Apologies for no recent updates ... i have taken a break from regular postings but may one day return. Stay tuned. And go to www.blindingsunlight.com for latest news
- Adam

Cracking but true

By Adam Gibson ©

i will wash a sleeping tablet down
with a large glass of beer –
that will get a cheer from
my liver or at least my kidneys
or miscellaneous other organs
that flush inside my blood

i will break open one of these days
and maybe it will be in poland,
maybe i will crack in cracow,
fall apart,
my face gone red,
sprawled on a bed,
looking for my dream
which is lost between the
mattress and the wall

(this is from my chapped-lip days –
you could boil an egg on my top lip –

and what is that girl doing right now,
she with straight teeth and freckled nose?)

x-ray my heart,
open it up for full examination,
make that phone call to the specific radiologist
and let her know my heart is
lying on the table patiently, ready.

i need to detox,
i need to gather stock and either
find my pure path again or
jump right out the window
when do i tail off these anti-depressants anyway?

is the great coast home of my imagination
just something i have imagined?
life is passing.
when will i have children?

i have no hinge to even undo,
i have no ground from which to lose touch with,
i'm eating bad food but at least
i have stopped biting my nails

but i am drinking a lot of beer
but where is honey barbara?
the woman in the trees?

i find these silly paths to follow,
these stupid people to try to be.
if you be yourself
then is whatever else follows true?

"Six"

By Adam Gibson ©


After a night spent cleaning pots

At the Duckpond Cafe,
Her hair smells of cauliflower.

It's a childhood smell like wet dog,
Station wagon holidays and
Sand around the ankles.
Suddenly she is six again,
There is cricket on TV.
The taste of oleander is in her mouth
And is her first remembered mistake.
¶
Suddenly again, she is in school,
Her first short-socked day with plaits.
The teacher smells of biscuits and
Leans to ask her name and age.
"Rebecca" she says, and bites her lip
And looks around the room.
She's five-years-old but can count to ten
And likes the sound of seven.
"And how old are you Rebecca?" the teacher says
And Rebecca says: "I'm seven!"

She's moved up a class
And can't keep up and is
Shortest in the form.
She leaves in Year 10 and
Hits the drink and
Soon her first kid is born.
She gets a job working nights
at the Duckpond Cafe.
She's a kitchen hand and
The work is okay
But she often recalls that
Stupid day
When she bumped up her age,
Rose a year up from six,
What would've only panned out
If she'd just said "six".

Beware

By Adam Gibson ©

beware of cars with hats behind the back seat

beware of girls with hip-length hair

beware of days with still still mornings

beware of funk bands

beware of those who are silent on politics

beware of journalists

beware of 'team players'

beware of the westerly

beware of nylon shower curtains that stick to your shins

beware of those who don't leave messages on answering machines

beware of moths

beware of "Ciao"

beware of endings

beware of full stops (.)

In trouble

By Adam Gibson ©

my mother stood on the

corner of the street

in an aqua blue dressing gown

and all the way

from the gate of the park

you knew her face

held a dressing down

Baggage

By Adam Gibson ©

i'm bringing my baggage with me

this new epoch has traces of the old

i'm bringing my baggage with me

it's backpack-sized

it doesn't fold.

Sky has been filled

By Adam Gibson ©

The buildings are buildings
but what was in their place
before they were buildings?

Sky has been filled and
the birds remain confused
about flight paths obstructed.

Beach track

By Adam Gibson ©

we will find the track
that leads to the beach -
past the campground
and the concrete block that's locked
and no-one's checked to see what's inside,
ever, in the history of this decade.

past broken bits of broken things.
old scraps of clothes and bits of bitou bush,
parts of cars that could never have
made this journey, surely:
so how did they get here?

we will keep walking and keep thinking
about that and then about something else.

Mel

For Mel Ford

By Adam Gibson ©

and she was up the front for every gig
and she knew all the words to every song

and she sat there watching and she sang along
and she wore her heart on her sleeve

and gave us something to believe
we were getting it right and touching a heart

and that was a start from which we could build
and I've lost something now that she won't be there

sipping a beer and swaying on her chair
after trudging across town in pain to bear

and the lost things we spoke about
and the happiness she felt

the result of our song
and I knew all along

her heart there reaching
but I never knew how hard nor for how long

and all I can say now is what I can't tell
but bloody hell, this poem's for you now

and we'll miss fucken miss you Mel.

The Vikings at Dundrum Bay, Northern Ireland

By Adam Gibson ©

the tide floods this bay which local
history believes saw the deaths of

1200 Vikings in the misty howl of legend as
seabirds tear the sky apart outside the full

windows and the sound you hear, they say,
across the bay is not the wind or the far away

sound of breaking waves but it's the Viking longships
running aground on shoal beaches and the whistle of

wind is the screams of drowning men
so I sleep with earplugs rammed in tight against the night

as I don't want to hear them, don't want to hear a thing,
and as morning light arrives long past the beginning of day,

I know that the screams and shouts I heard in dreams
have not been heard for hundreds of years or more.