Tenebris Interlucentem (into the darkness… light)
Tenebris Interlucentem (into the darkness… light)
a winter Wednesday open-mic
in a dingy pub in Pontefract
or was it Halifax?
I don’t rate poetry highly
but if the beer’s good
and admission’s free…
first up a hipster
a ‘bad day Bukowski’ bragging
a whore he claimed he laid
all night in down-town Saginaw
an old bald guy up next
in shades and a floral shirt, 6XL,
read five straight doggerels
all about the moon
“boon, dune, June, soon, spoon,
rune, swoon, tune, hewn, prune”
(he had the gift of rhyme)
a pink pashmina
wept burying her cat
or maybe her grandma –
hard to tell
a young girl nasalled
a ‘moi-je, poor me’ –
a ‘love rat’, Gary,
had used her for sex,
then broke her heart,
when he dumped her for another…
but she would recover
(the crowd whooped that one)
I sank a third pint – Barnsley Bitter
while a pair of folkies,
she with long hair, he with guitar
wailed about bees
‘enough…enough’
I cuffed my mouth and stood to leave,
but moved too late – the guest was on
standing like a Viking lagman
orating a saga – a laughing jumbling
tumbling weeping kaleidoscope
fountain of colour
she spun a whirligig of words
light and carefree mysterious and dark
that made little sense yet mesmerised me
she magicked me over oceans, icy tundra,
mountains, deserts, white-sand beaches,
and endless trackless wilderness forests
through centuries of history; the plainsongs
of martyrs braving the valley of death
and barefoot hopscotch children playing
her words laid bare her heart –
the universal heart
the long-lost heart
of every heart
her words danced in the air
long after she curtsied,
I applauded loudly
then popped out quick
for a pee and a rollie
when I came back she’d gone
I never found out her name
one day our paths will cross
and I’ll tell her how
the wondrous colours
of her words
brought me to life
and awakened me to love.
© coolhermit 2023
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I remember this one from a while ago. Nice work as ever.
cheers, Guaj – it has been edited 🙂