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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (the poetry) WORM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 7
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Lost Things
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Memory is a tricky thing.
A semi-cohesive carbon smudge
on brain gauze.
Days were hotter then.
Ice pops colder. The sky
louder, soft grass happier to roll in.
Trees were taller and gray chunks
of gravel crunched under Keds
and bicycle tires like Cheerios
between small teeth.
We stuffed our lives
into assorted receptacles,
jam-packed into the wagon
after supper before it grew
too dark to see. My mother said,
the most important things go last,
meaning toothbrushes, coffee pot,
pillows, one more look around.
Holding hands caused an echo.
I scrape emulsion of memory,
recall one large box of my
belongings on the floor
of the garage. That's it,
my father said, we're finished here.
Say goodbye kids. Gravel crunches
as we move on again.
© Maryann Hazen-Stearns
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Only Difference
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I lie here.
You lie here with me.
Only difference is,
I lie on my back,
You lie through your teeth…
© Andrew Hull
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Teaching Siberian Cranes How To Fly
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Each year
as spring melts our sanctuary lake
I light incense and pray for
my remaining children to come home.
Even as I rejoice to see
them safe, I am counting.
In a small, fierce war
they are survivors returning
from life's sorties.
Some limping some
never
however long I watch.
From two eggs I choose one.
Such abundance cannot be left to chance.
From the moment when a tiny clone
emerges from its shell I know
I am its best mother.
From my inadequate store
I teach what it is to be a crane.
Crane-waking, crane-sleeping, crane-wisdom.
One day, after many days running
in my white crane clone coat
arms outstretched, calling
come follow me. Fly! My young one
thinking it is all a game
flaps and hops along behind
bounces uncertainly suddenly
gets the hang of it and
awkwardly elegant, soars up
at last.
Leaves
my feet sinking into autumn
my heart bouncing uncertainly
taking wing as crane-wisdom teaches it
how to fly.
© Carolyne Bruyn
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in the vomitorium #2
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aa'm rippin open the old tenants mail...their
...private
confidential
their...private & confidential
important...do not ignore
we intend to disco...
d'ya wanna be
11.9%
call c'mon call
use sara's address
...the benefits are
...useful services are
imperial locks
unisex funerals
the new harvest christ
gets free
depression drugs
pain sin quorn
tick...if yu intend to
contest jurisdiction
tick...if yu intend to
doo be doo be doo doo be doo be doo be doo be doo be doo
© Sean Burn
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I was the stranger…
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I was the stranger
who heard the bang and screech of brakes,
ran over to where you lay
motionless, feet over the edge of the kerb;
and felt your heart, beating,
saw the trickle of blood from behind your head;
nodded to another stranger, "Yes, call for an ambulance".
I it was who brought a first aid kit
whose contents were re-arranged helplessly
over the pavement, while your face grew puffy and pallid.
I watched as you were turned into the "recovery" position;
saw the confused crowd gather, and the man
who was clearly not a stranger softly brushing
your face: "It’ll be alright, Keiron, everything’s going to be alright."
It was my wife who invited over the passenger of the car
to sit and drink a cup of tea; listened to her story…
"He just ran across behind the van –
my husband had no chance to see him…
I was covered in glass – he hit my side of
the windscreen." I saw her shock and pain and
tearful eyes. And I wonder now,
did you see her face as you flew through the air,
and landed on the far side of the road.
And later, after watching all the comings and goings,
the ambulance that seemed not to want to leave,
the police coning off the road and questioning witnesses,
the crowd gradually dispersed,
I asked a policeman how he thought you were,
and had to ask, with a nauseous feeling, for clarification
"…not likely to survive."
And overheard him chatting to the fireman, who lightly remarked:
"More than just a nosebleed here" and
went about his business of washing away
your trickle of red.
And then, nothing, no news in next day’s paper,
only images in my head and feelings in my gut
until 8pm local radio news…
"Alfreton Road, yesterday evening…boy of fourteen…
died in accident…hit by a Ford Sierra car…"
And so, now I know,
that you were the stranger
that I felt, alive, but saw
dying – fading into the unknown
and I wonder how it really was;
I recall my own near-misses
and suddenly life appears so fragile.
I think about my children, your parents,
and the whole mass of humanity –
you were one of six billion, but you
will surely be painfully missed by some.
And finally, I wonder how to make
any sense of being there, with you,
that Friday evening: hearing, seeing, feeling
and going on with life,
not quite as it was.
© Arthur Williams
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Short Trip from Orlando to Eustis, Florida
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(a ren-haiku sequence)
truckstop...the shabby restaurant in dirty asphalt
north orlando...churches and nudie bars...on the edge
litter in the grass...countryside industrial buildings
apopka landmark henry's meat market for sale
citrus stand grapefruit...and red navels
severed branch of russet leaves
one loose rooster
spring bedmates
plumbago inside
a hibiscus
royal palms...their high collars of boston fern
new growth on tips on southern pine...white candles
ditch...cow egrets hide in cattails
billboard corner...eagle's nest at two'clock
gray clouds rush by
central florida railroad's
steel overpass
grain cars on the tracks...muck farms
zellwood...sweetcorn growing into season
the long stretch between north and south unstifled yawn
windshield wipers
scrape away
twenty minutes
passing...mount dora's mountainless...antique digs
retirees in fishing boats...mobile home parks
guidepost: town of tangerine...on lake ola
toward the water
six cypress
leaning hard
right turn exit...bumper-to-bumper with eustis snowbirds
© Debra Woolard Bender
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My Father has Stolen my Body
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My father has stolen my body in the night.
I noticed it gone in the mirror this morning;
He has left me his, in return,
While he sports mine in heaven:
I wonder who to complain to:
God won't listen,
He says he's heard it all before:
He says this sort of thing goes on all the time:
Dorian Gray has a sinister picture of Cliff Richard
In his attic: Jimmy Saville and Dr Who
Are never seen in public together.
Mrs Thatcher, with staring eyes, drinks Wincarnis
Dribbling like blood down her chin,
and is strangely afraid of light.
Wearied by arguing with God
(A pain in the arse who thinks he knows what's best for all of us)
Resigned, I sigh and say, you keep my body, dad:
Run in heaven, play cricket in heaven, have sex with angels,
Do all the things I can't do now: be young and fit.
I will be old and flabby on your behalf,
A balding git, an old dog with a grey muzzle,
And only half his teeth:
Who looks each morning's grizzled face in the mirror
And sees the father, beneath.
© Steve Rudd
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Windfalls
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I carried you for the first time,
wrapped in my arms
as if you were a child.
A horse passed by on First Avenue:
clip-clop, clip-clop; the swish
of his long tail. I remembered
clutching cubes of sugar,
how you'd said, "Just hold your hand out
flat and still."
Coming to coastal grass
we saw crows and gulls cruise
on pockets of cold, November air.
We scattered you seaward
thinking you'd fly east, across the North Sea,
to Holland, where you were born.
You turned westward,
brisk and wilful in the breeze,
back to our home
leaving my father
in a blur of light
and ash.
That night I woke at 3am.
Moonlight bathed my pillow,
lit the bullace path where once
we gathered windfalls.
© Christina Fletcher
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On Westminster Bridge
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The Thames wears a khaki shirt
with red bridge braid to beat some coloured kid.
Cocaine smuggler, you don't know him.
Detained, deported, dead.
... ...Tugela! make an oyster of his heart.
... ...Calm Tugela! bear his opened body
... ...through the fields again.
The Thames wears black polyester track pants,
waxes hair back into a shine,
cuts its own sweet 4 a.m line,
calls a mini-cab.
... ...All bright and glittering in the smoked up room.
... ...A sight so touching, so beautiful,
... ...never saw, never felt so deep
© Matthew Williams
(geographical note - Tugela - river in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)
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Spoor
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I dreamt a poem last night —
we followed a deer,
tracked its spoor through snow,
a neat double row
precise as stitches
edging the field’s smooth length.
In the sharpness of each print
we read an image,
saw loose ends of grass
dropped — fresh-cut trimmings
like fabric scraps
litter a workroom floor.
We imagined the contrast
as dark hooves pierced white,
the rhythmic sewing
a treadle’s slow pace
hemming the crispness,
keeping rawness in place.
Measured, stride for clumsy stride,
our four boots unpicked
the seam, made ragged
by our heavy use
edges frayed — trail lost
where the deer leapt the hedge.
© Jean M. Harvey
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Brother
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Brother
Small boy in short trousers, a summer afternoon;
...your report tells Dad you're not top of the class.
Dad
Expects the best of you, the eldest,
...his father's birthright in workers' education.
Birthright
We used to play tin can squat in our fifties' terrace
... ...with the gas light at the bottom,
At the bottom
Kept fancy mice in our ash-pit to stuff in pockets,
...exchanged Irn Bru bottles for a chinchilla.
Chinchilla
Our short-haired dutch once bit their way out
...of a paper bag on the bus: we laughed.
Bit their way out
We built a breeding box
...in anticipation of increase;
In anticipation
Put matches to your miniature engine,
...watched it steam round silver tracks;
Silver tracks
Mixed iron filings with copper sulphate
...because we longed for blue flowers.
Blue flowers
At eleven you set fire to a ring of Meths
...with me in the middle
Fire
And passed me a bright red OXO tin
...of Ripraps about to go off.
Passed
I ring Saudi, tell you he's dead. You say they need you
...at work. I shout down the phone.
In the end you came;
and cried
in the bar afterwards.
© Christine Bousfield
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Fall Across de la Mare Shadows
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Cello vibrations build bridges, brush
me into swept chords, stretch
me into pastime, hush
near my neck, bend, bow
me over, string me along
with Sandburg in Some Other Time:
My Ohs flex against Aldous
while Moon Ghosts swing
on Edwards' Diamonds of Rain, pass
Roberts' Frost and Flight
reach Renouncement
sway with Alice
share with Sara what was...
Hidden in the Heart; we tremble
through Belloc Riddles and Gibran Prayers
and shiver with Housman
and for Changes and changes
and changes and flutter into Gold Leaves
and Chesterton flirts and fall
across de la Mare Shadows
© Calaya J. Williams
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Red Name
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Emily I like.
Or Emma.
Molly, Milly, Nicky
or is it Nikki?
Well I guess
it doesn't matter.
Jessica, Jess,
Hannah, Anna, ....
She wasn't big enough
for a name -
even a small name;
a red name.
© Ian Andrews
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Compiling Editor: John Carley
Associate Editors: Calaya J. Williams, Carolyne Bruyn
Editorial Support: Helen Clare
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We gratefully acknowledge the support of:
North West Arts Board & Mid Pennine Arts
Celebrating Year of the Artist
June 2000 ~ May 2001
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