Raw amnesia like mornings,
like pillows, your hair falling,
spilling into weeks.
Can you see the words
I leave for you? A trail
in light, likeness in the linseed,
vermilion in turpentine. I close
the windows. Watch my hands
pluck memory from carpet strands
I stand too close, I see too much
I ask to forget and then –
– morning again – clear
and wretched
and almost beyond thought.
© Nia Jane Griffiths 2024
Hello to all those of you that frequent this blog and read the words I leave behind. I am gearing up to something at the moment, which I hope will be published in the next year. Until then, I will be posting here and on my Substack.
All my love,
Nia
Small hands, clasped
up to reach my cheeks,
bursting through decades
of understanding. I know
what she doesn’t, she knows
what I cannot. The
funeral, the ashes and
the hair, and all the years
between us. Think of this,
girl, and the silence we’ll
both leave behind us.
© Nia Jane Griffiths 2024
Comfort in the soft fur,
the leathered couch,
distractions before she
leaves you for the night.
Downstairs, drunk and
dozing, a home you’ve
made soft in all but
edges. A late day,
a weekend. You think
back to what you wrote
before. Bent knees. Hands.
Fingers. Lingering cries.
She hears you. Turns
another page. Reads words
you could have written
but didn’t.
© All rights reserved. Nia Griffiths 2022.
I float above the sea
you fled, I watch the waves,
I bend to catch what’s left.
I break. It doesn’t matter.
I’m holding it inside my lungs
I try to slow down, move
only when I need to.
I don’t. It doesn’t matter.
Maybe this is power.
I half believe that.
I wanted to drown in you.
If I did, it doesn’t matter.
© All rights reserved. Nia Griffiths 2022.
Skies stretch over nothing.
Truth barrelling down at you,
white light and brazen beyond
God – when was the last time?
Words and silence arrive to
splutter the guts of the matter over me.
It was not you, not duality,
not love, not secrets.
Time bends and, softly,
reveals.
Midnight did not bring
your first sighting, Puss,
nor give the Owl his wings.
You are the sum of every hidden
moment and only half its
part, now.
Words and silence bind you up,
sentenced to myth and past.
There is just you, not duality,
not love, not secrets.
A loss of time, now fraction
found.
© All rights reserved. Nia Griffiths 2020.
That grey-scale paperweight town still
lies heavy on my mind.
Thrust upon an ocean of gold
and cherry leaves, it stood silent
and unfinished;
an outline of houses made with
oil-black ink
waiting for the warmth of
paint.
Some will tell you
that if you head east
towards the sun-warmed hills,
the sketched out town will
stare you down;
row after row
of asymmetric triplets,
watching.
I remember looking in,
from afar.
Thinking that the people there
must echo the measured monochrome;
tiny paper beings of
ink, and soot.
Or, if they didn’t,
that it would be my task
to turn to ash.
If he wants it,
we’ll play coy with coloured
pictures. Fill the open space
like hungry ants. Invite the boys with
cameras round. No phones.
If he wants it,
we’ll whisper on untapped lines
while we show them the
school again. Our great defence.
Walls, lost in translation,
line the room like towers.
If he wants it,
we’ll crawl into the ground
and scatter; mice who know
the call of an owl
hunting too far to fly
back home.
If he wants it,
we’ll burn like forest fires
light our skin like peppered oil
just to see it spread.
© All rights reserved. Nia Griffiths 2019 .
The man, after all of it,
watched on. Colours shimmered
in the blue of his eyes,
free of that darkened hue.
He grinned a giant’s grin,
felt calm, felt free.
He, at last, saw himself
reflected in minds and in hearts,
in the memories of that perfect crowd ;
of laughter
of coffee shops
of flowers deep in bloom
and of those tiny little moments that scatter into life.
© All Rights Reserved. Nia Griffiths 2019.
I watch him from above;
A tapestry of life rolling out
on the tiny panel floor beyond.
Through the darkness,
I see his brows cloud over,
pursing his lips with thought.
I watch the tiny scattering moments,
burst out, idly, into shadow.
I clamber down into his world.
I kiss his darkened eyes.
If I could calm each voice and fingertip
that curves his silent veins
There would not be a word
that was not mine,
nor a single undefined touch.
To bring the sun in one perfect moment,
one sweep of sugared salvation
I’d give a universe of time.
And yet my sacrifice is boxed
And bound
to short bursts of light
alone.
© All Rights Reserved. Nia Griffiths, 2019
N J Griffiths 