Wine in the spirit (extract from Between the Realms)

So happy. Am over the halfway mark with the fourth draft of Greater Matter. Having to re-read and work with the poems, it's making me miss Norman more again and simultaneously feel him closer than ever. I actually feel guilty for the irreverence of Life: at how hard I have to slog to stay close to what matters. This is slog like I've never allowed myself: not the usual duty and drudgery that's helped build my life in the past, it's more vital, but harder than anything I've ever experienced before. Destiny-type stuff. Even a mouse has a destiny ... each day, my own weakness is a revelation. And yes: I'm happy.

Slowly galumphing ...

Greater Matter is slowly galumphing its way into the world. I'm onto the fourth draft of Sacred Space, which is the third section of the book. And I even managed to get the Contents Pages for Sections 1 and 2 done the other day! 54 pages, thus far ... though I spaced the poems more in Section 2 ... not sure it'll stay that way ...

Anyway, here's a poem from Sacred Space, a section which records the story of the singular adventure of Norman's wake -

Wrack of sobs

Forced back home the day after you die in my arms

because our house has been burgled –

en route must pull over, stop the car

for sobs so strong

they’d crack my skull on the steering wheel

were I not at the same time catching my head –

wracked this way I feel

the elemental Force of Love

thrusting me each time

helpfully forward.

- from Sacred Space, Section 3 of Greater Matter 

And here - I'm so proud - writing down the page numbers. What a slog.

   

An extract from what is at this stage the opening poem of Section 6, 'Shaman', of Greater Matter

Story

Bumbling through the house

looking for

my next task

I turn

a corner

at a door, and almost

fall –

find my face just short of stuck in the paunch

of a giant –

the ogre

of

my Experience!

He glowers down at me.

Lucky the house

has such a high ceiling

(you can’t reach the spider webs

even with the longest

feather duster).

My heart is in my throat

and his huge, rough hand

is round my throat

squeezing tight –

what to do?

But before he squashes me completely

he says

I want your attention,

where do you have your dreams?

I point him to the bedroom

and nimble as a baboon

he ducks, moves slowly through the doors,

lumbers around all the corners

and then drops me,

sits beside me,

heavies my eyes

with his rough palm

and all

is darkness.

Days, weeks, months

the monster holds me hostage

to

his dreams,

and when I blink sometimes between his fingers when they shift

I see him changing –

blue and horned,

gold and maned, black and sleek

he myths the creatures

who once populated places

preceding Eden, even;

but again, again

he makes me

sleep ...

(Extract)

- Silke Heiss

Perfectly Present - title poem from Section 5 of Greater Matter

The tortoise of me is making slow, but steady progress. Here's the title poem from the fifth section of Greater Matter.

Perfectly Present

I spent time with fellow-widow Gwyneth

– our regular weekly keeping tabs

on our days, work,

thoughts, experiences –

she too’d been mugged

by the mugginess dragging down the sky;

that it wasn’t only me who was dof  was reassuring.

Over tea and cake and talk

there was a cooling,

we discussed the blessing of thoughts that appear as beings,

intentions that catch you in motion

before you’ve thought –

our obedience to intuition

makes us a port

for

Spirit.

I came home to the sunflung polka dots of white roses dancing

in the hedge beside the garage door;

and writing this now

– not in the obligatory present tense

(which many modern writers use for no better reason than to hog an effect)

but in the elegiac mood

of reverence that holds in faith

that which we can’t

grasp –

I am certain

that what is past

is perfectly present.

- Silke Heiss

Nothing at all

Nothing at all

The cry for help goes out -
you sms a friend about your struggles -
she returns it with a prayer or something,
something that mantles your shoulders,
soothes your heart,
relaxes your belly -

you feel-think Thank you's,
hope you're right
about them being received.

Still, you weep all day.
Manage to get up, bath, dress, but
weep, sleep, weep -
on it goes.

You write yourself off sick,
can't be anything but horizontal
on cushions

beneath the clay filigree
lantern of words
you created for your wedding
to your
late husband.

It keeps popping phrases
into your line of vision,
'carving each letter',
and so on.

Then another friend arrives
with a book about the dead,
you talk
about love and desire,
pour some wine,
lend him
your husband's corduroy jacket
to see him home
in the chilly dusk.

And
- whether it's the wine,
the friend, the book, the weeping, or
the prayers -

you're back inside yourself,
write the mails you must,
declare your limits,
sluicegate your grief
(thank your brother-in-law under your breath
for showing you at Scottish Waterways
how sluice gates work)

so you can barge
elegantly on
this course
of free water, while reclining

on the couch
as if nothing had happened
at all.

- Silke Heiss, 23rd October 2018

Sudden return

The Edge rock ledge

29th September 2018 manuscript version