EVOCATION

It isn't your body that still beckons
From the eyelid of the doorway
Or the mischief and promise
In your sigh and your smile
It isn't your  warmth in the private of  places
Or your eyes' dilation at various stages
Not the coupling of our heart-beats
Nor the whisper of your skin

It is none of these.

What most  visits my memory and recalls you again
Is the smell of your hair when we kissed in the rain.


(c)  S.  Evans

RIDING ON THE WHIRLWIND

Some find it in a powder
Some find it in a bottle 
Some find it in their children 
And some in Aristotle

Some find it in the fire
Some find it in the frost
Some find it in the bedroom
Some find it on the cross

We're always searching
Searching all the time
Riding on the whirlwind
Reigning in the rain

Some write it in a poem
Some sing it in a song
Some preach it from the pulpit 
And some just bite their tongue 

Some find it in the desert 
Some find it in a book
Some never find it
However hard they look 

We're always searching
Searching all the time
Riding on the whirlwind
Reigning in the rain. 

(c) S Evans 2014

HAPPINESS

Do not  bring me happiness
Let such thoughts pass quickly on
It's been  banished for so long,
I'd barely recognise its smile.

I think of  its cool in the summer's heat or
Its warmth in winter's night
As one thinks of a ship that has sailed
Out of sight or forbidden fruit too
Tall to reach however laden
The bend of the bough.

If  you  could ever  liberate
This death camp husk  from
Its starved  and shrivelled host
If you ever  unlock that leaden chest
Beware...
When freed
Happiness is too rich a treat
On which to ever  feed

Your well-intentioned intervention
Would likely  kill than cure
Your generous ministrations
Would choke  at birth
The patient heart in me.

Instead... I beg
Wean me from these midnight  dreads with Hope
Droplets of silver rather than tears
A finger tip  measure to my lips
Over the months,  perhaps the years,
Until at last  I'm ready to taste happiness again.

(c) S.  Evans 2014

SCAN

SCAN

Polo mint capsule
Starch white
Drained of rainbows
Receives me stiffly
Through its
Stargate portal
Reduced to worm-hole vision
Mirrors place me in reflective mood
A tube hangs out of me
Horizontal mind floats
Headphones buzz
A disconnected voice shrills if I'm OK
My name scratched out by static
She could be in the control room
Booth or Houston USA,
She could be in Heaven but
Sounds like HAL
Go through the checks
Left hand holds switch
Press in emergency
For immediate attention
In case we have a problem
Brace myself for lift-off
The chamber shakes I'm aping Heston
I'm Hurt in Alien isolation
My chest feels heavy
Pregnant with dread
Lead thoughts scrape along the
Trenches of the brain
Like x-wing in Death Star searching
For elusive port
Eyes closed to try repose
Nose-free zone
Senses are vacuumed up
Shrink wrapped
Laid bare
A rose in suspended animation
Would smell as sweet- less
No perfume pricks the air
Round and round
I'm tumble-dried three cycles,
Itch I dare not scratch
Tectonic plates of neck and back
Must stay still, all animation suspended,
Status in stasis,
Mouth dry and open to
Aid respiration
Oxygen ingestion,
This wordless O my final stage of examination
All metal removed from me
Floating in my own tin can
Click click slick
The music slides sideways into head
 REM lullaby my dread
"If you believed they put a man on the Moon,
Man on the Moon."

© Stephen Evans 2013

VISITING MY MOTHER IN A HOME AT CHRISTMAS

You're a jigsaw puzzle without a picture on the box
All in a thousand pieces with one piece missing
The instruction sheet long lost
You can't be fixed or reassembled
Your mind is a shattering of moments
Scattered across your pillow and beyond
Unravelling beyond recollection like
A tapestry torn into a thread
That twists into a question mark
For which there are no answers

Your open mouth
Clams in the past
Lying on your side like
Some blubbering creature
Washed up by the tide
I feel within this stagnant room
The siren calling me to sea
Return me to lost innocence
Intern me in your mammal womb

I hold your hand and smooth
Your thinning hair
Aware of the unwanted gift you always bring
Acutely at this time of year
From the many you have given me
From the moment you caught
My first breath and taught
My mute tongue how to sing
And bound me to your dominant cord
That never could diminish
Determined we to ever duel
Or duet to the finish

The silence now your parting gift
Allows me to reflect upon
The gradual ending of a life
And selfishly contemplate my own

From down the corridor
A radio plays a song of praise
Great Joy and Tidings to the World!
The singing ends without applause

As no more words can be said
I scratch these lines beside your bed

(c) Stephen Evans