Corinna Underwood

Levellings and Crossings

Corinna Underwood — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 19:33:54 +0000

Once here lay a field for our sprawling
Summer’s play, sparking and larking,
blazing trails of buttercup chains.
Now these memories are traced
by neon exclamations!!!!!!!!!! punctuating
dry lengths of tarmac tongue which rasp
at the side-winding vergeal vestiges.
Here only iron-billed cranes stretch
to build their nests of cold steel.
A non-pedestrian zone
with a pall of deisel under-hanging
the jellyfish sky, stinging eyes
and smothering breath.
Must we only in memory conquer
knotted chestnuts in search of Autumn
fruits? Only smell aerosol glades?
Does our Greenman only beckon
us to and endless road crossings?
And mother earth, must we
by-pass her in our haste
to circuit A to Z?

Waste

Corinna Underwood — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 19:33:54 +0000

The light spilling over the window sill
reminds me to turn over
before I see it pool in the sheets
where emptiness lies.
Each morning I am beside myself.
Shadows are newly poured
around my face and body
filling all crevaces
and hardening to crust.
Afternoons only defer nightfall.
Movements are matchsticks
snapping with flintless tinderness
until I splinter.
And from these pieces
grow thornflowers for a desert.

Spillage

Corinna Underwood — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 19:33:54 +0000

Let loose of grammar, stammering through unversed lines
in persistent attempts to share language-art with other
listening eyes and seeing ears I drag my intensities
across smooth sheets, roughening with the touch of
my word’s breath; rasping lately from having poured out
so much in so few sound shapes. And still in the cold
communication of eyes locking and staring all the same
way , chills through my layers of artificial skin.
My steel knuckled hand clenches tight and then tighter
to restrain from desired acts of violent subterfuge.
Tearing words from my own lips; thrown mercilessly;
my partial death on your lap. Instead, I might maintain
a light composure before all premature conveyance
can be fully stopped. Then suddenly there I go
again hurdling bridges, its such a different view
altogether from the eye’s corners, where empty spaces
will dance on spindled legs and we are left
still hungering for an unfound, unfathomable taste,
somewhere between earth and chocolate.

A Future Memory

Corinna Underwood — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 19:33:54 +0000

By window’s dimming light stands the crib
so still, for the sleeping and dreaming
and all your worrying is uselessly perfect
for a tiny heart with each thumping fist-beat
which began with the seas gentle rocking.
Beautiful burnished snakes coil
your hair tumbling over a nest where
love hatches a kindling spark which flames
as you fold your knees not to pray.
A flower memory, pressed and perfumed
in the sun’s eddying rays and your mouth
rounded like a lullaby singing tremulous moonlight.
And looking on, a sightless assembly
smile to see you so softened to water
digesting the stillness behind an unthinkable girlhood.
This flower – gimlet will heal all gashes
like specters in silent gathering
in a dry, remaindered hour.