34. Al-Ghaffur – Forgiveness of Light

Suggests pardon, forgiver, known, --- 'To err is human; to forgive, divine' –
Alexander Pope

Speaking in tongues

Can I forgive the youth in the park
who plucks out a rose for the laugh?
Well I never!

Can I forgive the mother who shouts at a child?
Well I never did!

Can I forgive a girl who leads-on a boy?
You don’t say!

Can I forgive a boy who leads-on a girl?

Shock, horror!

Can you forgive the surgeon who looks in the eyes
of the man in the bath with his burns
and the doctor, in sighing, shakes slowly his head

not knowing the nurses had worked up some hope
and who turn on the man with a tongue-lash to re-kindle fire
into love, and then dress down the doc with their words?

If I were forgiven
- crystal as my wineglass
in – and out – ward – light,
turning every coloured heart
- that would be a dream

with crimson swirls of wine,
of bubbling champagne,
of water purer – free from source,
empty, with no name;

no Will, no talk, no twaddle,
no arse about to waddle,
no mind cavorting on its pole,
no fear of death or growing old

and no associations, spun or leapt,
patient, still, and longing – and longing – longing
to melt.

Hand me Down

I’m not joking when I say

a lock of hair from my great grandma’s

head was handed to me in a small

green box - when I was twelve;

cut off by her own mother’s finger and thumb,

stroked by my grandma

flushing cheeks, to see an

echo of herself and her mum.

One night, my dad took the lid off

and what I’d like to understand

is why I need a reminder, curling around,

twisted by an ancient strand of

hair that came out of her brain

for me to clutch, remember, time and again.