PATRICK WILLIAMSON

PATRICK WILLIAMSON

YOU’LL COME

You'll come as a gift from windows

I already know the network of your hairs,

the cross in the middle of the chest

you’ll warm up my hands, I'm cold,

you’ll banish my suburbs with your voice,

I’ll mark you down on the atlas,

I’ll tell everyone that you are my root,

I’ll sit on your hips to simulate birth

I’ll moan with your tongue, your veins,

here it comes, open me without a key,

I’ll hope, my body is all crossings now,

the images tremble in me like waves.

you're the thrill that runs through me,

I’m one of your roads, you are the wanderer,

I collect the eternal stroll of your fingers,

the steps that smooth me like a sea.

 

THE DOOR OF NO RETURN

I can see this hand that holds a storm

caress a cheek with menace

I can see this white-skin hand waits

while the sleepless, mutter

as these flickering eyes pierce the pitch,

as they tread the planking overhead,

I am a river, a river of dark, a hold at sea,

horizons recede, they breaking souls,

see us through slats, they watch me,

you scared there, you no longer free,

nothing goes so deep into my self

as fear does, trapped, underfoot,

glimmering with sweat, I see this hand

grasp you by the scruff, you see

you are no one to them but chattel,

tread gently, this iron hand shackles.

 

GODSEND

I feel your conversation touch me

touch me much closer          closer

closer to the ripples of your mouth.

this immense sea-strength within

you, the treasure, the liberation -

unlocking my soul from the grime

so all of life's essences spill free,

this is our language, these words

that rain gives and earth inhales,

they flow in the breeze of the sun,

you are a shaft of light, piercing

as I wrestle my self, a storm surge,

nobody sees the flaws I have

like you do - why hide

from clusters in the firmament.

 

THE MIND'S EYE

I must be careful when I cross roads,

I am colour blind. Close the doors

I am just me, a garbled message,

dank odours of buried childhood

flashes of a night-time storm

castle walls to hide behind,

wrestle with the wind, too slight

to stand ground, thunder clap,

cut holes in sheets of paper, lay them

on the rushing waters of night

this is emptiness, whose sand fills

the chambers of my heart,

hold the roundness of the banister,

silence the mind's murderous flight

child, nothing enters my head

except the random objects of dreams

PATRICK WILLIAMSON

PATRICK WILLIAMSON lives near Paris. He is a poet and translator and has published a dozen works. Recent poems in I am not a silent poet, And Other Poems, Blue Nib Press, Paris LitUp, International Times, and Mediterranean Poetry. Latest collection Traversi (English-Italian, Samuele Editore), and, previously, note Gifted (Corrupt Press), and Locked in, or out? (The Red Ceilings Press). He is the editor and translator of The Parley Tree, An Anthology of Poets from French-speaking Africa and the Arab World (Arc Publications). Founding member of transnational literary agency Linguafranca.

PHOTO BY DINO IGNANI