“The Geometry of Love Between the Elements” by Fióna Bolger

Caught in the Cross Hairs   I bury my face in the thickness of your hair the darkness, the softness, the smell raw brain sweat, your innermost thoughts desire become scent   beneath the softness the hard skull skin a barrier you need and I want to penetrate   to enter see the wiring observe my image upside down in the back of your head then turn and peer through your eyes   I’d see the world as you   You’ve stolen my tongue   I thought I had the power in dreams I knelt at the chopping board an awkward sacrificial lamb I brought the cleaver down silencing my babble   but you held the knife and while I slept you forced my lips apart and cut at the roots ever the skilled operator you stitched me up needling the thread to connect the severed ends   I can still make sounds some almost words they think they understand but my tongue is in your hands   ‘Blue’ by Vani Vemparala From The Geometry of Love Between the Elements by Fióna Bolger. A Grimoire published by Poetry Bus Magazine.

cure for a sharp shock   it’s that moment when you trust let go the balloon your hope floats up into the air it’s beautiful and red   it bursts empty rubber pieces a shade darker float to earth   I read somewhere if you take these shreds put them between broken pieces of pottery and blow they’ll sound beautiful   I’m not sure I read it somewhere   cure poem for the lovelorn   a woman sits alone her eyes are on the swan feathers dropped by the moon upon the sea   she sees no-one on the horizon but who can walk on water dance on down   by day she weaves her stinging sadness into nettle shirts, by night she waits for her lover – the one who needs   to wear those painful clothes to be fully human again no longer trapped   on a cold moon dropping feathers on the sea   Cure Poems are © Fióna Bolger

Fiona Bolger’s work has appeared in Headspace, Southword, The Brown Critique, Can Can, Boyne Berries, Poetry Bus, The Chattahoochee Review, Bare Hands Poetry Anthology and others. Her poems first appeared in print on placards tied to lamp posts (UpStart 2011 General Election Campaign). They’ve also been on coffee cups (The Ash Sessions). Her grimoire, The Geometry of Love between the Elements, was published by Poetry Bus Press. She is of Dublin and Chennai and is a member of Dublin Writers’ Forum and Airfield Writers.   From Poetry Bus  A Grimoire is a book of magic and what is more magical than poetry? So instead of producing a series of chapbooks we’ve opted to create something a bit more special. Our first poet is Fíona Bolger and her Grimoire is called ‘The Geometry of Love between the Elements’   A beautiful book of poems illustrated by Vani Vemparala and featuring translations into Irish, Polish and Tamil by Antain Mac Lochlainn, Aleksandra Kubiak and R.Vatsala respectively.