Poetry by Eilidh G Clark

I Knew You Were Weary

I knew you were weary.  I saw
Bold, Black words repeated. Graphited
On a hundred walls. I scrolled
 
Past your weeping lines, ignoring
The beats. Broken sighs, dripping
 
Dripping morbidly into saturated
Sentences. I knew you were trapped;
Bouncing madness inside your own
Head.  Half alive, half way dead – Hanging
 
Tap, tap. I knew it, yet I paused
I paused. Liking your profile shot,
A ricocheting lie – a knot. My conscientious mind
Wrought, wrung, tangled in a world-wide web;
 
I searched and found a better you, impressed,
Pressed on the back of my eyelids.
 
I never heard you scream your final scream.




Funeral Parlour
 
They dressed you up like Christmas day.  A faux
Silk blouse with ruffled trim – garnet red.  Black
Pressed polyester trousers with an elastic waist,
The comfy yins.  But the shoes,
the shoes were wrong.
 
Unworn kitten heels – black. The yins ye bought
Fi Marks and Sparks that rubbed yer bunions.
 
They dressed you up like Christmas day and put you on display. Painted
Your face back to life, with tinted rouge and peach lipstick that puckered
Like melted wax, concealing your smile,
Your tea stained teeth.  They put you on display – Dead
Cold.
 
Jon brought you a school picture of your grandson Jack; slipped it under your pillow
Then squeezed a private letter into your clenched right hand. I
Gave you a card.  A pink one with a rose. I placed it beside your left hand – sealed
Happy Mother's Day Mum
 
They put you on display, dressed you up like it was Christmas day but without
Your love heart locket, your gold embossed wishbone ring.
Those damn sentimental things that might hold tiny particles of skin,
Fragments of last week - lingering in the grooves.




Letting the outside in

I’m Letting the Outside In.
 
The double glazing is stained with winter splatter.
Porridge is cooling in a retro bowl and my bare feet -
Baking from the heat of a sun kissed puppy
Who is baking on a vertically striped carpet. 
 
There is a reek of yesterday’s shenanigans at the burn
Wafting from tartan collars
                                                               and the air feels.
 
 
Music                           through                           rib
                   Ripples                              my                                cage
 
There’s washing hanging, half-arsed, on radiators
While a new load spins in the machine.
The sagging rope in the back garden
Is empty. Waiting for the weight of winter warmers
 
Honestly soaked,
to be nipped with plastic tipped pegs and a satisfying sigh.
I’m letting the outside in.
 
Three squirrels scurry along the naked trees across the way.
And me
I'm resisting the need to weed the garden
I’m letting the outside in.

​

Bio: Eilidh G Clark is a writer and poet living in Stirling, Scotland. She graduated from university last year, at the age of 44 with a BA Hons in English Literature. Eilidh is currently studying an MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of Stirling and is working on her Memoir.