MARK ANDREW HEATHCOTE

 

 

White Ghost

 

White ghost, why do you look ghostly?

Pale ghost white and hoary as a shivering mouse

Have you seen a ghost or something frightening?

White ghost, white sheet of a man parting company

Why don't you stick around?

I want to ask you some awkward questions.

Deep and personal about my wife

Was she cheating on me again last night?

 

I don't remember clearly, but I guess I drank.

too much, too much whisky and wine.

White ghost, why are you all teary-eyed?

Pale ghost, white, and hoary, have you seen my gun? ,

I can smell fresh gunpowder.

And my wife is nowhere to be seen.

I hope I haven't disturbed my wild hemlock flower.

She has a potent temper if I interrupt her unannounced.

 

Or the dogs outside are howling in a choir.

Baying at a blood-red moon

A moon that should be the colour of a white ghost

Pale ghosts are white and hoary.

White ghost

I want to ask you some awkward questions.

Deep and personal about my wife

Was she cheating on me again last night?

And why the hell are you so white looking at me?

White ghost

Pale ghosts are white and hoary.

Why are there drops of blood on the floor?

I think I'll go back to bed and sleep some more.

 

Everything is tailored

 

Everything is tailored to look better after dark.

That's why stars have big, combustible hearts.

Doesn't the moon glow more emphatically?

Oh, when fireflies dance in the skies erratically.

 

Oh, doesn't the ladder in your tights speak to me?

Like the sea against the shore, 'take me up the stairs'

Make me yours, take me to the stars, and kiss me.

Spume waves are hypnotic and briny all the time.

 

Oh, don't go higher than Icarus unless

The moon is suspended in the night sky.

And if it is, turn inward the yolk of my eyes.

And singing like a siren, needing neither

 

Love, intruders, or friends

Pull me into your arms.

And drown me in the cover of the night.

When, when, when

Everything is tailored to look better after dark.

 

A gilded cage is in these heavens.

Turning to burnt candle wax and dust

But if I must, I'll build myself a bridge.

That crosses streams and mountains

 

That lonely darkness in the night

Oh, ooh, with that ladder in your tights.

'Take me up the stairs' I'm yours.

I am now swimming to new shores.

 

The Fall Of The Titans

 

If she fastened down her tears with her eyelids closed

dazzled by the sun, the moon, a dream on the horizon,

would you be there when they open composed?

Made of starlight - would you be her Titan?

 

Her protector, her Kronos: Sire, do not devourer me?

Instead, let me also rest in the 'Isles-of-the-Blessed.'

And there wake sire beside your giant torso invitee

shielded and protected, in your heart I-shall nest.

 

Put on wings and fly above the rain clouds

and tears will no longer dampen my heart quest.

Perched-in-these heavenly gyres like wild fowls:

Sire, see to my need to join others I dispossessed.

 

 

MARK ANDREW HEATHCOTE

 

MARK ANDREW HEATHCOTE is an adult learning difficulties support worker. He has poems published in journals, magazines, and anthologies online and in print. He resides in the UK and is from Manchester. Mark is the author of “In Perpetuity” and “Back on Earth,” two books of poems published by Creative Talents Unleashed.