SALT

L U C I N D A L L O Y D

SALT

In memory of my beautiful Mumma1945 - 2014

Foreword

It is rare that a poetry collection gets under the skin and haunts you, but Salt does exactly that. With echoes of Patti Smith & Francesca Woodman, it combines poetry that is brave, naked and raw with startling images – sometimes macabre and sometimes delicate – of vulnerability and disempowerment. Together they tell a story of lost innocence; something that we all share, as the purity of our youth gets tarnished by life and bit by bit the years ravage us. Here there are poems about love and loss, abuse and healing, entrapment and freedom, fury and forgiveness, as savage as they are sensual. They speak of the people that break us and build us; what it is sometimes that keeps us clinging on to them – for good or bad – and what it also means when sometimes we find the courage, or are forced, to let them go. Inevitably, perhaps, there is an over-riding sense of loss threading through but these poems are not just about the struggle to deal with death, they are also about the struggle to somehow deal with life.

Taken complete, Salt is beautifully sad, but there is hope here, too, with poems that peel the skin of us away to reveal not only the dark and angry places within our soul but also – and most importantly – the glimmers of light that somehow keep us afloat.

Jason Hewitt

Until We Meet Again, 2014

Why Are The Birds On Fire?

Scorching their little beaks,soaring above the steps of the city streets;silhouettes of wings,scarlet sparks,feverish yellow wisps,itches of white,nips of blue;deathly dance to the fiery tune.

Feasting on love,burning wings,falling in flamesto the tarmac below.Lace like ashtracing the firebirdsfinal kiss,as they metamorphosizeinto particles of dust,thrown up into the sky to breed stars of light.

Still

I can still feel your arm around my waist.I can still feel your lips on the back of my neck.I can still feel your voice in my ear.I can still feel your hips firmly etched into mine.I can still feel your fingers moving over my breasts.But, I can’t feel myself.Only sand between my toesand a tail between my feet.

A Butterfly & A Bird

A butterfly beating its tender wingsagainst the glass window where a bird’s blood is smeared.The butterfly came to hear the bird sing,but the butterfly melted the bird’s eyes;flicked his wild wingswhich lit her pupil wicks.A white hot flame too soon snuffed out.

The Sea

I am the aching sea.I am a tangled weed.I am a table for birds to feed on.I am a mirror to what is above.I am a veil to what is below.I am a burst vein.I am a liquid memory.I am a glass slipper.I am a constant whisper.I am the aching sea.

The Swing

I was sitting on a swing,I held the chains tight.He placed his big strong hands over mine,he whispered in my ear;‘Look at the birds, see how they blow kisses through the air,would you like to blow kisses through the air?’

I smiled into his big blue eyes,he kissed me on my forehead,he placed his big safe hands on my back,he told me to close my eyes,he swooshed me high up into the air,higher and higherand I was blowing kisses through the air like a little bird.

He taught me how to fly,and I did,I did;but now I’ve forgotten.Now I just feel like a wormeating its way into an empty apple.

Welsh Bitch

What’s that?Graffiti sperm spurting filth for your little girl to observe.Thick black capital letterspurged on the orange double garage doorsat 8.15 on a cold Monday morning just before school.WELSH BITCH

I turn the other way,all will be washed away by the end of the day.

What’s that?Graffiti sperm spurting filth for your little girl to observe.Thick black capital letterspurged on the orange double garage doorsat 8.15 on a frosty Tuesday morning just before school.FUCKING WELSH BITCH

I turn the other waybut now with a memory which cannot be washed away.Your 6ft fists beat in my brain.I internalize the aggressive stain.I look down.What’s that?A china Pierrot dollfallen from my hand,chipped white piecesmarking the black gritty sand.

Waterloo

At any moment you will be stepping off the train.I will see you again.I’ve been waiting 21 years.I sit patiently in a cafe in Waterloo Station.My eyes are wide.My breathing narrow.The fast paced people blur into slow motion.I grip the arms of my metal chair.I think I am calm.A father and child fight with plastic toy soldiers next to me.I realise I am not calm.

I remember you screaming through the letterbox in the middle of the night;I don’t remember what you said.I remember you pushing down the garden wall

with your bare hands;I don’t remember what I said.I remember you waiting to pounce at the school gates;I don’t remember how I felt.I remember your threat to break gramp’s legs;I don’t remember if I cried.

I remember your promise to throw acid in mum’s face;I don’t remember when I began to hide.I remember your cheque for 18p addressed to me enforced by the courts of justice;I don’t remember any birthday cards.I remember wanting to be a bottle of whiskey;I don’t remember your hands holding me.I don’t remember your broken heart;I remember mine.

And yet I’m here,waiting for you,to put the past to sleep,

to wake up the days ahead.I look up.I see you.I charge into your arms.I hold you tight.You are shorter than I remember.You are older than I remember.You are quieter than I remember.You are kinder than I remember.I see your broken heart.You see mine.

Bye Bye Sweetheart

This is not my home.I am not a little girl.But when I step into your living roomand see you there in a hospital bedI want this to be my home,I want to be a little girl,I want that bed to be my old tree house,but it burned downand we did not rebuild.

I tiptoe around your foetal shape,your hand strangling the pillow,your teeth grinding in writhing moans,your eyes seeing no light as they tightly close.I wash your battered skin with soap,I dry you softly with silken towels,I smooth you with soothing cream and delicate kisses,tuck you in to crisp white sheets.

I see your pain,I hear your struggle to breathe,I whisper ‘Goodbye Dad I love you’.He whispers ‘Bye bye sweetheart’.The lifeline bleeds.There is no more.

Is no more.No more.No more.NO.More.Please more.Please.

Guilt Tea

We meet over a dustbin just near Union Streetto talk of sex and pleasure.We walk down the filthy steps,each step closer to the last.We sit by the river,unable to look into the other’s eye,as you spray your armpits with a choking smell,offer none of your cling-film wrapped sandwich.

We go up in a lift to drink tea;you pay which is strange,and I realise the taste of guilt.I splash the tea against the clean white walls,curl my hand up tight inside the empty white cup,reshape the teapot lid with my angry little fists.

You scrawlinside the cover of a treasured book;no thought,no care marked inside the fragile leavesyou then give to mein a sterile white plastic bag.

We stare through strands of fishing wireand I realise the moment of separation.Untangled hands,my finger points one way,yours the other.

Soap

My heart of soapI gave to you.You washed your hands;you became clean,I became dirty.

Stuck

Stuck.We arestuck.A chapter.A verse.Stuck together.I’m stuck to you.A song,you’re stuck to me.A dance,stuck together.We are made out of the same glue,everything we dowe do as two as onesticking outbending insticking upfor each other.Bending outsticking inbending up.But will we becomeunstuck?In two

broken upstanding upwithout each other.As twounder anotherlaying downwith another.Stuck.

Naked

I took a walk in the park,looked up at the treesas the breeze detached another dying leaf.My fur coat buttoned up,my wooly hat pulled down,my scarf wrapped round.Perfectly warm,but these clothes are old,they belong in the grave.

I want to feel my naked skintingling from the burning December wind;and as I look up, I realise,even the trees want to be free of their leaves.

Imprint

I want to clasp my hands around your wrists,press my thumb print

deep into the side of your blue veins.Hold your gaze,

whisper my mind into your mouth.Thumb print,

pressThumb nail,

press.

Crochet Kisses

You are lovedby me,intricatelyinexplicably.Centre of my pulseknotted,lines of my veinsknitted,like holy wire barbed to a softened fence,innocence tickled into crochet kisses.

Monkey Climb

A ladder between us,face to waist, ascending,descending.Bars marking the stepsto the other.Naked hands,chalked to gripto prevent a slip slide down.Dangled feet,free to flingto cause a swing glideacross.My monkey,climbing to my entry line.

Milk

MilkWhiteMilkLiquidMilkThirstMilkPureMilkIn a saucerMilkLickMilkSpiltMilkSpilling talesGuiltGulpPure nightWhite loveMilkLiquid loveWhite oceanMilkDrunk sight

White tearsMilkGlass hopeWhite promisePure morning

Piss Kiss

You pissed your kissinto a stranger.Confessed it upin the dappled lightwith an unusual peace,preaching out your conviction,whilst sealing in methe stench of you.

Drunk

IAm

DrunkFrom

MyOwnTears

Goodbye

I wave you goodbye at the station,I watch you disappear into the crowd,I continue to wave even thoughyou are no longer there,and I wonder to myselfif this is how it will feel when you really are no longer here.

Unsure

I’m not sureI will live

till I’m old and grey.

I’m not surehow long a lady

can survive witha leaking heart.

A Tribute To My Cunt

I tripped into adolescence,I skipped out of time,I chewed on the cud of deceit,puked on white musty sheets,violation was too soon complete.

Acid trip,purity ripped,blurred and bloody.I swirled like a marbletwirling my fractured memoriesin a watery skull on a washed up ocean shore.

A fishing line swallowed in,bait to make me choke,my flesh flattened down.Spit out your pigeon perfumed vowels,your cankered chiseled consonants,your mouth belching a bitter sermonas I bear your bulging eyesinto my crucifix-swollen lips.

Stained in havoc,my bleached voice oozing saliva.Your stinking desire,cockroach infested bedtrapped in your mouldy mildew head,infesting slimy fleas of shame.

But now my glare bears its lighthouse eyesout of the black corner of dust,out of rusty rulesout of slimy self-denial.My cunt knows the cunts who made me feel like a cunt.

Trying

Trying to get on this bus.Trying to listen to this song.Trying to put my make-up on.Trying to block out the siren squeal.Trying to close my eyes.Trying to see what’s going on inside.Trying to send this email to get a job.Trying to be a shoulder to cry on.Trying not to drink this bottle dry.Trying not to finish another pack of fags.Trying to try.Trying to not try.Trying.

Street Unnamed

This rolled tobacco could tell you how I feel.The longings and failingsmixed tightly between the leaves,burning through the paper thin dreams.This cold bitter tea could explain to youthe dilemmas dilutedin this worn out cup,as I spill the dregs on the cold black pavement.But as for me,no,nothing.The air offers a sooted embrace,with a familiar taste of defeat.But I will hold still,sitting on this stiff, uptight bench,and gaze out with vacant eyeson a street unnamed.

Hurt

I hold wordsinside myself.I am caught in words.Each lettera flick knifecutting my insides.

Dead Bird

I saw a little dead bird today,tiny little bird.It was just there,right in front of me.I think it flew into a window,it was on its back,its little legs in the air.Then I saw my own skeleton,its vacant stare undressed my fleshas we became oneright there on the pitiful ground.The little deathdressed my mindwith words,sharp as arrowspointing out the wayto fly,right up and out of frame.

The Cage

A maddening beak,a sickening tweet,a fractured wing.I cannot move.Every directiondark metal bars,bastard that you are.

Quiet Time

You say you love my stomachas your palm purrs across my centre.You say you love my backas you trace figures of eternal eights up my spine.The tips of your fingers listening to my body,taking time,taking care.

I am quiet as your fingers begin to talk into me,quietly sensing.You want to give,I want to give in.Your fingers find my lower backbut more than just a place on me,you find me,quivering under your touch.I want to cry at being found.Fingers tingle around my throat,simply,elegantly,thoughtfully,knowingly.

A finger slips into my mouth,I allow.A squeeze of sensuality fires deep down flames in our bellies,gently we rock in waves,tightly you clasp your forearm to my chest,belted in our heavenly seatas we lovingly swim in our beautiful sea.

A Potent Sea

Cathedral ruins,walls wiltinglanguid and grey.Ancient echoes,seagulls moaningputrid and lame.Azure airspins the worldly wind,stroking the blades of grass.

Blast of window light,explosion of sin.A lost feather lay bare,whisper of a white beakall frilly and fair.I feel the crimson wound,the diligent frowninflicting ripplesas the nail takes its plunge.

I feel the emerald touch,the bare teeth marksas we deliciously delveinto a potent sea.Cover my eyes

with liquored leather,tombs of majesty,army of stonesuprightas I downward tread.

Death decides,dictates the empty breathas I swallow into the salty sea.

Ghost Lover

I sense you’re here.You are not.An empty chair next to me with shades of infinity.You are here,with my nails now scarring the wooden frame.I hear you,with your ear bending, beckoning to hear me,with your eye scorching into mine,mine into yours.A solitary smile contained in your soft leather lips.A slither of eye posting out its letter of intent.A touch to my calf splitting me in half.A warming in between my thighsmelting my attempt to hide.A sway into my chest.A beat of music.A sip of wine.Tips of fingers swim through my hair.Back to front.Front to chest.Breast to mouth.Mouth to mouth.You’re here like ivy growing around my wrists,like petals plucked,like birds rising.

Turned

Today you turned 69,Happy birthday mumas my brother and Iturn leftinto the hospital waiting room.We wait,we drink teawe try to smilewe try not to cry.

‘Gloria Eterna’ escapes from the radioand hangs in the airas mum and my stepdadturn rightinto the consultant’s room.Time chugs bywaiting for the verdict.Fish swim aimlessly round a tank.Chat magazines shout outfrom the coffee tableas mum and my stepdadturn leftback into the hospital waiting room.

I know the newsas mum turns her eyes away from mine.We allturn right into the hospital liftandturn left out into the car park.We drive home.We turn left into the sitting room,and eat sandwiches with the crusts cut off;smoked salmon, chicken and hamwith crunchy vegetable crisps.We watch mum blow out candleson her birthday cakeand open her birthday cardsand open her birthday presents.

My brother is quiet and stillas I arrange birthday cards around the roomand light perfumed candlesand eat sandwichesand crunch crispsand make more tea.Then mum turns to her left,

asks my brother and I to listen;to not interrupt until she finishes,to ‘be brave and don’t cry’.I hear the words‘Be Brave, Don’t Cry’boomerang around my headas I focus on a black spot on a cushionand I secretly dig my nails into my thigh.

My mumma cries.I breathe deepoffering every bit of strength I have.She composes herself beautifully;‘It’s not good news.My bowel is covered,so is my liver and its spread to my lungs.If chemo does not work, then 6 months.If it does work, then 16 months.’

I turn to my left,my brother cries uncontrollably;something I have never seen.I stand up,hold him in my arms,watching beads of sweat trickle

from his forehead.We both turn right,sit either side of mumholding hands.Mum whispers,‘The Three Musketeers’but I can’t fight my tearsbegging to fall.

I excuse myself from the sitting room,I turn left,go up the stairs,turn rightinto my old bedroom,turn off the lighthead in my handskneel down to the groundand cryas I realise my world has just turnedupside down.

Biblical Cord

What can I do to keep you in the world?The umbilical cord between usbloody and blurred.I’ve prayed with you.I’ve prayed on my own.I’ve prayed with others.Others are praying.Some are fasting.I’ve used Holy oil.I’ve sung songs of adoration.I’ve taken bread and wine.I’ve kneeled.I’ve begged.I’ve pleaded.I’ve screamed.So just where are you God?Where the fuck are you?

Looking Glass

I’m looking through your looking glasses,seeing how you saw the worldbecause right now I feel blind.All I have left of youare these thin gold frameswith thick clear glass.As the past blends into viewI reflect back at time spent listening to your words,the way you carved them outin rich, earthy tones;sat in your favourite arm chair,perfectly positioned by the large bay window,one eye on the world outside,the other resting on me.

The way you could see aheadreflected in the way you walkedmirrored into the soles of your feetgold framed streets.Perhaps looking back,that’s why I touched your feetas I watched you go,holding them,

to handle the losschewing at my toes.

I peer again through the thick gold rimmed glass,and realise the ache,the squint,the limpis part of looking at the worldframed in gold,with my feetready to walk in blind faith.

Heads Or Tails

I saw a penny todaylying in the dirt,head face down,it’s tail upturned.

The raindrops fell.

I picked it up,held it tightly in my palmand I remembered my wishdissolving away.

White Spirit

Ink from his mouth,permanent wordsswallowed down,etching into her organsblack lies.Her thick skinsoftening with one touchfrom above.The white spirit dissolves and rewritesthe havoc of sin.

Black Fire

A black raven mountain,gurgles of cancer

stiffen the rock face.But I see

the fire birds inside;giggles of hope

crumbling the crater.

Jewel

Walking towards the train,you’re not on the other side of the platform to wave goodbye.You’re laying in your bed,curled up,with the weight of deathin your sheets.

I have the weight of your jewellerywrapped upin a shopping bag,full of time gone by,when you turned every headwith your stylish steps.

A cream lace choker,a snake bracelet,a pearl necklace with a ruby stone,beads of amber with trickles of irridescent blue,silver balls with silver chains,black jet flowers with whirls of white,an ivory beaded tie,a scarlet stone butterfly.

I will wear the weight of each pieceyou have given to mein the times ahead.But I wish, you would just give methe weight of your fear.For I would wear it with love,and will it to disappear.

Click

I took a picture of you in my mind,as if from a dream.My third eye clicked the switch,and there we were,caught in time.The image unrealised, undefined,as if from a dream,not yet in focus,not yet in form.It swirled and twirled,the edges curling up,wanting to come to life.But the cloudy image remains in my mind,as if from a dream.Just a dream,an image unseen, unfulfilled.

Fruit

We linger in pithy skin;juices swirlinginto splashes that mixa palette of agitation.Appetites waging war within,we wait,waiting until,we bite into a parched kiss.

Sinking into fleshskinned into core.Pleasure froths into lickssucking into seed,into deepening shadesof a new found fruit.

Eat Me/ Drink Me

Dark chilli chocolate stockings,absinthe knickers,a fire skirttwirling round,my thighs drip down.Cherry top finger tipstease over mint leaf lips.A wooden corset,whisky filled.Key in my mouth,ice cube enclosed.Tongue pull,push into you.Unlock my chest,treasure flowsinto my river below.

The Weight Of A Tear

A heavy bag of water packed up,ready to leave my eye.You’re leaving.Not what I expected from being down on my knees.I hoped for more of me and you;drinking tea,sharing time,sipping wine.I have no choicebut to let you go.Plucked out by cancer,your roots stolen,re-planted in heaven,your place of rest.I contemplate the coffin which will hold your body,the black dress to contain your flesh,the diamond earrings to grace your ears,the gold plated plaque to display your name,and the white lillies to offer you a fragrant end.

The weight of my tear trickles down my cheek, onto my hand. I watch it slowly sink into my skin and disappear.

First Published in 2014. UK© Lucinda Lloyd & Jason HewittAll rights reservedFirst edition

a little bird whispered Publishingwww.alittlebirdwhispered.com

Poetry and Photography by Lucinda LloydDesign by Lucinda Lloyd & Ewan Eason

Lucinda is an actress & artist. She lives & works in London.www.lucinda-lloyd.com

ISBN 978-0-9930700-0-6

‘These are poems of searing emotional honesty that combine startling imagery with heartfelt passion’

Aoife Mannix