Highlights and Waiting

David Whippman’s poem has much to tell us about life and people. To which we add some other poems of people and their daily activities, what they care about and what keeps them going through the wastes of time — what “makes them tick.”

By the virtues of storymaking, unusual or eccentric people are often selected as subjects.  George W Colkitto’s skating minister is already an icon in Scotland,  as he glides vividly over the small Edinburgh loch in Raeburn’s painting, which was memorably used for the cover of a Scottish poetry anthology.

Not everyone is eminent. Researching the history of Lancashire miners, Sally James couldn’t find any records of the mining community women so she invented some, including this washerwoman.

Tony Lewis-Jones writes of the famous or infamous Duchess of Argyll, at first glance a hilarious subject but of course there is more to it than that.

It is never difficult to find poems about people, but we hope you like this rather incongruous group.

Next weekend is our busy Callander Poetry Weekend here in Scotland. It is our own small highlight, when dozens of the poets we know and love come to share a tight programme of poems and performances. The next Keep Poems Alive post will probably come early in the week after that, when  we are back to “the real  game.”

David Whippman
Edited highlights

Who needs all ninety minutes? You can watch
Edited highlights – they’re more than enough:
The only things that matter in a match,
All of it end to end, exciting stuff.
Do-or-die tackles, every pass spot on ,
Each shot a screamer fit to burst the net,
The Beautiful Game with all the dull bits gone
Is what we want. The rest you can forget.

Off-screen, it’s different. Real life’s not about
Winning the league, the lifting of a cup.
The moves break down, the build-ups fizzle out.
Hanging around when people don’t turn up,
waiting to get the ball back from the crowd:
That’s the real game. The bulk of it is dud.
The goals are flukes or cruelly disallowed.
Most of my life, I’ve slogged through midfield mud.

First published in Snakeskin.

 

George W Colkitto
Reverend Robert Walker

A Walker who is a Skater
A minister who is at play
Stiff style as if afraid they say
Godly men would be at prayer

Skill tells of many a winter
Honing talent to glide so smooth
Time from study the child to soothe
Shown now on Duddingston water

He does not smile as that might grate
Does not unbend in dress nor pose
Keeps dignity required by those
Who minister at Canongate

A  Scotsman tied though he seems free
Bound within, in constraint self-made
Arms pulled back could it be dread
That in his grasp is liberty.

First published in Dead Among the Daffodils 2007

Sally James (Sally Williams)
Washerwoman

She started work when the birds woke
lit the fire beneath the copper boiler
ladled water
let it spill, cold and sparkling
from the lone brass tap.

Hands rubbed raw with scrubbing
hadn’t healed from the previous wash
glistened red with white petroleum jelly.

On a nail on a green door
his pit clothes hung
she left those till last
till white sheets had been boiled
dolly blued and starched
swayed like ghosts on a coarse rope.

In the backyard chickens pecked at grass in cracks
squawked at the clothes prop.

Grandma with a mug of tea
watched her daughter scrubbing
checked the whites for blemishes
coughed in the hot steam
lifted a dead mouse
with the coal shovel.

first published in Coal Dust and Confetti, 2014

Tony Lewis-Jones
The Duchess of Argyll

 

Her sofa is a battleground on which
Lovers compete. The boundaries of good taste
Are not assaulted. Sex is dividing silk
Or polishing a gem – the ultimate
Release of feeling, renewable, complete.

 

She keeps no servants and the house is cold.
Age has been tactful, but is not a friend.
The Duchess of Argyll is dead. Eclipsed
By time, sold to posterity. Outside
Men one would never take to bed

Are loudly singing home. Another
Desperate look into those eyes that hold
Ghosts of a previous happiness.
Her fine hair still suggesting gold.

 

 

First published on Writers Cafe USA 2012.
Image from the New York City Opera, Powder her Face

Time hates to pass

How it got to Friday again, we don’t know, but here’s Chinese poet Yuan Hongri in my inbox looking at the stars. I have pasted the Chinese poem in (I need to confess that I cannot read this), and for wider consumption the English translation by Manu Mangattu.

Back on earth, Gary Beck takes a lengthy train ride in a lengthy train — in a not too lengthy poem.

One of the most famous writings about time, from Ecclesiastes, has been taken up by Sheena Blackhall for a poem in Scots. By adding the concept of straw, she transforms it into something that makes a lot of sense. Winnlestrae is dried grass stalks, something that blows away on the wind. (And no good word for it in English.)

Our thanks to Sheena, Gary, and Yuan Hongri and Manu Mangattu.

Contributions are invited, indeed needed, poems in English or with English translations please, first published at least three years ago, and you must hold the copyright. Your images may also be sent with the poems. Email them to me at sally evans 35 at gmail dot com.

 

.

Yuan Hongri translated by Manu Mangattu
Home Sweet Home beyond Milky Way

Nestled in the wings of night
After the pearl gem sets in heaven
I climb to the roof of the earth
To gaze at the star.
Gazing at the star,
To witness the coming century, the city of the giant
Blossom like a silver Garden.

The Music from that mysterious Galaxy
Soothes my soul like the rain.
In the light, let my form alight
Back to my home, beyond the Milky Way.

银河之外的家园

黑夜的翅翼

镶嵌了天堂的珍珠宝石
我在地球的屋顶之上
向星际凝望
仿佛看见未来世纪的巨城
绽放如白银的花园

来自神秘星系的乐曲
是一阵阵灵魂的甘雨
让我的身体乘光而行
回到了那银河之外的家园

 

 

Gary Beck
Train Ride

I barely got aboard
when wheels began to roll,
we raced along rattling tracks
piercing the bowels of the city.

I lurched from car to car
searching for an empty seat,
my choice a car of squalling brats,
or toxic clouds of the smoking car.

Breathing’s more important than deafness,
so I picked the chamber of shrieks,
concealing myself in a book,
while thinking of the bullet train.

We were still in the tunnel,
dim lights revealed toiling serfs,
the city’s underground search crews
seeking the subterranean homeless.

Then we burst into the light, the light
the babies yowled, the moms howled,
in the confines of the Pullman car
infant arias were corrosive.

A few minutes passed in the long trip,
the train rolled south on viewless route
of blank walls, patchy shrubbery,
more bearable than travelers’ faces.

The hours crept by on resentful toes
that thwarted my efforts for tolerance.
The volume level of cows and calves
clarified why bulls were solitary.

Darkness fell. The illusion of the window
faded, my stressed face looked back at me.
I cannot focus on my book,
held hostage by overwhelmed senses.

I close my eyes but can’t obliterate
snorts and rumbles of the grazing herd
and yearn for ability
to pass time in meditation.

Crotchety time hates to pass,
as I ride this train of doom
much longer than intended,
trapped in lethal container.

I rise, but am quickly skewered
by inquisitor’s eyes, stabbing suspicions.
They know I’m a poet! Can I deny it?
Does it matter? Should I fear punishment?

I carefully traverse sprawl of legs,
luggage, coats, baby food, rattles, debris
of tribal movement of Hussites,
or another alien horde.

Wary glances follow me.
I can’t go far, or they’ll open my suitcase
and find incendiary poems….
Ah. That’s nonsense. They wouldn’t care about poems.

I took a deep breath for reassurance,
with spring in my step, friendly smile,
I showed the eternal conductor
my ticket of continuation.

The rest of the trip passed quietly.
I forgot apprehensions,
took my place in the migration,
arrived at my destination.

Proximity bred familiarity,
my fellow voyagers waved farewell
as I detrained at a rural station,
leaving good will, taking theirs.

from Civilised Ways, Eleventh transmission 2007

Sheena Blackhall
Winnlestrae              (from Ecclesiastes 3)

A time fur aa aneth the sun
The Heivens decreed it sae,
A time tae live, a time tae dee
For Man’s but winnlestrae.

A time tae plant an seed the grun
Ahin the cuttin ploo,
A time tae gaither in the crap,
A time tae bend an boo

A time tae kill, a time tae heal,
Tae merk an bigg a foun,
A time tae greet, a time tae lauch
Afore daith dings ye doon.

A time tae grieve, a time tae daunce;
A time tae gaither steens,
A time tae lue, tae turn awa
A time tae follae dreams

A time tae lose, a time tae fin;
A time tae stert anew;
A time fur soun, a time fur quate
A time fur fause or true.

A time tae spikk, a time tae rend,
A time fur bomb an gun
A time o peace, a time tae mend,
Fur aa aneth the sun

Oh winnlestrae’s mortality
Like gibbet cloots that blaw
The corbie watches frae the dyke,
In time, he swallas aa.

from The Space Between, A.U.P. and earlier publications

 

 

Love, death and poetry

I remarked in an epigram to a poem in 1996 that the three subjects of poetry are love, death and poetry – Fishing In Gairloch from Looking for Scotland. I have seen this statement made elsewhere recently. We start with Angela Topping’s poem about the death of her father, and then we will see where else we arrive in this spectrum.

We have had poems here by earlier poets before, after all, these poems were published long enough ago, and I’m posting two poems by  weaver poets from the town of Paisley in the 18th – 19th centuries, because I have promised to give out information relating to both of them.

First, Read Raw Ltd of Paisley are running a new open poetry competition The Robert Tannahill Poetry Prize. it has a substantial prize fund and sections for open English language poetry  plus a prize for a poem in Scots. Look it up and send your poems in.
In addition, Claire Casey, also of Paisley, has just published two ebooks, The Weaver Poet: The Songs (Tannahill) and Lines Written on a Summer Evening (Wilson).

Wilson’s poem is in flowery literary English, and shows the doubtful habit of some poets of addressing inanimate objects. The poem may be said to be about poetry, since he is asking whether any poets have ever recorded this beautiful vale, and in the slightly comical last line we wonder if he means he is not himself counted as a poet.

Tannahill had a more demotic voice and became very popular with the mill workers. The song I’ve chosen is in the voice of a woman, and the ‘desert isle’ mentioned is a Scottish island  – heather not palm trees! and it is certainly a love poem.

A single sonnet stanza from Aidan Andrew Dun’s Unholyland: The Ramdam is our final poem. Look out for the full three-book epic poem Unholyland: publication imminent from Skyscraper Press. In this poem and this stanza (Jalilah is about to give a rap at a poetry reading) we have the whole gamut.

Angela Topping
Severance

I don’t understand what death is
that can split us apart like a knife
parting the green flesh of a plum.
We never allowed anything
to come between us before.
There was no reason for us
ever to quarrel. So why allow
this cruel death to sunder us?

I have to find a way back
to connect with you again,
you who have passed through
the skin of the night into my pores,
you who permeate the page
I write on, always looking
over my shoulder for the truth
you hope to read there.

From I Sing of Bricks (Salt 2011)

Alexander Wilson 1766 – 1813
Address to Calder Bank

YE hoary Rocks, ye woody Cliffs, that rise.
Unwieldy, jutting o’er the brawling Brook;
Ye louring steeps, where hid the Adder lies,
Where sleeps the Owl, and screams the sable Rook;

Ye rev’rend trunks, that spread your leafy arms,
To shield the gloom, that darkling dwells below;
Ye nameless flow’rs, ye busy-winged swarms;
Ye birds that warble, and ye streams that flow.–

Say, ye blest scenes of Solitude and Peace,
Strayed e’er a BARD along this hermit shore?
Did e’er his pencil your perfection trace?
Or did his Muse to sing your beauties soar?

Has oft at early Morn and silent Eve,
Responsive echo stole athwart the trees;
While easy laid beside the glitt’ring wave,
The shepherd sung, his list’ning Fair to please?

Alas! methinks the weeping Rocks around,
And the lone Stream, that murmurs far below,
And Trees and Caves, with solemn hollow sound,
Breathe out one mournful, melancholy–”No.”

Image: Calder Vale

 

 

Robert Tannahill 1774-1810
Fly we to some desert isle
.

Fly we to some desert isle,
There we’ll pass our days together,
Shun the world’s derisive smile,
Wand’ring tenants of the heather:
Shelter’d in some lonely glen,
Far remov’d from mortal ken,
Forget the selfish ways o’ men,
Nor feel a wish beyond each other.
.
Though my friends deride me still,
Jamie, I’ll disown thee never;
Let them scorn me as they will,
I’ll be thine-and thine for ever.
What are a’ my kin to me,
A’ their pride o’ pedigree?
What were life, if wanting thee,
And what were death, if we maun sever!

Aidan Andrew Dun
The Rambam (6, xxii)

One thought never came to Moshe’s mind
as the helicopter still hovered,
as the rap began to unwind,
as the dead were discovered
in their hilltop villages lying,
named again and death-defying.
‘How could Jalilah, aged sixteen,
transmit, in language raw and keen
her traumatized race-memory;
how could a young girl redefine
the agony of Palestine
so truthfully and so tenderly?’
If Moss had let his thoughts activate
his answer would have been: ‘Jah is great!’

from Unholyland: the Rambam, Hesperus Press 2012

Don’t Wreck the Town

This week’s poems are, at least tenuously, related to leisure. What do we do when we go out?  We eat curry (Vivien Jones). We go on the randan if we are American miners (Gary Beck), pulling humour and nonsense out of our situation in the hope of postponing the dangers and harshness of hinterland working life. Emily Leider’s Couple rather superficially flirt and pose in respect of one another. And OK we read (or watch) science fiction which takes us out of ourselves, as in Sarah L Dixon’s fantasy poem.

Possibly a better option, this imagination business, though we must eat and meet too in our various quests.

All part of the human drama that never leaves us be.

Thanks to all these poets, and please send poems, in multiples if you like. Come on, these are poems that have been published already some years back.  Email them to me at sally evans 35 at gmail dot com and give them the chance of an outing where who knows, probably they will find new friends.

Vivien Jones
My History of Curry

First time,Vesta in a box,
that only Daddy ate.
Two bags, rice and sauce,
rolling in boiling water.
(But rice is for pudding!)
We watched, sniffing.
Once, in the dark kitchen,
I licked his cold plate.

First love, first date,
Cinema, chocolates,
dinner in the evening
at the new Indian place.
He chose from the mysteries
on the menu, nothing hot.
Then sex, with spices still
haunting the mouth.

New bride, new recipe book,
Shelves full of curry powders,
Sultanas, apple, boiled eggs,
A misfire of flavours.
Two newly married couples,
entertaining in convivial ignorance.
courtesy of Schwartz, Pataks,
and Sharwood,

Today, my curry contains
lemon grass and root ginger,
fresh chillies and minted raita.
Puffed up, charred fresh nans,
lean back to back cooling.
Though the house is aromatic,
in a moment of doubt, I recall
the shock of Daddy’s cold Vesta.

from About Time, Too Indigo Dreams 2010

 

Gary Beck
Miner’s Quest (To Don Petersen)

And the miners came down from the hills
only once a month, to eat, drink, fight,
if they were lucky,
spend the night with a woman,
instead of in jail.
For sheriff Bennett met them at the edge of town
and gave them the same warning each time:
‘Have a good time, boys, but don’t wreck the town.’
And the miners nodded sincerely,
chorused, ‘Sure, sheriff. You bet. We promise.’

But the sheriff was used to their rough ways
and knew they were there to escape the pressures
that gripped them in the bowels of the earth.
And they weren’t bad men, just childlike,
toiling like slaves of eld, then seeking release.
They meant their promises and meant no harm.
Nevertheless, the sheriff hired extra deputies
on the day the miners came to town
for their monthly binge.

Now the miners respected the sheriff,
who understood their need to blow off steam,
but the deputies were another kind of cop.
Mostly young, scared, acting tough to impress the hard men
who only feared Mother Earth’s crushing embrace
waiting to hold them close, far beneath the surface.
And they mocked the posing deputies
who wore one-way sun glasses to hide the uncertainty
that made the miners mistrust them.

There was one deputy the miners really hated.
Reardon, a big-bellied bully, meaner than the rattlesnakes
that sometimes tumbled down the mineshaft
and couldn’t find their way to the surface again
and shared the dark confines with their fellow prisoners
and sometimes got lucky and bit someone,
before the miners could stomp them to death.
The only thing the miners hated more than rattlers
were the bosses, whose venom flowed from far away.

Reardon always greeted them the same way,
slapping his club in his bulbous paw, scaring no one,
but alert for the chance to hurt the miners.
They despised him, staring through him,
another dangerous clod of earth to be avoided ,
but never feared, because he only trapped the unwary,
and if you labored deep below the ravaged earth
you learned to be wary, or didn’t survive
the hungry pits that always beckoned.

So the miners rushed to their favorite bars,
where bored trailer girls served the drinks
and didn’t really care that a lot of hands
did a lot of exploring of their veined bodies.
And they listened to the usual comments:
‘That’s a number one shaft. Deep hole. Dig that strata.’
And the girls snapped their gum in boredom,
for they took worse abuse than words
from the harsh hands of their redneck boyfriends.

The retired professor of something or other
met them at ‘Purple Nell’s’ and bought them drinks,
preached to them that they should spare the earth.
They laughed kindly at him and explained it was their job,
if they didn’t do it, the company would hire others
eager to take their place in the mines, because
someone was always waiting to steal a man’s job.
But they never insulted the professor
while drinking his liquor.

The miners never went to ivy covered schools,
had no book learning, just blue collar skill,
acquired the hard way, in the pits of shattered dreams,
where the mines sapped the souls of men
who never got used to the pressing rock above
and the dank, devouring dark below,
always waiting, implacable as time,
to catch a careless miner in a moment’s lapse,
the last summons to the final ascent.

From the collection Civilized Ways. first published 2007 Eleventh Transmission

 

Emily Leider
A Couple

She makes herself up for him
makes new her skin
buffs nails, washes hair so it squeaks
views sadly clogged pores
In a mirror that magnifies flaws.
Groan, she combs, brushes, clips
ponders shades of lip gloss
finds herself in a Tawny Peach mood
Is she ready yet, ready yet, ready?
As ready as she’ll ever be.

And he and he and he
shirt open in planned disarray
takes note that she’s looking OK
and moves on to what counts
to the question that makes love swim or sink
“Honey-pie, Sugar, Sweetie
(his uncertain eyes lost in hers, Maybellined)
how much do you feel
what is it you think
about me
about me
about me?

First published in the collection  Rapid Eye Movement & Other Poems, Bay Books, in San Francisco.

Sarah L Dixon
Moon Rules

If you catch anything with seven legs
only eat the red ones.
The purple ones like to be rocked to sleep
with a lullaby.

Don’t mention gravity.

Wear your moonboots at all times.
Don’t lick the floor, it tastes of gunpowder.
If it looks like a satsuma, it will bite.
If a meteor comes, run around to the light side.

Don’t mention gravity.

Don’t undress where the world can see you.
The world can see you.
Only wear grey.

Dressing like the earth is right out.
Hopscotch is strictly prohibited.
A curfew operates on each third crescent moon.

Don’t mention gravity.

The currency is moondust.
You can’t bag it up
there is nothing to buy
and no bridge club.

Frizbees won’t come back.
Ball games are forbidden
(especially if you are going to ask for your ball back)

Reconstituted food all tastes like carrot and coriander soup.

Replacing someone’s moonboots
with papier mache replicas is funny every time.
As long as the owner is not your pilot.

Moon Rules was awarded First place in the Many Hands Cafe Competition for poems on the theme Community in 2011.