Friend don’t be fearful; we’re facing into sunrise.
There’s aura all around giving shine to your eyes.
It was never mine, it was for the formless love
Fully formed in lines. Was that another sign?
The castle is cold, my blood is in these stones,
These stones are fit to burst
And spit out all my bones, rolling in the slopes,
My heaven’s in the earth.
As I slip into the burn the silt disturbed will rise up to cover
My body blue as day, pink as dirt, and red as clay.
By these words I give my voice to the air
That it might whisper to me
Or whisk my words away.
(And spin in widdershins,
A stroll down azure lane
In our menagerie,
Our gifts are armatures.
We melt our armour off,
We drape a layer on,
We tear a layer off.)
Sorrow only really works when there’s hope first, which is why breakups are so sore. The biggest grief is maybe the loss of the future you’d been prefiguring for years and being unbound is liberating and destabilising. There’s a lot to dismantle, that is if it doesn’t crumble of its own accord and send you sliding down the scree. I’m comforted by nature (Comfier Conifer John) and going back to the basics of my conception of myself: family, friends, childhood. And also by venting steam into songs. If nothing comes back to me from them, at least there’s a little less on my chest, or that’s the idea.
I thought “armature” was just a cool word that worked well rhythmically with “armour” and had to do with electronics but further investigation (on Wiktionary) revealed it’s also a wire framework you use to start a sculpture which you can then adorn with clay or papier-mâché or something. Sometimes, metaphors write themselves no matter how little thought you put in!
CONIFER JOHN 