.of Love, During Youth Poem by Vincent James Turner

1. A Mothers Approval

I wiped kisses from a cold oak crucifix,
the residue of cocaine stinging
the raw holes of my nose,
so, to prove my love for you.

Mother I committed cardinal sin
In the house of your favourite friend
to quell your fears of my religious drifting.

Aglow with pride like a window
splashed with sunbeam,
you honour me with wide eyes-

In a dove-white robe beside
a wrinkled Irish Bishop I salute the
congregation with a fingered hash stained V-
brave behind the shutter of closed eye,

once opened, I met your gaze
and believed their sparkled joy.

2.Beacon

It was late and I was drunk when I returned.
Not fuzzy-coloured-light drunk, but open
and exposed like a can of dog food drunk.
Your hysterics from dinner like smoke from
a spent candle, hung heavy-
misery has such a lasting effect,
unlike happiness which for you peaked
like a theme park pirate ship.

The popped out blister packs of pills
scattered like confetti across the table
obvious and intent like warning beacons.
Dad was curled like a baby when
I woke him, and in the heroin calm of dream
dismissed my worries with babbled words of sleep-
And yes I fled into the hungry maw of night
Bitter with love, and broken by my fear.


3. Enlightened Conversation

If I were to cup my hands
and scoop those moments of quality
of which you and I so rarely shared
there would not be much to watch drip away.

But that night we flipped the caber of silence
Into the fire and its sunset-red embers
We shared words like just healed mutes.
Strange how absences soften our senses-
She gave me every element of mothered love,
Regardless.
Yet that night you spoke of your youth-
the black and white barroom brawls,
first beating of your never before bruised heart
the click of magazine of an army issue rifle-
I never knew such happiness could exist.

4. Street light love

It came in the guise of her eyes-
Black planet pupils centering the sun on a backdropp
of holiday Brochure sea-
skin strawberry scented and ivory white.
But this was not to be.

The night you gave back your half
silver heart, that which I believed
to be love, stepped out of its red satin
dress, and beneath the neon glow of
a shop sign, revealed a scarred, jaundiced
form and whispered “this is me”


5. Driftwood

Age’s change forced us to fork like
a river splitting-
too big to sit
cross legged on the button bunk of the bed
our youth outgrown by the desire to grow.

You the scorned big bro
cuffing scarred wrists at the table
clutching the cutlery
just to keep the shakes from view.

As little sis stares at her steak
as though it were a photo from the Holocaust,
her milky stalk of a neck
fragile like the hem of a wine glass-

Our childhoods were but shadows falling from the wall.