Author: Emily Goldthorpe
Caterpillar Feet
Yum
I’ll devour these words
Every damn letter
The dot on the i
The curve of the e
YUM, there ain’t much better
I’ll sip the t
I’ll crunch in the d
I’ll grind my teeth on the c and the p
So nothing’s more scrumptious
Than writing on the wall
What they say, who bloody cares
Each word, I’ll eat them all.
She Told Me So
“I’ll tell of this love that I know”
She said to me one day
“So please, if your will should allow
Listen and hear what I have to say”
She spoke of the soil cushioning her
The grass tickling her ears
The sunflower towering above her
Yellow soothing and easing her fears
She told me of seeds and their spurt
How spirit moves heavens on earth
And the force that grounds deep roots
Is the same as us knowing our worth
“Don’t forget you are no different”
Her whispers I still hear
“What makes the sunset so beautiful
Is you seeking you, my dear”
And with all this love that I know
From the listened word, not spoken
I conclude that I was, all along
Whole, not once ever broken.
A Herb A Day
A herb a day
Keeps the doctor away
And calls in the witches
The white and the green
The rosemary sprig
The kiwi, the fig
All help keep me glowing
Through times hitting hard
The end of the tunnel
The light in my funnel
Isn’t further than reach
As we’re told it can be
And this delight I feel
I didn’t earn it nor steal
It’s a thought that I had
And decided to keep
When my health starts to tip
Herbal tea I do sip
And imagine my body
To be sparkly and well
Something To Do
It’s not easy to write when you’ve nothing to say
I pretty much face this dilemma each day
But as problems go, it’s not so big
There’s larger worries for a slaughter bound pig
Or the grass that’s brown from no rain for a week
Or the alcoholic who’s reached their peak
So writing something, a prose or two
Is just filling my time with something to do
So over and out, this poem I’ll end
Instead I’ll find something to break and then mend.
My Best
Give 100% and you’ve no where to go
60%?
“No way, too low”
40% and you’re off the scale
10%? Hanging on by a nail
30%?
Yea, that’ll do…
If you’re frail and starving or struck down by flu
There’s always 50, the happy between
For the average, make doers, not large but not lean
80% gets a tap on the head
And 20% gets our arse outta bed
90%, that seems pretty high…
“Can’t push for 100?? Tut tut, oh my”
70 then, that’ll have to do
“70 might, at a push, get you through”
1%, 12 or 103!
What number grades best when I’m just being me?
That Vase
There’s a voice I heard once
When I put my ear to that vase
A scream I thought at first
Then a whimper
A song that trailed into a prayer
Or the other way around
A voice I’d not heard before
Until now, remembering that vase
I hear the tides
The mermaids
The witches finger that tickled my earlobe
As they did that day
And I’m not sure if life was ever the same after that
Or if life stayed the same but my eyes viewed differently
Or maybe I just listened more
Because the more I listen
The deeper I see
And in those depths
The volume of silence gets really deafening
And as I loosen my grip on noise
The unknown unravels
And maybe that vase
Was the beginning of my unravelling
Or maybe
I just heard myself more vividly within starry stained glass walls
It’s all a little strange, isn’t it
No matter what I write
Is nonsensical to someone
So the upside down
Of the mermaids tail
And the witches breath
And the starry glass
Are all mine
Until I listen to a bigger vase.
Sister, I See You
Sister, I see you
I have done all along
I’ve stood under the stars you dream
Your woes are in my song.
I see the woman you’ve become
Perfection, that’s you now
No questions need to haunt your heart
Of when or where or how.
For all of that, the heavy doubt
The worries you hold true
Shall flow behind courageous blood
The sacred light in you.
For sister, you have hidden deep
A wisdom like no other
As from you born, not just a child
But warrior and mother.
Red Paint
There are days when I envision myself crawling through mud.
Being cradled by beds of clay and fertile dirt. My light depending upon the struggle, this intensity of needing to collapse into primal states feels more real than morning rituals.
Let the worms bury beneath me.
Let the woodlouse tickle my belly as they mount the mountain of me.
Let me be where theres no explanation. No why or how or whats next?
I am not enlightened here nor unworthy to call myself eternally divine.
I am not an understanding person as that sets me above.
No righteousness is homed within my marrow, cells vibrate with the waves of the ocean, no longer reacting to the 6 o’clock news.
I’m nothing recognised here, Im absolutely unravelled like the root of a willow tree. Above the water when the sun shines and submerged after the storm.
And in truth, I feel permanently sorry. Confusion rising daily, as the silence is broken by morning birdsong. I’ve forgotten what it means to be held by Great Mother and nourished by our Lords love.
So for all that is real in me, my blood that runs, let it run freely into the earth. Let that be.
My gift back, returned to Her. My life flow.
Words are constructed but my bleeding, a greater creation.
And if I could paint my face with this vibrant colour pouring from me, without outraged eyes beating back all that is natural, I would.
I’d crawl in the mud to the weathered rocks and bleed.
I’d no longer be littered with pollutive chatter nor my fins caught in wire nets, trawled to set an example or sacrificed in the name of conformance.
I am interconnected to Her, to Him, to the holy and sacred spirit. Ignited by the magic our ancestors hoped we’d comprehend, believing to be woven into our DNA. And maybe we do comprehend, more than we hope. We swim fully armoured to stay afloat yet all that is asked for us to remember the infinity of our soul is to fall. To mightily surrender to where it is only god who can carry our breath.
It would be with red on my face, bloody fingers painting so uninhibitedly that id crawl thankfully through the dirt I’ve been so desperate to clean myself from.
No more.
