Tim Taylor

Meltham, West Yorkshire.UK

 

Tim Taylor lives in Meltham, West Yorkshire, UK. His poems have appeared in various magazines (e.g. Acumen, Orbis, Pennine Platform, The Lake) and anthologies. His first collection, Sea Without a Shore, was published in June 2019 by Maytree Press. He has also had two novels published by Crooked Cat.  https://timwordsblog.wordpress.com/

Two poems  - Russian Doll - Reproach

 

Written on 6th April 2020

 

 

Russian Doll

 

How often did I yearn

to put down the briefcase,

take off the tie, the suit,

to cast away the fetters

of commitments and be free?

I would become a Russian doll,

discard in turn each level

of this life, to reveal at last

the boy who was just sleeping

under those coverlets of years.

 

In time, the suit, the tie, the duties

fell away: not so the years.

Too late, I learned: they are not layers

to be put aside like winter clothing

but strata hardened into rock.

Not a carapace, but part of me.

The child inside departed long ago

and left behind a hollow casting

of himself: merely a box

of threadbare memory.

 

poem written 15^th May 2020

 

Reproach

 

The words are what they are

but I reIease them softly,

wrapping them in soothing sounds –

perhaps a gentle voice will mask betrayal?

 

I wait, hoping my mildness

will serve as armour.

You do not move.

No sound issues from your lips.

Emboldened, I permit myself

a moment of relief, look up …

 

Mistake: your eyes are weapons,

piercing skin and peeling flesh

to show the blackness of my heart.

Impaled by them

I cannot turn away

but only limp out backwards;

behind me I hear spearpoint stares

thudding into the door.