After the Workshop
Released from the pressure of concentration we step outside, blink, stretch, expand. Like the hover flies disguised as bees, we too cluster round the tall mahonia where, attracted by yellow multi-petalled bells or by some scent we cannot discern, butterflies slowly fan their wings in the autumn sun. Absorbed in the moment, in quiet wonder, we stand.
Leonie Ewing
On The Brink
There, on the brackish brink, the gritty grey sand stuck to my sodden shoes. The harsh wind cut through my clothing, stabbing me like a sharpened blade.
There, on the brackish brink, the cold grey water lay frozen in an endless, tedious sheet. Grey rocks and grey skies.
There, on the brackish brink, the seagull and the curlew cried. The memories of grey lives, just there.
There, on the brackish brink.
Christine Cameron
Levity, Gravity
This is not bombing. Bombing, like petting, running and fucking is what you’re not allowed to do at the baths. This, friend, is tombstoning. It is way more. He does it because he is big and brave, I do it because I love him. I love him. It is not pure fear making my heart too fast on the lip, it is knowing his eyes are upon me unto death. I love him. This, also, is not allowed. So I laugh and jump feet first into so cold sea and my heat is killed with me, breath I hold becomes his name cried to water; I love him. When I surface alive his name and my still living make my heart pump joy of life and him, who looks down and laughs, so I must jump again, feet first and jump again, feet first unto death or until that day I become hard man just like him.
JoAnne McKay
Ice Wind
On a nor-easterly it comes, gathering like a foul temper.
That bastard ice wind, an angry spirit raging armed with frozen flakes,
the size of silvered coins, thrown hard on stripped April ground.
Harsh land where lambs try to shake birth slime clear from womb-snotted heads.
Their flailing bodies should be licked, that life force triggered to flicker inside them;
but these ewes stand, covered ashen fleeces on pins.
This season they’re milk-less.
Fiona Russell
published in 'Pushing Out The Boat 9' Aberdeen.
MECHANICS by Mike Smith
He’s got that bloody poem stripped down again The kitchen floor’s knee deep In rough edged images Discarded adjectives A metaphor to fit That won’t improve on it one little bit
He says it isn’t scanning sweet And listens for a missing beat
It’s not as if he ever takes it out But rides it in his dreams Where he might leap the gulf Between him and the world
He’s got that bloody poem stripped down again And if he ever gets it running right, what then?
Kowalski’s OGM (from That's What Ya Get! Kowalski's Story, and his other assertions, by Brindley Hallam Dennis)
Kowalski ain’t home. Mildred, that’s his old lady, she ain’t home either. Ya see, that’s what ya get! That’s what ya get fer callin’ such a dumb-ass hour. That means you Hank! Ya wanna leave a message, talk to the machine when it beeps. We’ll get back to ya. Ya don’t wanna a leave a message, that suit us fine too. Will that do Mildred? How d’ya turn this thing off? Oh, yeah!
Cambridge blues
The whole world waits to see the dress, Will it be velvet, silk or lace? We want a gorgeous new princess.
A million Brits together press, As honoured guests all take their place, The whole world waits to see the dress.
Kate’s here – she’s getting out – and yes! The Sarah Burton gown is ace, We watch our gorgeous new princess.
The bishops preach and pray and bless, Hats, trees and flowers fill every space, The whole world looks upon the dress.
Under the flypast and the kiss, Under the flower girl’s tired wee face, Crowds cheer the gorgeous new princess.
The wedding’s been a grand success, The bride’s been praised for poise and grace, The whole world’s happy with the dress – But gets a gorgeous new Duchess!
29 April 2011
Barbara Mearns
Stations of the Corpse Road, Grasmere
I They climb the Corpse Road, burdened, breathing purple deadnettle. They do slow close-up of shepherd’s purse
II and gain the split slate horizontals of walls chocked like hymn books, locked onto gradient, their pages loosened over tree roots %uF02D
III and a dead elm singing and bee hum in the fox-and-cubs and gear change stutter on the hairpin %uF02D
IV and their eyes taste thin furred cream of elderflower: libation, sacred to the memory of.
V Though underfoot they clutch wet emerald rock, mossed in the old religion, underhand, outcropped
VI and gapped as gaping mouths, in search of air, or water.
Jean Atkin winning poem in the Torbay Poetry Competition 2010
Cat v Dog
Early in the morning she slides flat through the window gap airing the kitchen, flushes the sparrows from the bay tree and rolls wholeheartedly in the coal dust outside the coal shed. She is a mostly white cat, currently a smudged grey cat. From down the lane comes the hysterical yacking of two Jack Russells, loosed for their morning pee, They are all noise and circles but she keeps a yellow eye on their proximity. She is a cat that has been bitten. She leaps onto the brick wall, nuzzles the honeysuckle’s wood stalks with shut eyes, head thrown back. Indoors next door, a huge black mongrel places its front paws on the windowsill and whines wetly through the glass. The cat assesses the situation. Purring, she lopes across the space and places herself on the window-ledge in front of the dog with just the glass between them. She arches her back, tail erect, stretches. The dog spasms, leaping and twisting, saliva spraying through a series of frantic high barks. The cat turns her head slowly towards the dog and stares into its mad eyes, trusting the glass. The dog whines, a high, hopeless keening for a world without windows.
Vivien Jones published on Pygmy Giant website showcase February 2010
Fragility
How can we talk about the bad stuff to each other? To bring it up makes it real, to make it real sharpens it and risks a cut to fray this perfect silk carefully woven year by year, stronger than ever, but fragile still.
Katy Ewing
Gloaming, Dalfibble
Only 15 minutes in that dying pause after the last out-breath of sun a dirty-milkbottle of a time neither milk nor bottle today's sparkle soured by darkening dregs of cold cloud
This stained, blurred, edgy light opens you like a knife spills you out drowns your landmarks black hedgerow, black tree ambush a hellish owl-moth flash-framed, screaming
in the field alongside the greens and browns blur to grey hiding there a wolf your foundations shifting like gravels remembering something about a dying glacier
while a huge gleaming car whispers past neon rows of tail-lights make a shallow red vee, frowning suspicious of other designs on life 'Child On Board' reads the sticker
Vorsprung durch Technik Advancement through technology but dressed in skins two crouched figures watch the wolf as it closes on the sudden, young laugh of a girl nearby
a cottage door opens her mobile phone screen ….............
her mobile phone screen bobs and flashes a radio programme escapes to ride the distant drone of a train on the west-coast line 15 minutes have come and gone
David Tollick January 2010
Excerpt from “Digby’s Journey”.
When they met in Glasgow, Zaggy said, “So. You’ve decided to take the risk”, but Digby told me he was nowhere near “taking the risk”. He wanted to know far more about this journey before he committed himself to it. What they had told him about it so far was totally incomprehensible, and he hadn’t travelled all that way to be bounced into anything so strange without asking a few questions.
He told me that over the last few months he had been told one weird thing after another about what the place was like, such as ……………..
“Getting there is easy. Getting back is difficult. It depends how you got there”, and, “There’s hundreds of ways in, but most of them don’t lead anywhere now”, and, “It is the place that wealth comes from”, and, “There’s lots of people who just slip through a trapdoor, and without realising it they land on the treadmill”, and, “Life can regenerate there”, and, “If it wasn’t you doing it you’d be terrified of what was happening to you”, and, “You can get there for nothing but I wouldn’t advise it”, and, “It used to be divided into three places, but there’s only two now. Limbo-land for the Twitterers has vanished”, and, “You’re better off with a guide but that’s expensive”, and, “When you first arrive, it’s like Heaven. But then it’s downhill all the way”, and, “It changed hands around one & a half thousand years ago”, and, “It’ll cost you everything you’ve got”, and, “You’ll find your way to it on the furthest border of your farm”.
After reciting all that Digby’s comment was, “Not exactly a Cook’s tour is it?” and he went on to say that he didn’t have a farm, and all he wanted to know was what it was like. Was it worth the money and so on; how many people had made this journey and how long it would take, but Zaggy just ignored such questions. “Yes or No?” he asked and Digby, to his astonishment and without hesitation, said “Yes”. He told me that Zaggy pulled out a notebook and said, “OK. Next Friday. Twelve o’ clock. We’ll make a start”.
A night or two after that meeting Digby dreamt he was in a pretty little country hotel packed with people. They were all talking, eating & drinking, bustling around on their various businesses, bells ringing, doors opening, doors shutting, someone standing at a telephone and talking, and another telephone ringing urgently. There was a funny little man, small and round with spectacles and an agitated manner. He was beckoning to Digby and saying, “Come on. This way. This way. Do come on”. Digby followed him outside. The fussy little fellow picked up a ladder and jostled his way to an old stone wall, ten feet high and covered in ivy. “Come on”, he said, “Don’t be so slow. This way”. He put the ladder against the wall and climbed half way up it, still saying “Quick. Come on. Do come on. This way. This way”.
That’s where the dream ended. And that’s where Digby’s journey began.
M.Gill
The Song Of The Sea
The lonely cry of a gull is heard The answering call of a friendly bird, The sea batters against the rocks, Cruel and harsh it pounds and mocks.
“The ruler of this land am I,” One can almost hear its’ triumphant cry, “Even Canute was no match for me, No mortal hand can still the sea”.
“Ships and men, I toss them away, Covering their bulk in foaming spray, The essence of life I suck and sift, Then carelessly toss the dregs adrift”.
“But use me well, and you will find, I can be useful to mankind, For my bounties, they are vaster, Than puny man’s, of whom I’m master”.
Anne Richardson
It’s what you need
Jack stared glumly at his wellies.
“Alright” said Kate, “we’ll use sticks”.
She fetched some grubby bean canes and some stout string from the shed while Jack collected broken branches from the crunchy brown carpet beneath the old beech. Two bags of crisps and one argument later, they had built an untidy tepee. They crawled inside and say down.
Jack looked up. He could see lots of daylight.
“What if it rains?” he said.
Kate crawled back out and returned to the shed. She brought a plastic sheet and threw it over the stick house. Then she wriggled in again and sat down, hugging her knees. The wind blew and the plastic flapped.
Kate shivered. “It’s insubstantial” she said.
“In subwhatshall?” wondered Jack.
“We need bricks and a motor” she replied, knowingly.
Jack sighed sadly and hunched.
“I don’t have that” he said.
Jack stared glumly at his wellies.
“Alright” said Kate, “we’ll use sticks”.
She fetched some grubby bean canes and some stout string from the shed while Jack collected broken branches from the crunchy brown carpet beneath the old beech. Two bags of crisps and one argument later, they had built an untidy tepee. They crawled inside and say down.
Jack looked up. He could see lots of daylight.
“What if it rains?” he said.
Kate crawled back out and returned to the shed. She brought a plastic sheet and threw it over the stick house. Then she wriggled in again and sat down, hugging her knees. The wind blew and the plastic flapped.
Kate shivered. “It’s insubstantial” she said.
“In subwhatshall?” wondered Jack.
“We need bricks and a motor” she replied, knowingly.
Jack sighed sadly and hunched.
“I don’t have that” he said.
Sally Jordan
|