[Poetry] Two Poems by Themo H. Peel

Waters of Kanazawa (a meditation)

I sit. 

I listen to water

trickle like cotton mallets on bamboo. 

I sit. 

I wait for whisper truth

to build to brimming cacophony. 

I sit. 

I pray to kami of the stream 

straining for secrets that won’t come. 

I hear

soft beat serenade,

the tap tap tapping of water on stone. 

I sit

and I wait. 

I wait

and I pray. 

I wait 

and I listen.

I wait. 

I wait. 

I wait.

Over the hill and through the waves

   – for my Edinburgh Blue Ball brothers

I lost my glasses in the waves

 – a selkie-shaped ballerino,

pirouetting and spinning as they lift me, 

fingers pointing skyward, barely brushing the sun.

The water washes with ageless abandon

making grown men giggling mermaids, 

sputtering salt and sand until judgement and woe 

are surf broken on beds of communion.

The icy North Sea pushes it all out,

sorrow drifting further away, unbuoyed and sinking,

my body numb to weighty cares,

melancholy ripped free, unnoticed, into undertow. 

I stay there, stinging cool skin, smiling as waves

churn endless blue champions, like mad kelpies

dragging the last thrashing burden away,

never to been seen again. 

I lost my glasses in the waves

and I am blinded by the cold morning sea.

But the salty air and laughter hold me

free and open, revealing all of its gifts. 

Themo H Peel (he/him) is a writer and illustrator based in Edinburgh Scotland. He has published two young adult science fiction novels, and has poetry published in Arlington Literary Journal, Dillydoun Review, and Beyond Queer Words. He has been a featured poet with I Am Loud productions performing during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and at the Scottish Storytelling Centre. As an artist and tutor he has a passion for inspiring diverse (minority, LGBTQ+, neurodiverse, disabled) young people to use art as a tool for self-actualisation. He holds a BA in Fine Art from Yale University and an MSc in Creative Writing from Edinburgh University.