That Kind of Thing
I don’t work well with
long hair or cigarette smoke;
earl-grey smog in the morning
warmth in my mouth.
I’m not into
that kind of thing; and by that I mean
anything you don’t like. Ink under the skin and
ink in the brain, where it’s not meant to be. You’re right
I don’t suit the black dress, I should wear the blues
instead of singing them.
But the thing is, I do think
that something hurts deep inside
my sea-cave sorrow
dry
rimmed in salt.
I said ‘how high?’
and you said ‘how deep?’
Deep South
There are miles I haven’t walked
and parts of the world I don’t understand;
under the boiling yolk of English sun
in the brown-bread humdrum fields
some part of me was made, by name
by blood by birth only.
I came back but not all the way;
and I liked it but not all the way;
the slow crawl of the metal trout on the M6
currents pulling among deep-rooted port towns
and through open country running like a deer.
Less songs than there are stories; in the stories
less blood than there is poetry. But still warm
is the trail back to a time when
the weather was king and
everything felt new. And there were still years
till me.
Daisy Harris Poetry 