannot keep the devout
gushing of the mouth

greedily taking in what it can
hold of the voice
what it can retain of what was seen
bristling in the water

This point
which cant be reached
can be called separation
no matter the distance

Blue Alice

absurdity of trying
to grip a fish
with needle fins
as it flaps gills
gulps choking air

hook mouth
to a memory
silence swells
to a freak wave
a wall of water

the smallness
of a body sucked
ten metres under
water beneath
a ledge of rock

Forearm

to thought

swollen bulb
to
thumbprint

mouth to valve

words that barely
fit in
the throat

i
drop to
your

pillowcase

Making Room

describing you
to myself

i pour hot

in silence
an ampoule

cooled glass

a moment
before desire

Seminal

Deep in the throat
they laugh-
hungry little bodies
with their pointing bones
fastened with buttons
hooking eyes

He has seen her
alone
through her window
turning her body in
the mirror

This is a gift
(she tells him)
Takes his wrist

Fingertips focus
in childlike
desire

It may take
root
grow inside
leave accompanied
by words and sounds
Thoughtless

In her parents’ bed
Red mouth agape
she listens to his
whispers

He lies
beside her
slightly
Off-centre