Winston Plowes
In My Dreams You Stay Alive
In fifteen years of hugging flint,
too often I fled from the table.
From Dad’s double breasted Sunday best.
To the front room set in aspic.
Spoon-fed by the Bakelite dial
you’re tightening your Bible belts by
lapping up hymns and polishing souls
I screamed for skin-to-shining skin
and shivered as you inched away
till now it’s come to miles from home.
Will no one stay forever?
When gift wrapped boxes die on me
my broken angels cannot spin
the words of silk to spare me now.
Then you unpack my second head
and throw me rings of flowers green.
Re-lace my wings and clip my hair
and walk away through fields of god.
Mummy—Show me how the softest
Parts of my body talk.
Return my rusty pre-packed heart.
Bury me with people my own size
with whom I will share more in common.
I am left with mutant genes
dripping through two childish hands
so crudely cupped.
But in my dreams, you stay alive—
Somehow.
For as long as he can remember, Winston Plowes has been disproportionately excited about covering blank pages with words, either with a pencil, fountain pen, typewriter or on his laptop. On one day these words might be serenely launched into the world like a majestic ocean liner. On another they might refuse to start like a rusty old motorbike. Experimental or conventional they are all welcome
and have been regularly published in print and on line worldwide. You can read more on his website: www.winstonplowes.co.uk.
This poem is not previously published.