Poetry

[alycidon]

Scotland's Makar, Jackie Kay, was a wee bit younger when she wrote 'Sassenachs' about her first journey to London with her pal, Jenny. It took me back to times gone by, hanging about with a pal that you really liked, but was capable of embarrassing you.


Sassenachs

Me and my best pal (well, she was
till a minute ago) are off to London.
First trip on an InterCity alone.
When we got on we were the same
kind of excited – jigging on our seats,
staring at everyone. But then,
I remembered I was to be sophisticated
So when Jenny starts shouting,
‘Look at that, the land’s flat already,’
when we are just outside Glasgow
(Motherwell actually) I feel myself flush.
Or even worse, ‘Sassenach country.
Wey Hey Hey.’ The tartan tammy
sitting proudly on top of her pony;
the tartan scarf swinging like a tail.
The nose pressed to the window.
‘England’s not so beautiful, is it?’
And we haven’t even crossed the border.
And the train’s jazzy beat joins her:
Sassenachs sassenachs here we come.
Sassenachs sassenachs Rum Tum Tum.
Sassenachs sassenachs how do you do.
Sassenachs sassenachs we’ll get you.
Then she loses momentum, so out come
the egg mayonnaise sandwiches and
the big bottle of bru. ‘Ma ma’s done us proud,’
says Jenny, digging in, munching loud.
The whole train is an egg and I’m inside it.
I try and remain calm; Jenny starts it again,
Sassenachs sassenachs Rum Tum Tum.

Finally, we get there: London, Euston;
and the very first person on the platform
gets asked – ‘Are you a genuine sassenach?’
I want to die, but instead I say, Jenny.
He replies in that English way –
‘I beg your pardon,’ and Jenny screams
‘Did you hear that Voice?’
And we both die laughing, clutching
our stomachs at Euston station.

Jackie Kay

Oh my! Very first phrase is that terrible solecism - ME and my best pal. Totally incorrect which even poetic licence will not allow. Trouble is, the rot has set in and we are never going to eradicate it.

[johncorrigan]

Oh my! Very first phrase is that terrible solecism - ME and my best pal. Totally incorrect which even poetic licence will not allow. Trouble is, the rot has set in and we are never going to eradicate it.

Not a fan of 'Me and Bobby McGee' then, alycidon.

[alycidon]

Not a fan of 'Me and Bobby McGee' then, alycidon.

Probably not, John.

[Padraig]

Oh my! Very first phrase is that terrible solecism - ME and my best pal. Totally incorrect which even poetic licence will not allow. Trouble is, the rot has set in and we are never going to eradicate it.

If I could offer a justification, alycidon, I would borrow our colleague MrGG's immortal slogan - 'Context, context, context' .

[Padraig]

Really do recommend the poetry of RS Thomas esp his collection 'Residues' publ Bloodaxe.

Draco, sorry for not referring to your recommendation before now. Sorry too that I have not read any RS Thomas poetry recently, though I think I have at least one 'slim volume' of his.
In the midst of poets from Wales and Scotland here is another from Ireland, the recently deceased Eavan Boland. She is another poet I have neglected, only coming across her poems in anthologies. The one that came to mind for this post is:

The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me

It was the first gift he ever gave her,
buying it for five francs in the Galeries
in prewar Paris. It was stifling.
A starless drought made the nights stormy.

They stayed in the city for the summer.
They met in cafes. She was always early.
He was late. That evening he was later.
They wrapped the fan. He looked at his watch.

She looked down the Boulevard des Capucines.
She ordered more coffee. She stood up.
The streets were emptying. The heat was killing.
She thought the distance smelled of rain and lightning.

These are wild roses, appliqued in silk
by hand - darkly picked, stitched boldly, quickly.
The rest is tortoiseshell and has the reticent,
clear patience of its element. It is

a worn-out, underwater bullion and it keeps,
even now, an inference of its violation.
The lace is overcast, as if the weather
it opened for and offset had entered it.

The past is an empty cafe terrace.
An airless dusk before thunder. A man running.
And no way now to know what happened then -
none at all - unless, of course, you improvise:

The blackbird on this first sultry morning
in summer, finding buds, worms, fruit,
feels the heat. Suddenly, she puts out her wing -
the whole, full, flirtatious span of it.

Eavan Boland !944 - 27 April 2020

[johncorrigan]

While reading through my wee Emily Dickinson book, I came upon this piece and thought it so beautifully rhythmic. On examining further it is suggested that it explains why she did not want her work published...the danger of abandoning purity. Sometimes it is written 'Through the Straight Pass of Suffering' - I assume interchangeable.

Through the Strait Pass of Suffering –
The Martyrs – even - trod.
Their feet - upon Temptation –
Their faces – upon God –

A Stately – Shriven – Company –
Convulsion - playing round –
Harmless – as Streaks of Meteor –
Upon a Planet's Bond –

Their faith - the Everlasting Troth –
Their Expectation – fair –
The Needle – to the North Degree -
Wades – so – through Polar Air!

Emily Dickinson
- F187 (1861) 792

[Padraig]

While reading through my wee Emily Dickinson book, I came upon this piece and thought it so beautifully rhythmic. On examining further it is suggested that it explains why she did not want her work published...the danger of abandoning purity. Sometimes it is written 'Through the Straight Pass of Suffering' - I assume interchangeable.

Through the Strait Pass of Suffering –


Emily Dickinson
- F187 (1861) 792

John, I'm tempted to challenge your assumption above; to argue that it is usually a big mistake to 'correct' Emily Dickinson's choice of words. I've seen both strait and straight versions, but I can't find out if she chose one over the other. That she thought of each, suggests that she could have chosen either. All I'll venture is that a 'straight pass of suffering' looks much easier than a 'strait pass of suffering', and she's writing about Martyrs here. She certainly does not make it easy to pass through her poems.

The Martyrs even tread of their feet upon Temptation reminds me of another short poem - perhaps relevant to today's being the anniversary of VE Day - E D would have been aware of war preparations in her time and of military parades etc.

To fight aloud, is very brave -
But gallanter, I know
Who charge within the bosom -
The Cavalry of Woe -

Who win, and nations do not see -
Who fall - and none observe -
Whose dying eyes, no Country
Regards with patriot love -

We trust, in plumed procession
For such, the Angels go -
Rank after Rank, with even feet -
And Uniforms of Snow.

Emily Dickinson 1859 pub 1890

[Padraig]

It's Emily again!

They say that "Time assuages" -
Time never did assuage -
An actual suffering strengthens
As sinews do, with Age.

Time is a Test of Trouble -
But not a Remedy -
If such it prove, it prove too
There was no Malady.

Written in 1863, but not published until 1896. This relentlessly assertive little poem was published with the insightful title "Time's Healing"! Perhaps the editor had an eye to public awareness of the horrors of the Civil War then raging.

Emily Dickinson 1830 - 1886

[Joseph K]

The End of the Friendship

Tell me: how did you think I would react
to being shouted at? With gratitude?
I scoff at your tantrums, your lack of tact –
you’re meant to be my friend and yet you’re rude
to me – I will not tolerate abuse
from a purported ally, spitting bile
at me like a buffoon – there’s no excuse
for such behaviour – and especially while
I’m doing you a favour. I refuse
to be on the receiving end of insults,
you puerile ninny, but instead I choose
to cast aside the friendship of a kidult
whose company has caused a lack of pride –
you’ve never been entirely on my side.

January 2018

[johncorrigan]

Just bringing together two things from the weekend...on Saturday we were walking up the glen and saw a bank of sand in a field, and watched sand martins darting in, out and all around. On Sunday I listened to an old 'In Our Time' about John Clare and, of course, he tells us about the sand martin in a way no other does...at least, none that I've read.

The Sand Martin

Thou hermit haunter of the lonely glen
And common wild and heath--the desolate face
Of rude waste landscapes far away from men
Where frequent quarrys give thee dwelling place
With strangest taste and labour undeterred
Drilling small holes along the quarrys side
More like the haunts of vermin than a bird
And seldom by the nesting boy descried
Ive seen thee far away from all thy tribe
Flirting about the unfrequented sky.
And felt a feeling that I cant describe
Of lone seclusion and a hermit joy
To see thee circle round nor go beyond
That lone heath and its melancholly pond

John Clare

[DracoM]

'Swifts' / Ted Hughes in 'Season Song'

[vinteuil]

'Swifts' / Ted Hughes in 'Season Song'

Fifteenth of May. Cherry blossom. The swifts
Materialize at the tip of a long scream
Of needle. ‘Look! They’re back! Look!’ And they’re gone
On a steep

Controlled scream of skid
Round the house-end and away under the cherries. Gone.
Suddenly flickering in sky summit, three or four together,
Gnat-whisp frail, and hover-searching, and listening

For air-chills – are they too early? With a bowing
Power-thrust to left, then to right, then a flicker they
Tilt into a slide, a tremble for balance,
Then a lashing down disappearance

Behind elms.
They’ve made it again,
Which means the globe’s still working, the Creation’s
Still waking refreshed, our summer’s
Still all to come —
And here they are, here they are again
Erupting across yard stones
Shrapnel-scatter terror. Frog-gapers,
Speedway goggles, international mobsters —

A bolas of three or four wire screams
Jockeying across each other
On their switchback wheel of death.
They swat past, hard-fletched

Veer on the hard air, toss up over the roof,
And are gone again. Their mole-dark labouring,
Their lunatic limber scramming frenzy
And their whirling blades

Sparkle out into blue —
Not ours any more.
Rats ransacked their nests so now they shun us.
Round luckier houses now
They crowd their evening dirt-track meetings,

Racing their discords, screaming as if speed-burned,
Head-height, clipping the doorway
With their leaden velocity and their butterfly lightness,
Their too much power, their arrow-thwack into the eaves.

Every year a first-fling, nearly flying
Misfit flopped in our yard,
Groggily somersaulting to get airborne.
He bat-crawled on his tiny useless feet, tangling his flails

Like a broken toy, and shrieking thinly
Till I tossed him up — then suddenly he flowed away under
His bowed shoulders of enormous swimming power,
Slid away along levels wobbling

On the fine wire they have reduced life to,
And crashed among the raspberries.
Then followed fiery hospital hours
In a kitchen. The moustached goblin savage

Nested in a scarf. The bright blank
Blind, like an angel, to my meat-crumbs and flies.
Then eyelids resting. Wasted clingers curled.
The inevitable balsa death.
Finally burial
For the husk
Of my little Apollo —

The charred scream
Folded in its huge power.

[agingjb]

ePicks

Uncertainly the sequence starts;
Mischief demands a pointless choice;
An idle tuneless finger plucks
Asking the innocent to rejoice,
Singing for unsuspended hearts.
Manic narration in each voice,
A potent undervalued crux

Intense and tribal vengeance gets
Unwelcome but defined advice.
Accepting what repels and shocks,
No calculation of the price,
And no reversal of the debts,
Darkly attending sacrifice.
The seas are stabbed and lined with rocks.

War represents itself in sports,
Racing to be the first to cross.
But games cannot preclude the axe
Which buries friends beneath the moss;
And yields impatient vengeful thoughts,
Which culminate in general loss
Collecting unforgiven tax.

No entry to the waiting streets,
Persistent use of futile force;
A new idea, a savage hoax,
Whose fame will never lose its course,
Creates a model world for cheats;
An able story of divorce,
An hourly watch, the city smokes.

Escape leads to pernicious straits,
To the temptation of a kiss.
And fate will block and ban and vex
Towards an operatic bliss.
Patiently the world awaits;
What state or policy is this
Whose prophecy is storms and wrecks?

The people chant; their ruler sits.
Revenge no answer to distress,
And motive from a distance stalks.
Answers and questions form a press
No story can be told that fits.
Bound either way that fates confess;
But all resolved by kindly walks.

Undirected wreckage floats.
Circularity confines the chase.
A tale of fated cunning tricks
Accomplishing the destined space;
A storm of newly emptied coats
Leaves the grim reconquered place
A last resolved heroic mix.

[Joseph K]

Some striking imagery there, agingjb. Well done.

The Hedonist

An overpowering ennui is choking
my throat, come-down effects of getting wired,
the massive neurotoxic dose and toking
endlessly, now predictably I’m tired.
My brain consists of thick cement because
I’ve taken countless pills; the umpteenth pill
provided something of a minor buzz
and cost yet more destruction of my will.
Such pointless hedonism makes one ponder
what an insatiable demand for drugs
does; no more serotonin left to squander –
a brain that’s barren - now grind up those nugs!
Cocaine is also something I admire –
crack’s something of which I could never tire.

January 2018

[Joseph K]

Drought

I’ve gone cold turkey, given up all vices.
My tonsils yearn to be tickled by cocaine –
the drip, desire for which leaves me in crisis;
caressed by cigarette smoke I’d be sane
again or else at least relaxed – to flood
my brain with dopamine’s something I’ve longed
for after abstinent months. It’s a good
combination, to smoke and sniff - two-pronged
release of comfort, dopamine’s embrace
of oily good quality rocket fuel -
my idée-fixe, the memory of its taste
still clings, kingly effects to this serf too cruel.
This reservoir will not be tapped that way
despite the forked-tongue voice which leads astray.

July 2018