poetry

Yesterday she went down to the sea to feel again

| Sheree

Yesterday, she went down to the bay
and had it all to herself. Taking off her shoes, she sunk her toes into the cold
damp sand. What will the sea feel like? she thought.

She undressed before she could register the wind-chill. She ran into the blue.

The water, wind-ruffled, greeted her body with short sharp bites. Her skin turned red and goosebumped. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. She screamed out loud nudging herself to stay within the cold embrace for longer.

Her breaths were shallow as she ducked her whole body under water. She came up, gasped for air, water trickling from her head back to the source, dripping over her wide toothed smile.

fly upon the wind
white-grey gull of Spring take space
expand your great wings

exquiste details

| Sheree

The older I get the more
the details move me.

Fresh golden sheafs
in the tall grass.

Greylag geese lifting
into flight. Tiny bits

of white shells in moist
sand. The brown and

cream stripes of horsetail.
The small orange berries

of sea buck thorn.
As I note these details

my body quivers with
recognition and joy.

grow

| Sheree

she opens the kitchen door

after the rain,

the garden is fresh

the air is sweet and clean.

she smells the soil,

the berries are bright.

As the dead leaves are blown away

to leave a clear white sky.

she adjusts her energy

and wants to grow 

slender

| Sheree

Receding into the distance,
a silvery slenderness,
turning purple, then black in the dimming light.

I walk to this lady of the woods
who stands alone upon this moor.
She still claims the light,
as light is everything to her.

Her crimson catkins separate
like wings, to flutter
into the breeze,
a swarm of speckled flies.
Undressing her tissue skin
again and again, she endures
revealing her white graceful

beauty

When you want to be so much like your mum but fight the urge

| Sheree

as the day comes to a close,

and the house settles in for the night,

the clock ticks-clicks into the thickening

silence, a breathing silence, you claim as your own.

You’re reminded of late night conversations

with your mum about everything and nothing.

How sitting across from her, you longed to be as kind and giving as she but not as lonely.

You’ve witnessed how she never had a chance once everything

shifted and drifted off course after

her one and only love died. You witnessed their love

desiring that kind of love for yourself and grabbing at any given at times in desperation.

Now you realise, their love was conjured up in a child’s mind to be all

and festered in a woman’s heart to be nothing.

Seaweed

| Sheree
Cresswell Beach

between their toes seaweed mushes
it comes out of nowhere
squeals and screams
wet, cold skin meets cold, wet skin,
pods pop, bones crack, the sea rolls in

The Terzanelle – The Gaze

| Sheree

Too often we refuse to gaze
on something unpleasant to see.
Rubs against us all the wrong ways.

I don’t like to see an oak tree,
feel my neck snap. And my heart breaks
when there ‘s something unpleasant to see.

My words, a soundtrack for those taken;
blackmen whipped, flesh-eating scars, pain,
felt my neck snap and my heart broken.

Dead eyes and flashbulb smiles at the slain.
Who wants to look at these photographs?
Black guys, whipped, flesh-eating scars, pain.

Who has to deal with the aftermath
of bodies reshaped by tragedy?
Who wants to look at these photographs?

Callous grins surround,
too often we refuse to look.
Their bodies reshaped by tragedy
rubs us up the wrong way.