Poetry: Selections from Rachel Lightfoot

There are plenty more fish in the sea

The sea is also filled with:

Trash,

Predators,

Pressure,

Plastic,

Wrecks,

Bottom feeders,

Crabs,

Lice,

Snakes,

Cold,

Toxic waste,

Perpetual darkness... also known as The Abyss,

95,000 cubic metres of human shit.

Stay away from the sea.

Exposure

The thing I could not say

The thing spoked in my throat

The thing thrashing on my lips

Well, That thing is this

I have been unwell.

I didn’t realise it at the time.

I slipped into grey,

the colour washed out

vulture filled skies.

Exsanguinated people,

malnourished souls

using sticks and stones

to patch up their holes.

The vultures they came,

Lifeless, cold eyes

talons tearing out my flesh

as I screeched, “I’m not dead yet!”

I could shake them off temporarily,

paint a smile on thick

all while sending a tooth

sailing right through my lip.

The vultures spoke of death

and decay,

nothing better to come

drumming the noise in with a dulcet kind of hum.

Circling in the sky

turning over the moon

her belly exposed

as predators loom.

But like kick-back from a horse,

I produced one final farewell

and commanded those things go

straight back to hell.

I staggered off of the merry-go-round,

the hamster wheel of humdrum

and stumbled into the streets

cocked like a loaded gun.

I fired off shots

and as the shrapnel fell

I realised that

I have been unwell.

So I returned to the earth

to repair in the dirt

to really feel the hurt

and lift up its shirt.

Maggot-filled brain - coffin-covered cries - boxed in with my thoughts - hoping to survive.

But once the silence fell -

There was peace to be found

and with quieted mind

I healed in the cold ground.

And when I finally emerged from my grave

digging up all that I’d buried alive,

I sent that army of kamikaze skeletons

charging toward the light.

Fractured Water

Meet me in the pool of fractured water

I’ll be scattering pieces of my soul.

Born of white sea foam, the Ocean’s daughter

Where Heaven kissed this Earth and paid the toll.

 

Goddess of the sea and of seafaring

Aphrodite breathes dew into the west wind.

Shattered, worn fragments of misplaced caring,

Shipwrecks of hope gather, the shore rescinds.

 

God of war tore the trite clouds asunder

Tempestuous skies screamed at his behest.

Lightning crash and rolling waves of thunder,

Mournful suds gathered to form the swell crest.  

 

The troposphere cried with the weight of the sorrow,

Soothed only by the moon and her promise of tomorrow.

The Tree of Knowledge/Ouroboros

I always arrive with my heart on my sleeve,

in anticipation of an inevitable trampling,

it’s almost like a masochistic need –

with my yearning to love,

the collar,

and my hope of being loved,

the lead.

 

Once upon a time I found myself within the garden of Eden,

lying within the warm arms of a man

who gifted me freedom.

I thrived joyfully as his rib,

I felt honoured to embrace and encase his heart,

and as his bone I truly lived.

 

Soon though,

I was tempted by forbidden fruit,

a shiny, serpentine apple dangling from a tree,

my eyes were in pursuit,

the beginning of an insidious uproot.

 

And my penance, the fee?

A life ever after

to be half lived,

tainted by misery.

 

Ever since my fall from grace,

Paradise lost without trace,

I've eaten only rotten apples

and become accustomed to that bitter taste.

 

Original sin punished:

cursed as an Ouroboros doomed

to forever eat my own tale

of arriving heart on sleeve,

trying to fulfill an unmet need,

collared by yearning, with hope that misleads.

 

I repeatedly discover

the undeniable truth,

that knowledge is proof

we were set up to fail:

 

A never-ending cycle of swallowing our own poisonous tail.

A Love I Buried Alive

I sometimes toy with the idea

of writing a letter to an ex,

to translate the weight of my heart into text;

ten years gone and still bereft.

 

 

         I swallowed all of the memories

         as if I were Grendel devouring his enemies.

         I Gobbled fistfuls at a time to make them disappear                  

         faster,

         gorged myself on a rotting ever after.

 

For a time I choked...

              … I’m alright now though, I cope...

... It’s just that I carry the lump in my throat.

 

 

This was a love I buried alive,

but remnants of its coffined screams

still rumble through the earth from time to time.

A Modern Day Fairytale

Once upon a time….

 

There lived a Princess

Locked within a tower of bricks

By a wicked, wicked witch.

The wicked witch was named,

‘Mortgage’

And she was a real bitch!

 

The Princess was glum,

Too much work to be done

And she worked herself blue

As Mortgage cackled, “I own You.”

 

The Princess was only fed scraps;

no food for the soul,

But Mortgage gobbled

Pay packets whole,

Drool rolling down her greedy chin

Grinning a deadly grin

And sucking on the bones.

 

One day, Temptation called to the tower

To say,

“Princess, let down your hair!”

But Mortgage was there

To say,

“No.”

 

The Princess was sad,

Mortgage was really bad

And as if that wasn’t enough,

I’ll tell you some really Grimm stuff…

 

Mortgage had wicked Sons:

We’ll call them ‘The Bill’s’

And they could drive you to pills!

They multiplied at an alarming rate,

Leaving the Princess in a real state.

 

And so all the Princess could do

Was await….

 

A knight in shiny armour

To unlock the gate,

And climb up the tower

To bear some of the weight.

 

And one day,

A Knight did finally arrive

In a clapped-out Chevrolet.

 

The Knight’s name was

‘Best Friend’

And she’d come to lend

A helping hand.

 

The Knight took out her sword,

And held back the horde

Of wicked things for a while.

And with them backed against the wall,

The Knight cried,

 

“Princess, I heard your call!

You can always rely upon me,

Just utter the magic plea:

For, every time you cry, ‘Rescue me!’

I’ll be here with bread and tea.”

My Collection of Weirdos

I have a hobby of sorts,

To collect the strangest of cohorts,

Those that fall between

The cracks in the serene

And provide an elixir for the droll.

 

Wearing trauma as a badge,

Openly half mad,

Scarred and scared,

Bad and good, good and bad.

 

Outsiders,

Survivors,

Fighters,

Quitters,

Addicts,

Vixens,

Victims,

Bullies,

Bullied,

Exposing,

Exposed:

 

This is my collection of weirdos.

 

Each piece is unique,

Individual, tarnished and boutique.

No manufactured, peroxided plastic,

Or conveyor belt symptomatics.

 

Antique treasures hidden

Under the rest,

Bottom of the pile.

Allow them to beguile.

 

Their bruises sparkle like Popping candy for the soul.

 

Come and behold!

My shelf of damaged wholes,

Those who refused to fit the mould,

But instead turned stories of ash

Into pure gold.

 

Here you’ll find the greatest tales to be told.

 

Roll up!

Marvel at my troupe of weirdos,

An array of frayed heroes;

 

The best I have known.

My clarion call to home.

Rachel Lightfoot is an Arts council funded poet based in Sheffield, UK with a degree in Film & Literature, a dark sense of humour and a passion for creative self-expression. At age 21, Rachel built her very own burlesque empire, 8 years later she hung up her heels and had a brief stint working for ‘the man’. Rachel decided she did not like this and instead, she went on to chase her creative dreams once again. Now pursuing poetry and acting, Rachel spends her time creating short works of poetry inspired by her life experiences and working on film productions.