Tenebris Interlucentem (into the darkness… light)

'into the darkness… light'

 

a winter Wednesday open-mic  

in a dingy pub in Pontefract

or was it Halifax?

 

I don’t rate poetry

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

 

a baldie next, old guy

in a floral shirt, 6XL, and shades

read a fifth straight

doggerel 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 awoke me to love.