by Narmadhaa
Poet’s Statement
“These three poems are, at their heart, identity poems. The common thread that binds them is an exploration that appears frequently in my work, examining how what we carry, what we have absorbed about what kind of being we are, affects our ability to navigate, and our literal and figurative “fitting in.” How does the shape we learn we are, or are told we are, in childhood (mentally, physically, spiritually and culturally) fit, or not fit, into the slots and spaces life makes for us as we try to grow? How do we twist to conform, what shapes do our minds explore for us when we don’t fit, or if our fabric is not as described? How do we connect? Particularly for those of us who are different, those of us with early-arising mental health issues, be they hereditary or environmental, our connections with our world and other similarly-struggling humans in it can be tenuous or fraught, as can our sense of place and purpose and worth within our own skins, within the local environments available to us, and in the much more vast sense of what it means to be a human being right here right now. But these poems, like their author, all believe that what we have to offer is unique and ferocious, despite all of the figuring out required – that once we truly know and have owned our shape, we can use it to create holes to fit us where none may have existed. We have that power. We always have that power.”
Action/potential
The first room you entered here
was lightless. Wet spring, still wound, you would-be-
bud – first test: your will to leave the heavy press
of dark. And you prevailed and won
the map – like this, each seedling learns to read
which way is up, right as the here-be-dragons
of the blueprint start to stir within the vein, to roar
your wild awaits outside
all compass and container. And once I climbed
a greenhouse just to feel
what it was to walk away from everything
on nothing, and when I fell right
through the glass I landed on another waning
interest gone to dust. A body left waiting
in the dim for years, pale yellow shoot
strained out to tongue the graze
of sunlight seeping through the filthy panes. Split
plastic pot, hard dirt, she was a thirsty snarl of bone-
white roots, packed solid to conform. I left her there –
I’d not grown real enough to yet conceive
of what I could or couldn’t save, and summer
and her promises, they beckon a bleeding child on, away,
away from every kind of broken house. But little did I know
the weather a chance lets in, what was cracking
in my wake – that even though the soil begins to dry
when watering first becomes a bind, a slip can break you
open to the rain. And little did they know
how long a shoot can wait to see the sky
fall in, even told its roots go nowhere
good. The lie: there’s a window
of time for taking hold, then the window shuts
forever. The truth: you can walk out on the glass.
The dare: Walk out when you’re sure
the glass will not support your weight.
Root codes
How the canopy sines as a leaf-sea, and the sacrifice
of that one young yew to the wind left a stump.
How a boy was unable to navigate the chop
of the waves that never stopped moving his horizon.
How they waved flags across three oceans
and the old crests drowned where sea-names blur.
How the network of roots, tingle-fine wiring, carried
the currents of need, and the truncated was fed.
How the synapses are every desire, and signal
when they too are dying, a teenage brain tapping out.
How they remembered that it hurt, to be young
and already unpathed from the map of two flat planes.
How a broken tree greens here unseen, and the whole forest
keeps pumping the message that yew is still yew.
How he rode the invisible wind, how every wire sang
as he translated his fibres through them.
How they opened their hands as a soft blue light in the night
and caught his queer drift. How his wrong spin was right.
How they become kin, tangled below the ground.
How they become kin, tangled beyond the screen.
by Narmadhaa
Day release
You say I’m spinning again
and I tell you the bone needle
of your spine already knows your north
from your south. To find your way home
all you need to learn is to hold the casing
still. Calm your foundations – this land
we are, it’s always been
an earthquake zone. We walk
our wasted scaffolds from the hospital, stilt
away to the coast, and all the seaside houses
(those ones you love most) sit on the water
fearing change. Just like you they’ve made plans
to deal with all the shaking. What helps? That summer
is always coming back. That the tectonics
of a rattled body stop grinding sometimes
for whole minutes under the loud beat
of the sun, that I’ve seen your unquiet earth
settle right down, shored up
by a hot jetty with nothing to do but steam
off the shutaway months. Your chin
to the boards, the world’s baffle
shrunk to woodgrain, and up close every knot
just a part of the pattern – each plank
with something to show for its time spent striving
to grow. And I know you’re afraid
to rest like this, with a lifetime
of everyday shudder pinned down hard
against what’s already been
undermined. And yes I know too the sun goes
down, the blue sea abrupts grey
and you’ll hear it, you’ll hear it pick, pick at the struts
of pretty houses shivering
at early dark – and you’ll be right
that the sweetest hills just fold
the dampest shade.
Turns out we’re all a less desirable address
than the one advertised. But let’s move in. Let’s move
in these bodies scraped back from the edge, let’s move
with intent
to take up space. Even the coldest light
on the darkest morning – it hits the water, bounces,
finds its way to a window somewhere.
Ankh Spice is a queer-identified, sea-obsessed poet from Aotearoa (New Zealand). His work has appeared in a range of online and print publications over the last year and a half, with nearly 100 publications to date, and two of his poems nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and two nominated for Best of the Net. His poetry is rooted in the natural, and finds its heart exploring the deeply personal relationship between humans and their external and internal environments, examining mental health and identity, climate change, colonialism, and the constantly-evolving puzzle of how to navigate through the anthropocene as a decent human animal. He co-edits at Ice Floe Press and is a poetry contributing editor at Barren Magazine. There’s currently a rumour about a chapbook of his work – details to be advised in 2021. When he’s not out on the coast, you might find him online:
Twitter: @SeaGoatScreams.
Facebook:@AnkhSpiceSeaGoatScreamsPoetry
Soundcloud poetry readings: https://soundcloud.com/user-448322296
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/SeaGoatScreamsPoetry
Narmadhaa is a nature and haiku fanatic who uses travel photography as a means of inspiration. You can see more of her work on The Chaos Within.