Poems
Building the Alder Fence (Merit Prize in the Nottingham Open 2005)
First they fetch the alder. It's a long slow
walk up to the woods, over the hill then down
towards the marsh where the alder grow.
Long for three men who sit all day and drink
and eat dry bread and herring, fresh curd, maybe, then sleep.
Sometimes you'll see them, lying in the stink
of their own piss out there in the fields
waiting for the mind to clear. It takes the better part
of the morning to reach the marsh. Then they'll
decide which branches fit their purpose, bundle
them, slice off twigs. As the sun dips beyond the firs,
they'll head back up the hill arms full, trundle
home with not even a horse to lighten
their load, through the darkening woods.
Their gait is just as slow as when
they left, though not as straight. As for the fence, there's no race
now to do the job, and when they've wrenched
and woven or plied a few green branches into place,
they're done. Eyes focussing on the distance,
they huddle on the village bench, vodka
spilling,
the task forgotten. That is the urgency.
Kolodno, Eastern
Poland
Two poems
from Tears of Honey and Gold , Five Leaves
Publications.
On the road from Daroca to
Calatayud
the hills are the colour of camels.
Dirty. Low. Studded with almond trees.
All that remains of the great Morisco
expulsion:
the churches's thin mudéjar-style bricks
and a feeling of desolation.
Calatayud itself spurts grey out of the
rock
in a series of timorous outgrowths
on the crust of the Meseta.
Then comes the Sierra de la Virgen
where towns called Moros or Almonacid
are all that is left to remind us.
But there's always a ruined castle
and always a church. Where Berbers
for
generations harvested the grain,
never a trace of a mosque…Yet early
courgettes
and peppers from Almería, and giant
hollow strawberries from
are still picked by men the
same
olive brown as those you'd have found
on the road from Daroca to Calatayud.
It's Spring, and we have travelled miles, mile
upon blood-red mile, but still the same
stumps,
still the feeble wisps of olive branch
punctuate the hills'
vermilion.
The cork trees too, their hearts plucked
out,
droop their green arms or dance, now stripped,
their smooth black-stockinged legs
leaping half-crazed across the empty
fields.
Here are no tillers. No peasant women
dressed in black. No mules. A few sleek bulls
grazing the landscape, walls enclosing
nothing, gates leading
nowhere.
Hunger-harsh Extremadura, that sent
conquistadors
across the sea to plunder, rape, destroy,
now waits it turn: corks to be stripped,
olives
pollarded, black bulls to the
ring.
And yet it's Spring and you can almost hear the
warm earth
pushing up the cobalt bells of borage,
spreading
the mallow, setting bright lavender to sparkle
mauve,
speckling pastures with sudden gold, softening
the background.
Published in the 2004 Biscuit Prize
Anthology
2. An
example from Sudden Maraschinos with my translation into French for the
La Rochelle readings:
Swedish Archaeology:
reading Karin Boye in the
original. Slow
work at first. Scrape scrape on
the upper layers of earth, sifting weird vowels; my
trowel struck on
hollow consonants, rubbed them clean; spade
dug deep along the walls, till
the loci showed: paths
and streets, shape, not meaning.
Then
out of the clay the stark
dirge shone: En dag är so lang a day is so long,
my own old tongue stripped to the
bone. No Latin words; no Norman yet. Det faller snö, det viner
vind, snow falls, wind
whines. Bare flakes of words – wind-honed. First published in The Journal of
Anglo-Scandinavian Poetry, UK, now The
Journal and in The Cumberland Review ,
US. |
Archéologie
suédoise en lisant Karin Boye en suédois Travail ardu au départ: gratter, gratter les couches supérieures de terre, tamiser des voyelles étranges; ma truelle bute contre des consonnes creuses, les décrasse; ma bêche s'enfonce le long des murs, pour révéler les lieux, des sentiers, des rues: forme sans fonds. Puis tout d'un coup brille dans l'argile une chanson rude. En dag är so
lang a day is so
long ma propre langue celle d'antan dégagée enfin: aucun mot latin pas encore du normand Det faller snö, det viner
vind, snow falls, wind whines. Des petits flocons de mots limés par le vent. |
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First prize Saffron Waldon Poetry Competition
2000
This is an
end of the world shore.
Behind, the
still lagoons; a clutch of ibis
poking
their slender bills into the mud,
a lone
anhinga his ragged wings
hung out to
dry in the grey silence.
Looking south – or is it west? – the Gulf side,
no sharp distinction indicates a
coast.
Just this torn straggle of
reeds
limping their way out in the rippled
water
no waves no rock no tide
a row of poles reach with its timeless
pelican
facing the pale horizon.
Only the
smart lighthouse
makes you
realise boats
must come
this way.
Published
Jewish Women's Literary Annual, New York, 2000-2001