Fevers of the Mind

In High Summer

when flies walk upon my forearm hairs
proprietorial as landlords
and the land is ripe with roadkill

extreme weather scenarios
play out in real time

climate diplomats gather
but the plenary is beached -
delegates cloyed
as wasps in coulis

we sit around
the water table
with an ashen thirst

everybody wants to make a move
but no one does

like watching the bleaching of coral

the only thing agreed on
is that all this is unprecedented

unprecedented rainfall here
unprecedented temperatures there
unprecedented use of the word unprecedented     everywhere

in high summer
the deluge
the canicule
the conflagration

ants grow fat
grow wings
buzz my ears

we pick at
the brittle wishbone
of consensus

wait for crows 
locusts
to draw down the dusk
with a dry calling  

We Are Green

One winter’s day
through condensation windows
I mistook a withered gunnera leaf
for a heron’s wing.
Imagined the bird 
coiled, primal,
waiting at the water.

Months later, 
in the veiled sphere
under a summer gunnera plant,
I imagined myself 
small,
deep in zoological realms
below explosions
of virid strong-stemmed leaves 
as wide as the sky,
blush flower spikes
pushing up and through.

Today
in seasons of indeterminate grey 
when squirrels
do not know
which page
of the nut calendar
we are on,
it is the verdure
I return to.

I daydream of a kinder world.

Daylight and rainfall
elect a parliament of plants.
An upper house of trees.

We are green,
enfranchised.

XY (No Means No)

X.
Doctor Foster
went to Gloucester
in a shower of rain.

Fred and Rose
they quit town
but left a nasty stain.

That’s Fred West -
more than a sex pest.
Did unspeakable things
in his dirty vest.

Y.
Cycling past
the rape seed fields
brings it all back.
The yellow so vivid,
you lying on your back.

The yellow, the horror,
you want to be home,
but find yourself
involuntary, prone.

He seemed ok at first,
he said he’d drop you back.
The stony ground remains
no aphrodisiac.

You shut your eyes
your demon’s back,
slow, stupid in the sack.

And No Means No
involuntary
lying on your back.


Choose Your Own Mother
(for Rhianydd Daniel)

I have heard it said 
the yet unborn  
can choose their parents. 
 
A strange idea, this. 
Although we live in times 
when nothing is 
beyond belief. 
 
If it is true..    
If it is true, 
I ask myself 
the reason  
I chose you. 
 
Indecisive as I am, 
and daresay was 
before my birth, 
there is a scenario 
in which I am at peace. 
 
Wherein, unborn, 
I somehow hear 
your singing voice. 
 
And from that time 
I have no choice. 

sand in your blood

I remember when 
you scraped your leg on coral..
a rose rust bloomed raw 

under your skin..the
sea was a blister the moon
was a bruise.. all night

your fever rose and 
fell..lava tides licked feral 
flames..sand in your blood   

Ad Astra Zee

I am waiting for my blood
to clot. Broad beans
block green veins, 
velvet furred.
I am ripe
for it.

One day my feet 
will be corms,
shoehorned
in stony ground.
My soles are up
for it.

Hey Astra Zee!
I want my
second dose
already. 
             
I am weary 
of this solid flesh
my veins
so unimpeded.

Bring on the levelling dark. 

I am ready, pale horse
for your clip-clop.
For blood clots. 

Bolt, beauteous breathlessness! 
Bolt, cramping throbbing pain 

stampeded!

the paranoia shop

sells mini cctv 
for the home or handbag
sells cctv any size you need

hard-sells hard knuckle dusters
and knives all shapes and sizes
beyond imagination
for your perfect tribulation

they say carrying a knife
puts you more at risk of a stabbing
but the stab-proof vests are on offer today

see the cute hand guns 
to fit your hand    just so 

the paranoia shop
nestled between Gaultier  and Kenzo

I love to window shop there

It makes me feel so safe 

worm haiku

exit wounds out of 
apples, soldiers, the worm out 
of one the bullet

Perfect Bed

I dream I am at Bembom Brothers
Dreamland funfair park
with Tracey Emin.
Hard by Margate sands.

I know I shouldn’t drink that Vodka
on the Helter Skelter.
Apart from that,
a Day as Perfect as the Lou Reed song.

We Kiss with Fish and Chips Lips,
Join Hips. A Turner Sunset
Going Down.

I guess it is the Golden Hour.
Blair’s Babes 
and even some of his men MP’s
are busy Changing a whole heap of things
for the Better.

Back in your room 
we remember that
we even Changed the Bed this morning.

The linen soft and cool next to our Optimistic skin.

(This poem has previously appeared online in iamb-wave seven)

Going back

I went back, and it looked the same. 
I was not expecting that. 
Expected the usual rash of 
New Builds, creeping up the hill.

I went back, thinking
it would all look smaller, like
when I came back from America
aged 19, and it seemed like the train 
home had shrunk 
in a B movie.

I went back
looking for what?
The muddy lane where
we skidded our scooters?
The neighbour’s garden gnome
one of us pushed in his pond?
The Fish Caves, where we played
explorers? Journey to the Centre of the Earth,
or at least 
some way in
to that disused tin mine.

I went back, not to look for
my Dad, just some of the places
he used to take us. 
Halfway between morbid 
and curious.

I went back to the old conker trees 
and the scraped knees. To the
broken fence on Bishop’s Wood Road,
where it said No Trespassing
but my Dad said we’d be alright.

I went back to the old quarry
with the pond we thought was a lake.
I’m channeling a half-
remembered sense of comfort,
danger. Somewhere between 
Teddy Bears and Teddy Boys.

I went back to stacking
boxes of seaside rock
at Woolworths.

 Each stick had writing all the way through,
persistent as memory.

From up on the hill
you can see it all. 
The only thing different
is wind turbines out at sea,
turning like time.

I remember a school master who left.
All of a sudden. The smell
of that old classroom
at the end of the dark
corridor. Scuffed floor wax. 


Thanks Sylvia  for the Sylvia Plath/Anne Sexton Challenge

You married Ted, slapped
cobweb faced British poetry, 
long overdue


Bio: Ivor Daniel lives in Gloucestershire, UK. His poems have appeared in A Spray of Hope,
wildfire words, Steel Jackdaw, Writeresque, iamb~wave seven, Fevers of the Mind, The
Trawler, Roi Fainéant, Ice Floe Press and The Dawntreader. He has poems forthcoming in
After..., Re-Side, Alien Buddha, The Orchard Lea Anthology (Cancer) and The Crump’s Barn
Anthology (Halloween). .
@IvorDaniel