inviting the unknown

by

the black jacket

this black jacket
has become a costume for talking to the past
rows of ribbons are metaphors
for the loves and stories and moments lost
stitched into the fabric
with the black thread of memory

(original short thought)

 

this black jacket
has become a costume for talking to the past
rows of ribbons are metaphors
for the loves and stories and moments lost
stitched into the fabric
with the black thread of memory

I have been revisiting my past
time-travelling as I stitch into the black
hearing and seeing I reach back
I put my hand on my younger shoulder
and say “beware”, “slow down”
I hold her while she cries and tell her
“I carry your loss, it is with me always”
I am the voice she didn’t hear
I am the voice she couldn’t speak

these memories are deeper and darker
than I expected
but they connect me with my self
I am becoming whole

I am becoming the wise woman
all edgy energy and persistence
I am becoming the dark
the black that attracted me as a child
the black I wore as a young woman
all depth and shadow and suggestion

these ribbons are the feathers and flowers
that connect me to the wild world
my collar is turned up
against winds of criticism and ignorance
my sleeves are edged
with beaks and thorns and claws
I would add mirrors and shells
I would carve runes into bones
and hold them in my pockets
tools of divination to read the times
all strength and resolution and power

this jacket, a cloak across my shoulders
a veil to cross into the night
darkness and mystery calls
and yet it is the light that gives me shape
there is no shadow without the sun
it is is the light that draws me forward
the truth
is the voice I speak
the future
is the path I walk

(complete version)

©clairegriffin2017

so – this began with a real black jacket. I was adapting it for a themed eighties party – but as I worked on it – I reflected on my self at the time – and the only idea I felt comfortable with was something I would have worn if the me I am now was transported to those times and could influence the me I was then

by

becalmed

I have been becalmed
the word-winds are blowing
across some other ocean
I’ve been circling slowly
in a sea of reminiscence
unable to move forward
my hands are still
my sails are empty
the sea is flat
the horizon slices through
my wide blue world

far below I sense
there is an immensity
a mass of constant movement
a creature of sickening proportions
sending its sightless arms toward the light
I recoil as it breaks the surface
and blindly reaches toward me

I slow my heart
and hold my breath
and wait
a day, a night
a day, another night
slowly it retreats
and the quiet waters close
over the abomination
intentions still unclear

a storm is forecast
the sky will darken
the clouds will hang low
dense and heavy with text

I will open my hands
squalls of rain will drive
ice-bound words into my skin
the wind will come
and my sails will swell
I will shield my eyes
and search the skies for seabirds

 

©clairegriffin2017

 

 

by

stepping through

don’t let me know when you’re opening the door
close me in the dark, let me disappear
this time tomorrow I’ll know what to do

soon there’ll be nothing left of me
nothing left to release
who can I be now?

I don’t know who I am
here, there’s no music here
I’m lost in streams of sound

here, am I nowhere now?
everything has changed
it’s the beginning of nothing

the trees die standing
the night was always falling
I’m walking down

it’s nothing to me, nothing remains
I don’t stand in my own light
there will be no tomorrow

I’m stepping through the door
and the stars
look very different today

©arrangement-clairegriffin2017 (all text by DB)

Ever since the beginning of last year, I’ve been meaning to make a found poem using lyrics by David Bowie. So this year, I committed to getting it done. This poem is not what I expected – I was imagining something strange and wild and colourful – but I kept being drawn to these words. Natural enough I suppose, since I started this just a day or two after the anniversary of his passing.

img_5230

Low – I think this was the first Bowie album I bought – quite possibly based on the cover alone. I thought he was just the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. Then I worked backwards, buying everything I could find. I watched his music videos, and the movies he was in, and I marvelled at his ability to transform, to use costume and makeup and gesture to convey different personalities.
His work helped this shy, insecure 18 year old to recreate herself, and showed her how to use appearance as a tool to enter into the world. I’ve remembered that ever since, that transformation is possible, that our selves are fluid and we can present ourselves to the world in different guises.
And, that the confidence gained from that can then begin to re-work the inner self.
Thank you with all my heart – starman, bluebird, Mr Jones xxx

by

I am …

I am the dark night
the bright star
the rushing wind
the winding river

a still pond
an open flower
the cloudy sky
the evening shower

I am the sunrise
I am the thunder
I am the mountain
you shelter under

I am the brown earth
I am the green leaf
I am the fallen fruit
the bird released

I am the blue ink
and the blank page
the unrhymed verse
and the mind engaged

I am the thoughts that circle
and the wings that beat
I am the wild pulse
beneath your feet

©ClaireGriffin2016

the last poem for 2016 – something of an affirmation to greet the new year…

img_4952

Its 8.15pm New Year’s Eve here in NZ and I’ve opened a bottle of bubbly ready to reminisce and begin to look forward to 2017.

I want to wish everyone a positive, rewarding year – stay strong – kia kaha. Thanks to everyone who has visited here – to view, to like or to comment – it means such a lot to me.

And in this new year – remember to pay attention to the things that help you to connect and grow and shine and smile.

coming in 2017:
move . seek . indulge . read . find . shift . walk . watch . notice . balance . reach . relax

by

the day begins

img_2759

surfacing from the dark
feet cold on the hard floor
black sky softening
trees a muted green
birds waking, calling, invisible

she is there, waiting
but she turns her face away

All this week, hoping to catch a glimpse of her promised glory and now, there are only moments between clouds when she shines.
Before this week, her face would have been welcomed. It was all romance and possibility and a sense of the future. Now, I can’t wait for her to leave. I am waiting, I am wanting, I am denied.

street lights fluoresce a pale orange
a row of miniature suns
marking a runway, a landing strip

see – here – here you could land
you could bring yourself to earth
and let me hold you
and let me be held

scaffolding surrounds the house
a white plastic chair glows in the half light
the stream is full with the run-off from the hills
and birds call
birds call
and the trees are moving

5.30am update / buildings are closed / people evacuated / sea life threatened / seabed raised / the weather is clearing with a forecast of morning showers / southerlies / 15 degrees

she hasn’t moved
I am waiting for her to drop
to slide behind the hills
but she is contrary, stubborn
hanging still as clouds pass by
like so many unsuccessful suitors

at least I see her
but I wanted so much more
I am disappointed
that she waits til now to show herself
all week, going about her business undercover
a beautiful anarchist
creating chaos
mad woman of the sky
you have betrayed us all

clouds glow apricot pink
and draw attention to the left
yellow eyes watch from across the room
a shadow, a black cloud
full of anticipation and patience

6.00am parliament / questions / earthquakes / recovery / entry to the drift

There has been enough waiting and as the sky lightens, I return to warmth and comfort, shining one small bright light into the darkness. And I read “This moment is all there is” and I think, here it is, synchronicity at work.

this book of light
is full
and slow to respond
full of dead poets
Rumi, Tuwhare, Cohen

There has been so much loss in so little time. Storytellers and singers, poets and priests, all are slipping away. The ground moved and we looked to the heavens. The rains came, and our tears were added to the flood. Myths abounded as we looked for reasons to explain the unexplainable. The moon that came too close. Too much moon, too much gravity. Facing the inevitability of time and the pain of too much love, too many memories.

Whatever the cause, the reality is – the very ground we walk on has proved unstable. We have a fragile peace between aftershocks when we take a ragged breath. We do not know if it will be safe to breathe out…

the black shadow sits heavily across belly and hips

6.40am Kaikoura / slow cooking using bricks from the house

bricks re-purposed
from a broken home
necessity brings invention
disillusion gives way to hope
disenchantment never quite took hold
the sun has risen
the cat is fed
and so

 the day begins

(the result of a writing workshop with Pip Adam – to focus on the details of one day – Friday 18 November 2016 – to observe, record and then transform. This is the result of the writing done the following day, Saturday 19 November. Still working on it – currently in prose, fewer “voices”, and managing to get past 6.40 am 😉)

©ClaireGriffin2016

by

torn apart

12.02am was a lesson in humility
who am I
to think the earth
could feel my pain
and make the heavens
weep with me

she is not a reflection of my emotions
she is her own sovereign being
and last night she tore herself apart

there is a fury
she has held in check
grief she has suppressed
pain she has denied

last night
all was unleashed
pent up energy released
her heart broken open
and spread before us

there is a madness in her rage
she rends her clothes
and tears her hair
she breaks her own body
and lays it at our feet
she has become a distorted, twisted thing

my beautiful country
you have torn yourself apart
what are you telling me?

we may be homeless
she is broken
we may be confused
she is broken
we may be distraught
she is broken

it may be her only way
to shake free from us

my beautiful country
you have torn yourself apart
what are you telling me?

she has called on her power
the wild pulse of life
to tear open her own skin
to bleed rivers enough
to flood the land
and lay bare the truth

she is not gentle
she is not kind
she is a wild thing
who tolerates us

she is more Lillith than Eve
she is Papatuanuku grieving still for Rangi
she is Persephone rising after slaughtering Hades
she is Mis raging in the wilderness

she is telling us
she owns her body
she owns her pain
and she can cast us off
in a heartbeat

©Claire Griffin 2016

And then came this… just when I was in the heady space of imagining the significance of a rare astronomical event… On 14 November a 7.8 earthquake hit.

I had to face my sentimental wishful thinking, my need to personify the earth as a beneficent mother. She is not a reflection of my emotions. She is her own sovereign being, and this morning she tore herself apart.

The previous poem was put on hold, and this seemed so much more appropriate.

by

super moon

the eye of the universe draws nearer
she turns towards us
watching side on
like a great white whale
surfacing, curious, yet wary
she brings a gift to us
her own body, her luminous skin
she has come from the depths of space
to show what it looks like to be whole
she has come to bring light to our dark night
she has come to bring hope
she has come …

Monday is the night
of the perigree full moon
a supermoon

our pain, our cries of disappointment
and anger have been heard
and we have woken the spirits of our world

©Claire Griffin 2016

I was working on this almost three weeks ago, and was planning to post on Monday 14 November, the night of the supermoon.
However, Sunday night, early Monday morning, New Zealand was hit by a major earthquake, and my notions of a benevolent moon seemed naïve and sentimental. I’ve been a bit distracted ever since.
I never really finished this – but it fits with a few pieces that have emerged from the events of the last few weeks.

12 November – revised 1 December 2016

 

by

tears in the sky

it has rained for three days
rain and fog and mist for two
and yesterday – more rain in a day
than usual for the whole month

the land itself was grieving
for the ones who’ve left us
for voices silenced
for songs unsung

Te Ihorangi and Hinewai
are the gods of rain and mist
male and female together
holding us in their embrace

as mist lay heavy on the hills
cloaks woven of all the tears
we’ve shed these last few days
these last few months

crying with us
until we are ready
to stand and turn our faces
to the sun

©Claire Griffin 2016

In this land, rain is often interpreted as a sign of grief, as if the land itself is crying in recognition of the passing of a great leader. This is an extract from the lament, ‘E pā tō hau’, for Te Wano of the Ngāti Apakura tribe:

E ua e te ua e taheke
Koe i runga rā
Ko au ki raro nei riringi ai
Te ua i aku kamo.

Come then, O rain, pour down
Steadily from above
While I here below pour forth
A deluge from mine eyes.

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/tawhirimatea-the-weather/page-4

Citation: Basil Keane, ‘Tāwhirimātea – the weather – Rain’,
Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand,
http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/tawhirimatea-the-weather/page-4
(accessed 13 November 2016)
Full story by Basil Keane, published 12 Jun 2006
by

darker (r.i.p. L.Cohen, sincerely)

tears fly
like a thousand birds
into a midnight sky

I hold your voice
in the palm of my hand
my skin vibrates
with every breath

your words surround me
confront and shelter
the essence of what it means to be male
expressed in every husky rumble
and nuanced vowel
my very bones are shaking
as your low tones reverberate, resonate

my dreams are waking
from the dread I’ve carried
that you’d soon be gone

its been nothing but rain and fog
for two whole days
while you climbed the stairs
to your tower of song

I’ve lit a candle
I’ll keep it burning
I don’t want it any darker

©Claire Griffin 2016