© 2011 SUE MORGAN
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems—without the prior written permission of the author.
ISBN: 978-1-908282-94-1
Published by ORIGINAL WRITING LTD., Dublin, 2011.
Some of the poems featured in this book have been published in Static Poetry Volumes I, II and III, The Poetry Map (NI Arts Council), Te Best of Writing for All 2010 and online in HaikuJ, Every Day Poets and Writing4All.
It is the first time they have appeared together in a collection.
A DRAGON’S EGG
Long ago you put the stone egg
into my hand. Turned again
to paddle ten toes in Stickle Tarn
giving your small child’s smile.
Pink and grey, laid by Lakeland mountain.
I have it now, held in the nesting palm
of a winter hand. A touch-stone.
Comfortable, sustaining even,
as I close five fingers about its enduring curves,
hold in my mouth the rounded feel
of Earth’s chronicle, ready
to entrust with subtle kiss
memories that belong to me alone.
Worn smooth, soothing. Solid.
My granite talisman against
decay, I try to hatch you
on the wing of warm thought,
a sleeping dragon that waits.
DOODLES (MADE BY CLARKS)
Blue shoes.
Beautiful blue canvas shoes,
that once enclosed tiny toes, hidden
from mother bird pecks, my kisses
which would have you an infant yet.
Blue shoes.
Happy shoes that splashed
the water’s edge at Mawgan Porth.
Shrieked surprise at sand-shift under
unsuspecting feet that took tumbles
and danced your Humpty Dumpty jig.
Shoes that scaled the heights
of chain-wire fenced adventure, gathered
solar system gobs of clay from muddy puddles,
then toddled you straight to childhood.
ROUNDING THE CIRCLE
My infant knees bend, scrape their softness
on millstone’s hard-hewn flags,
the gritty pavements of Oxford Street,
chalked ‘a’s and ‘o’s in pink and yellow,
pastel against your brown skin, taught well in Trinidad
before you came to live next door.
I try to copy but my large drawn shapes have gaps.
I make a fist and try harder, tongue between teeth,
pressing down until chalk crumbles into dust.
Effort leached at once
by East Lancs rain, wet
we go inside for cheese on toast.
I the teacher now, hand out pristine sheets
and colouring pens to small hands
that still slip and slide in the struggling.
R IS FOR REMEDIAL
On my first day of teaching
the Head took me to a room
at the end of the corridor,
the one with peeling paint at the edges
and old yellow sellotape stuck to the windows.
I had a view of the deck-access flats,
the kids’ view was me.
They gave me 1R but never said what the R was for.
There were two Waynes and a Wendy
who wouldn’t take off her coat.
Wayne One banged his head on the desk
towards an upturned nail at the corner.
Wayne Two asked if it would snow,
and the kids looked at me.
First staff meeting, I asked for coloured pencils
‘You’re teaching History, not effing Art’
was the official reply.
So I bought a pack from Woolworths,
with a sharpener and some paper.
We drew pictures of the pyramids
and stuck them over purple paint
and the kids just smiled.
By the end of five years we’d covered the walls,
It’d snowed twice and the nail
was truly hammered into wood.
The kids laughed as they left me standing there,
Wendy, still with her coat on.
CROSSING THE LINE
You sat on my steps on a Saturday night.
I, back from the Knowles,
you, rice-flail in hand, arms by your side,
pain pooling in the knuckle duster
which shone under street lights.
‘Can I have a drink, Miss?
‘Coffee,’ I said, ‘nothing more!’ as
I opened the door and crossed
a threshold to moral dilemma.
Whilst the kettle boiled
you watched Match of the Day.
I made a bundle of your things,
wrapped in the bag I hid under the sink.
Gently, I washed blood from your hands
like a mother, and felt like Mary Magdalene.
You waved goodbye when you knew
the coast would be clear,
that drink-induced sleep, and time,
blessed you and protected you,
keeping your Mum from harm. Just for today.
Raymond didn’t do maths
or, so he said.
He didn’t do art or music either.
Illiterate, was what they wrote. But,
full of entrepreneurial zeal,
Raymond found his niche
running rent boys
in the Witton Park flats.
He could calculate when the dole
was due and how many times
boys would have to turn table
to keep his Mum from the street.
In the second term of Fifth year
the EWO dragged him back into school
giving enough time before the Easter leaving
to practice how to write her eulogy.
JAPANESE SHORT FORM
Sunshine spears
slice field daylight
into neat portions
x
Snake sheds its skin
on hard stone wall
diamond reminder
x
Iced winter rain
drips stars on the dustbin
galvanised sparkle
x
Nested courgettes
wear bright summer bonnets
paradise salad
Talking to strangers
red wine in hand
now we are brothers
x
The black rat snake
unwinds his night body
greets the sunshine
x
Ragweed stars
bright edge of the meadow
blind horses walk by
x
Heat haze rises
over bubbling tarmac
walking on toffee
x
Peeling potatoes
view from the window
a skinned sun sets
DORNOCH 1989 – A COLD WINTER
Beneath quilted hills in hibernation
the Old School House at Rearquhar
lay just as it should, at slumber.
Your father’s dreams flowing
through Èibhleag’s black waters
to season summer gathered wood.
We walked the bridge, talked
and threw sticks into snow-melt,
words to fashion a future,
forever frozen in clear air.
Such a welcome, as warm as lambswool,
cossetting quietly without show.
That below -stairs hideaway bedroom,
all mellow wood and creaking sounds
that sloped away with the ceiling.
Then, cloutie dumpling, a greeting
that reached down the years,
to pass to generations yet to swell the room.
You looked at me and then there was only us
and I knew that I could have stayed forever.
THE KING’S HIGHWAY
What a drive!
We jump in the car hired at the airport,
head down the King’s Highway,
windows wide open,
the ‘aircon’ won’t work.
Roasting.
Driving to Aqaba.
Pirated road songs blare
from worn out cassettes.
‘Hotel California’ loud as you please
as we speed to the Gulf
on the squat open road.
The sea of the desert,
a black tarmac slick
that moves trucks from the south
to the souks in the north
of Amman.
Rusting wrecks to the left of us,
a donkey carcass to the right,
wind grabs our hair by its roots,
watery fear grips our bellies,
trucks tear over the hill
headed straight
for
us.
Five in a row,
hurtling to be first
down the slopes
of Abraham.
Playing chicken with no brakes!
Skewered and kebab’d.
Fried,
YIN AND YANG AT DUNDRUM BAY
My edges touch your edges.
Naked knees on the hard crust of sand
Where the sea spills into warm waters,
A crochet fringe along the shore
Where my fingers touch your fingers,
Coral tentacles which finger the void.
Your love, which is for me,
Lies against me and through me,
Washes over me,
An ocean that swallows the day.
A purple sunset spills its colours into rain,
Spreads its wings across the sky for me.
My mind slowly edges towards your mind,
Feels the frilled rim of your life,
Your edges have edges that fill mine.
THE COURTYARD AT ST JOHN’S
When I next see you I will kiss
The corners of your mouth with my eyes
And hand to you sweet lilies of the field,
Grown on white cliffs in mid-winter.
I will build a house for you
On the hillsides of Ayios Yeorgias,
Big enough to hold your dreams
And feed you with fat, warm-scented figs
From the courtyard at St John’s.
I will let red hibiscus fall
From behind my ears
And let sounds of the sea
Wash over my shoulders.
I will hand to you
The brown paper parcel of my days
Spent in long waiting
And give you yesterday’s news,
Of how the Wall in Berlin has fallen.
THE CONVENT BATH
Bleak born, ill born,
born of no morn,
no mourning aloud.
Taken from her turned out womb
and dashed across the stone.
A rabbit at its rut would have more
charity than you, who forced yourself
in spite of God, on Brides of Christ.
The bath, deep, so deep,
to mask the final cries and shrieks of birthing.
Burning, bawling from your ‘fires of hell’
and in their calling shout your name.
The edge, the lip, so large,
and curved, just so,
to catch the skull head on,
make haste the journey.
Buried in the bloodied rags beyond the sacred wall.
Did you anoint with sacramental oils and intercede?
Or turn your back and leave those nuns to pray?
TUTANKHAMEN
Climb slowly
down
stone step
after stone step,
swallowing time,
backwards.
Through dust’s darkness
into the tomb.
Alone with the Boy King
in his carved sarcophagus.
He lies patiently
waiting for time’s end.
Silence separates behind glass screens,
reverberates with after-life awe.
Staring, I don’t blink,
but he wins.
Stone step
up
stone step,
back to the light.
In the closing of a
blind eye I see the future.
LATE SUMMER MOURNES
Blue gentian
dripped
by liquid sky.
Lively yellow bindi,
button with no name,
brilliant sun pixel of beauty.
Lay you back in the warmth
let little jewels fall,
blanket you with dotted joy.
Spotted brilliance
to cover you through winter.
Peel off and swallow brightness
until the spring equinox is come again.
MORNING PRAYER
Mystery of the mountains
concealed behind your night shroud
let the soft illuminating light
of the newly born sun
part your veil
and may you salute my dreams.
GRIEF
Oh, binding cord of spirit,
Silver skein of sorrow,
Twist like a girdle round this frame.
Penetrate the weft
And weave into my soul
But do not leave me.
EVOLUTION
I am Fish Eye.
It seems you dreamed me alive
and I swallowed the rainbow of that dream.
See, I am black and white duality,
polarity born of ancient time.
Truth walks the lie of my fish feet,
fins that feel for patterns of new life.
So know that as you circle
in your shades of grey
the all-seeing Fish Eye
sees you.
DEEP IN THOUGHT
Shadows scud across your countenance
Like black sighs from a Dark Lord.
What depths of despair can I not see
behind the flat summer calm of your face?
GALWAY GRIEF
I spied a woebegone sight on the shores of Galway Bay.
A single file of women, black clad ravens all,
sloughed along a rise above the sea,
so stark in summer sunshine.
A coffin of a man was lifted high
and carried on salt breezes.
Grieving waves below could hold no more
and sprayed their sad lament
on slabs of solemn limestone.
Seagulls screeched and wheeled
in arcs of life, as if to chase away
this grisled silhouette of death.
THE RING!
Its lack shone like a beacon on her finger.
The third on the left, or second from the right,
dependant on which way you looked.
That empty digit sore lacked love’s external pulse.
Wanted! A fat, shiny diamond from the mine at Kimberley,
seen as a child in the days before we knew
that rivers of blood carried sparkle and greed.
So pained that that finger was bare,
her daydreams drew initials, joined and
filigreed,
pink ink at the back of her school-books.
She walked past Weir’s, sneaking glances askance,
with a quickening of feet that would have preferred
to dawdle and tread carefully over carat and clarity, and sheer size.
When the day came though, it was perfunctory.
She chose her own ring and paid from her purse.
An opal with little white diamonds, circled around
like seven vestal virgins, mocking her need to comply.
As soon as she could, it was slipped from the finger.
Her first born, here early, had skin like thin tissue
which tore in the breeze, and a hard stone that’d cut
was nothing that couldn’t be kept, in the earthenware pot
that sat on the shelf in her kitchen.
SIREN SONG FOR THE OLD MARINER
Death swells towards you.
Pneumonia’s cold tide washes,
Floods your beating heart,
Steals away your warmth.
Caught in a final net of no tomorrows.
Brittle air breathes the misted
Number of your days.
The dumb echo of my tears
Sounds your death knell.
Colour seeps and greyness falls
But quiet, like the mermaid’s caul.
ST BARTHOLOMEW’S MEMORY
I passed Paddy Doyle at the crossroads today,
at the wheel of his old ‘Grey Donkey’.
There was but a single tooth in his mouth
and a shock of hay at his temple.
I raised my hand in a greeting
but he didn’t wave back, why should he?
He’s been there as long
as the ancient yew and the old Celtic cross,
both visible over his shoulder.
FAIR ISLE
Needles click-clack, chattering tongues,
fingers knit one, purl one, knit two together.
Worn-down points exposed as silver tips
in blurred motion, too fast for my eyes.
All the while the conversation spins and weaves
its spells, wound lightly round gnarled fingers.
Words rise in the tip-tap cadence
of women’s secrets, wrapped firmly beneath curled knees.
Stretched hands in pairs receive skeined wool
with an unwinding and rewinding of tales
told tightly into coloured balls, binding
life’s patterns in intricate word melodies.
Itchy wool that seals out rain and wind
with words to keep young ears warm.
CUTTING TURF
The sod of our land has a deep soul
And holds its stories close.
Ages pass, unbidden but not forgotten.
Turf bonds with its tales.
Strike a match and light the fire.
Bring bread and cheese,
Fresh salmon from Loch Erne.
Come stay a while, take a sup to drink,
Chat about your day and tell me again
The feats of Ulster’s kings and their ways.
Let not our hospitality be blown away on brash winds,
Let mellow words carry far on turf’s sweet smoke.