Vesuvius

Content: Poetry/Adult
This poem is from my debut collection, Prima Materia (2018). The poem focuses on my grandparents that I knew and whom died during my lifetime (my other grandfather died whilst I was in utero.)

​It focuses on memories as a way to sew together the different losses and comes from the Unsound Reality section of the book, Dissolution: Drowning in a less rational world. Dreams and feelings flood us and reveal a world that feels different to our desires.

You can buy the book on Amazon and a link is available through the WORKS section of my website. - Thom

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Vesuvius

for T.E, I.E, and G.B
 
Heart felt like a volcano shelled
by endless gunners testing artillery.
 
Vesuvius erupted in 1944.
 
Your cold face was dormant,
arms placed over your chest,
a sleepy giant so small, you lay
hushed like the stillness of
a Tibetan monk.
 
Vesuvius did not erupt in 2007
although it wanted to,
‘asleep for now’ it said on the
September issue of
National Geographic.
 
You died in June five months after her.
                    
- - -
 
She used to feed me cabbage cores,
tough clump of root gnawed away
until nothing remained.
 
Vacant stares littered the corridor
occasionally met by lucid arms and
desperate fingers, gnawing away
until the clasp relinquished.
 
You died five months before him.
No goodbye.
 
In a dream you sang a lullaby,
I needed a pencil to jot down
the tone of your voice,
but I’ve never drawn a treble clef correctly,
the fear of losing the tune
made my brain melt to a puddle of piss.
 
I imagine it to be a similar feeling
to what is felt when a volcano is shelled
by endless gunners testing artillery.
 
- - -
 
The story of streets on fire
from the bombs, riding bikes
amongst embers of attrition
was only learnt after the end.
 
She died in 2012 from a hug.
 
In the moments I held her,
she saw him standing near me,
I’d never met his face but knew it well
from trapped memories in frames,
paused moments.
 
There was a warmth.
The dry chamber
of my heart replaced by fairy lights,
closed within a box
and stored in the attic.
 
When saying goodbye to
the turkey and tinsel, there is
a closure of the holiday period,
a sense of acceptance that
Christmas
has finally come to its end.
 
Excitement seems out of reach
for at least 364 days,
but midwinter signals midsummer,
the gifts of the hollow hill
bring comfort.