Mark. A Heathcote Poems

I cannot forgive the light
Its translucent sketches
Its probing oil on water balancing act
Its full embodiment of your skin
...

Without any more regrets,
with charred fingers,
I will go on living all tomorrows
like today—
...

There are moths in the basement,
a cockroach on the ceiling —
the same wings, the same hardened shell,
in every terrace house on this damp street.
...

Your tongue is a skipping rope
You can skip one way and then another darling
But never remain fixed to either side
Always right, never wrong
...

There lies in each of us a conch-shell song unheard,
a moment of beginning unfurling,
a longing to exist beyond ourselves,
a musical transcendence beyond
...

I
Are we the progenitors, the progeny of our own neurotoxicity
poured into clear clean water
that will mirror our oldest hunger and fear
...

When I see the green and red
Of the furnace flames aglow,
And a white dove is rising in the skies.
And those sleek, slender, starving black-
...

The workings of a clock
It can be as mechanical as a stopped heart.
A wingless entity
Naked and caged propelled to flower.
...

Give me a woman in a birdcage
Singing like a canary for a kingdom without chains
Singing for a deeper humanity
Flapping her wings like words flung granite stones.
...

If I could come back in another life
I'd be more goal-driven.
I'd do better at school.
I'd work harder for sure.
...