Issue 6 - April 2008 - Poetry
The Oversized Women by Jared Booth
my head's like a spider's web:
dusty sparks
of thought.
Windfilled trees
puff out their cheeks
all of their branches
blurred. The leaves
are all gone but
still hanging on
are the scrappy-handed
birds.
soon
the oversized women
will come
from the corners
of my eyes -
and run circles
around the trunks
of the trees:
still statues
that have flown
and passed by.
but it's still the cigarette
end of morning
and these are all just
dusty sparks
of thought.
there's not a car
on the road
but me
right now -
and i'm not
even
driving.
Hands by Vivien Jones
With wood, your hands are in control,
the push and press of the plane,
a planned path, strewing shavings,
gold ringlets tumbling,
the sweep of the saw whistling straight
through, your hand certain in the grip.
Pressing the planed wood to your lips,
your flesh detect its imperfections.
In music, your hands are dancers
sure of their allotted space,
weightless fingertips finding the note,
the chord shapes in their senses
independent of mind; then the strum,
a statement of being in the only place.
Holding the bow like a gift,
gifting the bow to the string.
On flesh, your hands are silent,
silky creatures exploring a world
of open aspect, mapping the paths
towards a mutual destination.
Best, in tormented moments,
your hands on my back, melting
the hard fear to liquid.
Hand in Life by Linda Jackman
She is old now, hands cracked and dry
Their magic spent, faded in time
Revealing, telling, almost grieving
The scales have tipped, not in her favour
Nails white, brittle, hard as life itself
Skin lucent giving account
Soon, their story will end
Their work complete, skills passed
to younger hands, my hands
They too display times passage,
lines deep, veins present, painting
a harsh map
Soon they will falter, giving way to age
The constant will continue, generations
not yet contemplated.
A Man in Boxing by Misa Klimes
‘Now whoever has the courage and a strong and a collected spirit in his breast, let him come forward, lace up the gloves and put his hands up.’ Virgil
i.
Boxers are nomads trekking
through mental deserts,
they are forced to find themselves or lose.
They must bridge valleys
with rivers slicing a wound
through the landscape below them
and so they must attempt
to reach the clouds where all gods are supposed to be
and try to harness a similar power…
Except these people are not gods
although they engage in the Herculean;
perhaps they are half-human and half-god
with immortal wills trapped
in mortal bodies which glisten
while lungs heave.
The fighter hones himself
through the hum of a skipping rope.
This is a blacksmith forging a mind
into a blade that has to cut down
any barbarian on the battlefield.
Skipping is also the search for balance:
Arm must be leg and leg must be arm
because the body is looking for its own rhythm.
Running makes the boxer strive for
the stamina of a wolf migrating
across a snow beaten loneliness.
Boxing is a loneliness too
and any warrior must expose their physique
to the ritualistic elements:
Sweat is rain,
the air knocked out of you is wind,
fatigue is the drought everywhere,
the adrenalin is an avalanche
and when these are overcome, pride
is the middle finger tossed
at the odds.
Chasing one’s own shadow is essential as well
since one is following the elusive doppelganger
cast from light
blackening against the body
which places an eclipse on the wall,
revealing the shy monster living
in the almost unreachable caves
of the self – the deepest catacombs of oceans
where seemingly alien creatures lie,
not supposed to be part our world.
Sparring is the last internship before
a march into the ring
with a crowd screaming, booing
and cheering from a medieval time
we rather forget
with our ancestors yelling through us:
Their voices tell us of the harshness they were born from
but we have lost.
ii.
These days I look at boxing
through the wrong end of the binoculars
that shrinks the sport to a little figure –
A man
with a feckless grin
remembering better times,
tasting stale beer
in a pub underused for years
reading tabloid’s back pages
where a fight report is a rare patch
of countryside squeezed
between the cities of football and cricket.
He surveys its fragmentation
thinking only pockets of it will remain
and grow slimmer each year.
His thoughts wander through the Hall of Fameholdingthe fragile past.
All the great names are there:
Ali, Dempsey, Duran, Louis, Robinson.
They are empires which have come and gone.
Their auras rule our imaginations and dazzle us
for the reason that they climbed personal mountains
and sometimes each other
as they left flags on high peaks,
left records behind like all the big civilisations
and were Caesars, Alexanders and Hannibals
in their own periods of history,
their achievements became landmarks
for the future fighters to navigate their own way
through a vast world.
This world is now indifferent to their glory.
My passion is a film reel replaying Joe Frazier
arch a left-hook into Ali’s face
that floors him for those eternal seconds.
Ali becomes a ghost
as he moves with the subtlety
of a ballet dancer past William’s fists.
Duran sweats the age off his body
like a slave throws off their chain
as he defeats the giant in Barkley,
Gomez is an encircled army holding out
against the better army in Sanchez
even though he is losing.
Hagler and Hearns force
the other to shudder
with inexcusable violence.
Henry Armstrong moves
with a work rate no one can fathom,
his heart was bigger than most men
yet I also see Ali
too battle-scarred to talk
shaking from all the punches he absorbed,
Marciano being retired
too early by his plane crash
and losing his undefeated record.
Liston all alone
in his house with the speculation of a mafia hit
or suicide persisting forever
and I think of all the those fighters who have fallen,
too many to remember or name
with Louis taxed into poverty,
he was a doorman in the end
and crooked promoters bend us
to their own will,
forcing fights onto fans they never wanted
and do not want
but I cannot let go of my faith
and I have a vision of an exile returning to his home
and a champion lifting his world title
at a clapping crowd
and our damaged god Ali marching
with the Olympic flame,
defying everyone’s expectations again
yet not his own.
I think boxing is as strong as him:
flawed but still ready for the challenge,
hurt yet prepared to struggle on,
down but not counted out
and even though it has its civil wars,
it will come together again
and the wounds will heal.
Our land must find new rain
that will replenish its dry rivers
which will nourish the soil’s thirst
that will grow new cycles
of birth and death.
Only then can I be the man
sitting in the pub reading
the paper with a smile on my face
as the next superstar stares at me.
I actually wrote this the night after because writing in the dark is difficult and it was too cold to leave my bed
Anyway by Chris Lindores
I lie in bed now
wondering what makes up a person
whether it be a line of quirks
(or gimmicks)
that some fictional characters
seem to consist of
like the technician guy in
early 90s films involving computers
who was always eating or listening to music
or had a skateboard
and was a bit awkward
but still seemed quite cool at the time
although there obviously must be more
to people than that
an essense
and inside I think that everyone must
have some element of themselves that is
genuinely good
but inside that part there might be
the thing human beings are most of the time
which is sad and uninspiring and shit
and I'm not too sure if there is anything
inside that bit of grey that has any
hope that things might change
but I don't know and I might just be
a wanker with the only difference
between me and anyone else being that
I have a pen
but I'm sure I'm wrong about all that
showing I don't even have faith in my own ideas
and can't write what I mean
which is terrible
but my biggest concern right now
is whether or not there is actually
something just out of my field of vision
and if so I'm deeply worried as to
if it might be a grinning skeletal clown figure
as I am wont to imagine in the dark.
Chris' work also appeared in Read This Issue 3.
The Listener by Luke McLean
A good listener never complains,
nor do they hear the complaints of others
They’re too busy with their elsewhere
The colour of their secretary’s panties
A tie breaking goal at Wembley
or reading the winning numbers of a lotto ticket
But mostly they are small children again
licking a sticky candy apple for the first time
You will never find a good listener in a basement apartment
or in a factory producing garments they can’t afford
They’re casting flies on the banks of the Miramachi
Reeling pink salmon with Ted Williams and their dead grandfathers
Eyes flickering in shooting stars and birthday cakes
wishing for an infinite amount of wishes
Their attention fades like jet stream on a cloudless prairie sky
but they are very good listeners
Between curled brow and the scent
of burning leaves they can patiently sit
as you accurately describe
your newborn baby’s dream.
Summer of 97 by Kim Moore
We rode bikes across the field to reach the pond.
Bouncing wheels tried to take our breath away.
The grass grew as we were watching, heat trapped
between the blades like each one was made of glass.
Our pockets fermented slowly, sticky lemon pennies
and metal tasting sweets clinging to each other.
Grass stains on our bellies, watching tadpoles swimming,
catching their wriggle in our hands, sieving water
like gold prospectors, days tripping over each other.
By the end of summer, they were tiny droplet frogs,
content to sit upon a thumb nail, brave in their own skin
and I'd lie down in waist-high grass with you,
watch the sky hang heavy above your moving shoulders,
close my eyes to horse riders on a nearby hill,
black against the sky like statues at a gate,
tell myself I did not care if they saw the flattened circle
we had made, wonder if they knew , that here I was,
slipping through my parents hands like water.
Half Past Night by Ciaran O'Rourke
I heard you not sleeping
And thought about what
You thought about when
The tap-drop creak of house,
And drowsy, vowely wind of
A thousand unfinished things
Invade your dark, sinking,
Dreamy night.
You stopped not sleeping then,
And the ceiling was disinclined
To sound, suddenly,
But I lay awake still,
Unable to keep still.
Her Name the Sound of a Torture Device
by William Peacock
I don’t believe in you,
Maria Scherich,
and think you should stop
pretending.
My intuition reads me
your serial number, so
when are you going
to take off your
skin
and show us your
mechanism?
I wonder: at what point
in your architecture
the pincer emerges
clicking?
Does the Scherich occur
when the spine
is extracted?
I could never make
love
to you,
Ms. Scherich,
I value
my life
too much.
I would settle into
something
supple, perfect,
to find
a steely
clockwork
sheathed in sex.
When the Cello Stops by JR Pearson
When the cello stops
clean through the valley
& they have crept away like willows,
arched in examination of shoes.
I think October has shot your blood
into each maple tree,
plasma speckled among Robins,
some Karmic atrial spray painting the landscape
cosmic & crimson. But I am fixed. By a wicked
gravity. To your side, flannel wrought
of roses, granite headboard--
I know you won't get up.
I imagine next year, when I come back
autumn will be turned off.
Spring Aubade by Ken Pobo
The hellebores are fat and red
near winter aconites,
yellow gumdrops.
In the car, I sing along
with Neil Diamond
who praises a Kentucky woman.
Who do I know in Kentucky ?
The sun isn’t biting
my eyes, a mellow bright.
Oh
no. The war.
Kids blown up. Leaders
and our news media
relax with body parts
splattered on walls, eat
at good restaurants. I had
been happy, but happiness
can’t take much blood.
Squirrels by Charlotte Runcie
We gather acorns from the grass,
each seed as round as hours, discuss the time
and how it moves; we head for trees
and lope along the ridged nut rivulets of bark
which creak and twist, mechanical; and hardwood cogs
are whirring backwards, shedding laughter lines.
We cling to all these days like frost,
our tails curled around the time
and necks of trees, coiled and weightless –
you say you sense the winter, smell the cold.
This stream will split by evening; minnows
breathe again. This air would break our lungs
so I sleep along the length of you, dreaming sundials,
our bodies hushed. We weave a downy helix. Then,
at dawn – November chimes with harder light – you stir
once, again, again. We slot
into the seasons every year,
unconscious, soft as clockwork.
Charlotte's poetry will also appear in Read This Issue 6.