Menu
Sunbathing with fishermen
We’re the girls sitting on the riverbank by Radcot Bridge.
We’re the girls watching red and yellow floats bob up and down.
Mum brings out the cheese and tomato sandwiches,
peels shell off the hard eggs.
We’re the girls in our bikinis thinking of swimming
with the perch, dace and minnows but not moving,
as something called quiet is needed for the eyes of men
watching the line for the slightest bite, for the slightest bite.
We’re the girls, me, Christine and Susan thinking about boys,
wondering about the blood thing and how many babies we might have.
We’re the girls watching my Aunty Marg fish with the men,
we hear her laugh when she banks a fat eel.
We’re the girls lying on the blanket watching,
such a wonder in our eyes.
First day
small everything about me small hands feet legs arms tears and the newness of leather shoes white blouse pleated skirt a blue ribbon in my hair everything small about me mum holding my hand a skip on the cobbles black bumps down the high street monsters under the grids the builder’s yard sawdust pine perfume the bakers yeast filled air small voices the noise of happy the noise of sad the witch in the sweet shop everything big at the gates iron padlocks rust tarmac spiked railings mum and me everything quiet in rooms boggarts in the cupboards blackboards chalk children in bubbles whispers in the desks caterpillars’ in the cabbage giant spiders in the toilets everything big air above the school angels flying over roofs that first day mum me the instant of aloneness
Ice-flower
I became an ice-flower, my girl’s heart frozen, hard petals in a cage.
A fragile beauty walked with my days of exile.
But I held on like the bird’s-eye primrose. I captured her yellow,
her intense eye that glows at the heart of each flower
I held on to purple from the Teesdale violets, smallest of treasures
for abandoned thought. I hung on to sunshine and sugared limestone.
The great Whin Sill herself did not let me fall. She held my feet steady,
my boy beating in my womb. I bathed in the royal blue of early spring
gentians, survivors from an ice-age.
Secrets Secrets Secrets we were Secrets
I grasped each flower to my heart until the melt, one by one the ice floes
told me I was right, that it was safe to return to summer.
Each petal from my ice-flower heart dripped away a rhythm
to my dance on the hillside, it captured my waving and twirling,
love for a whole world to see, my baby at my breast.
Wdig Cottage
Out here today
nothing but sky
and towering cumulus
ladders to the stars
movement a troll’s pace.
Out here today
heat, sharp sunshine
sloth legs in boots
and all that life
in the stubble fields,
hare bullfinch beetle
peacock butterfly crow
buzzards that circle the hearth,
those late dragonflies.
Out here today
the will, the want to
walk to town,
to the harbour,
anywhere with a view.
Out here today
wild horses at the five bar gate
sore feet fear weak legs
that turned around
Out here today
nothing but sky
two lovers
sitting in warm air
looking out
to Skomer
Air ballooning
For some spiders this is an annual event.
For some it’s a technique for survival,
to run away from flood, fire, knife, boot, any abuse.
They must have a built in warning system,
a rocket up their arses that sets them off
on an unknown journey into space.
They climb as far as they can upwards
in trees or bushes until all there is is sky.
They fire, shoot their silver threads and
follow Jack’s story into the clouds, never
worrying about death. At some point
they all fall together, rain down in a tribe
to another place. Maybe it’s a God thing,
or just a miracle. Whatever is left in the air
is called angel hair, light strands of abandoned silk,
their leap of faith phenomenal.
The children wished their mother had
the wherewithal to air balloon them away
from demons and ogres, the man who
made them eat soap, who pushed their heads
down the toilet, chased mum with a knife,
who constantly spun fear.
Carew
I can’t stop the water coming in,
your breath loud behind the castle door.
I can’t stop the earth rolling back to water,
the slack slate, red brick, clay and mud,
the gravel biscuits under my feet. The grits
move over and over, guided by the moon.
The moon that whispers to red mullet feeding,
the trippers that stare, the stones still grinding
wheat for flour in the silence and noise at
the tidal mill, where a cabbage white flies low
over the singing river, where I can’t stop the
water coming in, your breath behind the door.
Endymion
If I was her, goddess of moonlight,
it might explain the light, the blue,
how she casts such a spell, hypnotic fields,
the exact way I feel about you.
If I was her, I’d trap you in time,
bell on bell, songs again in dusk,
in dawn’s day over, night’s under
you, tall trees, ships through the years.
False Sedge
Bog Sedge
Between hard rock and this constant mountain spring,
a glaciers speed, here are the sorrows’.
I shake my hair, wild petals,
sepia notions of common sense
to a marriage bed where hope
is isolated, is abandoned grass.
Where my babies hate
this surrogate daddy,
who makes them eat soap,
sits them down like statues,
scowls into their night of dreams.
He scares the stalk of me with his devil’s mind,
hits with his bony fist, penetrates the sap of me.
Oh false sedge, bog sedge,
no sense in any wildflower,
all that’s left now is rare
in Teeside’s high hills.
Flock life
Let me tell you about the rookery, how I long to feel at home.
Imagine those tall trees, the wired acts of creation from a scavenger’s lifestyle,
how all those loose things, twigs, leaf, bone, become palaces.
How I long to be amongst my tribe. Imagine the flock of it all,
the roller-coaster, big wheel inhalations, that dream of adrenaline:
down to the arable, up to the nimbus and squall.
Can you imagine that taste of happiness, the belonging, the common rook
of it all, the symphony of rook-call in your ears? How I long to beat
my wings again in time to a memory of change and fledge, heartbeat of bird.
Imagine the vastness of sky, the stories of nest and blueness, all those
pecking days. Imagine all of that going on and on and never leaving your side.
Ice-flower
I became an ice-flower, my girl’s heart frozen, hard petals in a cage.
A fragile beauty walked with my days of exile.
But I held on like the bird’s-eye primrose. I captured her yellow,
her intense eye that glows at the heart of each flower.
I held on to purple from the Teesdale violets, smallest of treasures
for abandoned thought. I hung on to sunshine and sugared limestone.
The great Whin Sill herself did not let me fall. She held my feet steady,
my boy beating in my womb. I bathed in the royal blue of early spring
gentians, survivors from an ice-age.
Secrets Secrets Secrets we were Secrets
I grasped each flower to my heart until the melt, one by one the ice floes
told me I was right, that it was safe to return to summer.
Each petal from my ice-flower heart dripped away a rhythm
to my dance on the hillside, it captured my waving and twirling,
love for a whole world to see, my baby at my breast.