November 2022
Neil Creighton
neilcreighton1973@gmail.com
Author's Note: I am delighted to write that in August Kelsay Books accepted The Colquhoun Chronicles and it will be published in mid-2023. I’m also a little sad that I will have to end my V-V serialization here in November. After these three, there are another 13 poems but I don’t think it fair to Kelsay to publish them all in this wonderful journal.

However, I now ask a favor. Kelsay require three blurbs and if anyone reading this would be so generous as to write a blurb, I will send you the manuscript and also the book in hard copy when it is published. Thanks, in anticipation!

In these haibun I continue to explore the all too common horror of coercive control. Here are poems 5-7. If anyone missed 1-4, they are in the October edition of Verse-Virtual.

Cleaning

I clean the pantry, take all the food off the shelves, wipe everything down. I pay attention to the entire house. It is immaculate. I want to please him. I will do exactly what he wants.

He returns at his usual time. He knows I have cleaned but makes no effort to look either in the pantry or at the house. He doesn’t speak. He sits and waits for dinner. I serve him. I watch his face, searching for his mood. My anxiety levels rise.

He looks at me so directly that fear ripples over me.

What have I done this time?

How can I make him happy and love me? 

the relentless sea 
curling and crashing on the cliff
crumbles it stone by stone

Against the Wall

Tony loves his mates and he loves to go drinking with them. It is his regular weekend routine.

This night he has been out on an all-night bender. It is 7 AM. I am in the kitchen. I hear him open the door. He is very drunk. He leans against the wall. He looks at me. His upper lip curls. I see only challenge and contempt. That look says that he can do what he likes when he likes and there is not a thing I can do about it. The look says get in your place. It says I am completely under his control.

I have learnt to fear him but the moment blazes beyond fear. I am holding a glass of water. I throw the water on him. It is a foolish impulse. I see his anger rise and I recoil. He moves so fast. His hands dig cruelly into my upper arms. He is very strong. He lifts me off the ground and bangs me against the wall, just once but hard.

“I could fucken kill you,” he says, still holding me against the wall.

Then he lets go and staggers drunkenly away.

I slide to the floor. I am winded. I try to breathe. I am so overcome I cannot even weep. 

held fast on the web 
the moth, exhausted, resigned, 
ceases to struggle

The Stooping Hawk

Emboldened, he begins to stay out all night. I know he is seeing other women. He reeks of them. Then he stays out all weekend. Despite everything, I am worried. I contact his friends. I can hear their lies.

He returns, unapologetic. I am in a rage. I fly at him, want to hurt him. He fends me off, easily, pushes me against the wall and bangs my head on the bricks. I think I faint. When I come to, he is sitting watching TV. When he looks at me, he smirks. 

the stooping hawk, 
feeling no pity for the prey,
exults in the strike
©2022 Neil Creighton
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