Issue 6 by Rebecca Sheppard

She spoke, as though with difficulty: ‘That’s all… Ah, no, I forgot, I love you, and I loved you Even then!’ ‘Yes’.

Issue 6, June 2009

the

www.durham.ac.uk/grove

GROVE

1910

[Untitled] POEM OF THE MONTH Somewhere there is a simple life and world Transparent, warm and happy… There, towards evening, her neighbour talks to a girl Over the fence, and only the bees hear This most tender of all conversations. But we live ceremoniously and with difficulty And honour the rites of our bitter meetings, When suddenly the reckless wind Cuts short a conversation only just begun, — But not for anything would we exchange This magnificent granite city of glory and misfortune, The glistening ice of the broad rivers, The sunless, gloomy gardens And the barely audible voice of the Muse. 1915

EVENTS

Words, Wide Night Somewhere on the other side of this wide night and the distance between us, I am thinking of you. The room is turning slowly away from the moon. This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear. La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine the dark hills I would have to cross to reach you. For I am in love with you and this is what it is like or what it is like in words.

Carol Ann Duff y Taken from The Other Country. Anvil Press Poetry, 1998. EDITOR’S COMMENT

ENGLISH SOCIETY GARDEN PARTY As this issue has an international slant, it seems appropriate to keep content specific to Durham to a minimum. With that said, between 17:00 - 19:00 on June 24th the English Society will be hosting their annual garden party to celebrate the close of the year. Featuring live music, food and drink, and many of the English Department’s staff, the garden party is a great opportunity to let your hair down after receiving results. The party will take place at the rear of Hallgarth House, so be sure to come along.

A Poet Laureate has been appointed since the time of Charles II, with the position of the official poet of the monarch stretching back even further. After the death of Ted Hughes in 1999 it was decided that the Poet Laureate would serve a fixed term of 10 years and now that Andrew Motion’s tenure has come to an end Carol Ann Duff y has been chosen to succeed in a move that sees the appointment of the first ever female Laureate. Carol, who narrowly missed out in 1999, now has the further honour of making the front page of The Grove, but in this month’s English Poetry section there’s also a selection from the poets who missed out this time. Enjoy!

THE TEAM’S PAGE Hi Guys, 1. It is with great delight that we welcome you to this bumper issue of The Grove. Exams are over, freedom has returned and what better way to compliment the summer than a fresh selection of poetry from the team! 2. This includes a Poet Laureate oriented English Poetry section, the usual Poetry in Translation, and, of course, the all important Student Poetry. Issue 6 also sees a special section dedicated to the works of the ‘Medi-Café’ writers. ‘The Medi-Café’ is a writing workshop for North African writers, organised by the British Council and run by Andrew Hussey (Paris), Stephen Regan (Durham), and Kate Pullinger (London), and we would like to thank both the writers themselves and Stephen for giving The Grove exclusive access to this fabulous material. There is a selection featuring all of the writers that submitted work so get stuck in and enjoy! 3. We would also like to thank you, the readers, for the increase in submissions of student poetry. We received a wealth of submissions for this issue and have tried to incorporate as much as possible. For those interested in submitting work for next term’s issue send your poetry via email to our Student Poetry Editor, Sophie Caldecott at s.m.caldecott@dur.ac.uk. 4. The Grove’s website is now in full swing! It includes copies of back issues, more poetry and a brief introduction to the lovely members of our team. Check it out at www.dur.ac.uk/grove 5. Finally, and once again, we would like to thank both the DSU and the English Department for their help with financial support. We would also like to thank the British Council for helping us to distribute copies of our journal to the Medi Cafe writers overseas. The Grove goes international!

worth emptily fitting the puzzle together watch the boat in the shell with time it slips away like mind from meaning the rise of the Chinese wall is empty a century in the spring bloom is blameless like courage emptily to the right of the wall and to the left etc. as at the start I walk along the wall straight then twisting emptily emptiness in the air is hinting at snow December 1998 ANNA AKHMATOVA (Translated from Russian by Alex Harrington)

A carriage ride A feather brushed the top of the carriage. I looked into his eyes. My heart ached, not even knowing The reason for its grief. The evening is still and fettered by sadness Under a vault of cloudy skies, And the Bois de Boulogne looks like An Indian ink drawing in an old album. The smell of petrol and lilac An alert silence… He once again touched my knee With a hand that almost didn’t tremble. 1913

[Untitled]

Best wishes for a great summer,

Do you want to know how it all happened? The dining-room clock struck three, And, saying goodbye, holding on to the banister,

- The Grove Team 2

left unspoken. For when the traveller comes from the mountain to the valley, he brings not a handful of the earth - inexpressible to others - but brings rather a word he has won, a pure word, the yellow and blue gentian. Perhaps we are here to say: house, bridge, fountain, gate, jug, fruit tree, window at most: column, tower... But to speak them, you understand, oh, you are to say them with more intensity than things themselves ever dreamed they would be. Is this not the sly intent of this secretive world when it urges lovers together that each thing should shudder with joy in their passion? Threshold: what it is for two lovers, little by little, wearing away the ancient threshold of the door, in their turn following others who went before and still others closing behind... lightly. JUAN RAMON JIMENEZ (Translated from Spanish by Robert Bly)

[Untitled] I have a feeling that my boat has struck, down there in the depths, against a great thing. And nothing happens! Nothing…Silence…Waves… -Nothing happens? Or has everything happened, And are we standing now, quietly, in the new life? SANJIN SOREL (Translated from Croatian by Kim Burton)

Anticipation, aimless, hopeless No emptiness yet in sight perhaps something’s happening just on the edge of becoming when will it where empty time is worth bearing in the air some strange tension over all 26

MEDI-CAFÉ THE BRITISH COUNCIL MEDI-CAFE WRITING PROJECT The Medi-Café Writing Project was launched in Marrakesh on 23 February 2007. It brought together writers from the Maghreb region of North Africa (principally Morocco and Tunisia), along with UK writers and academics, in a series of workshops and seminars, culminating in a project on ‘Writing the City, Writing Marrakesh’. Medi-Café specialises in three key areas - reportage, fiction and poetry - mentored by Professor Andrew Hussey (Paris), Professor Stephen Regan (Durham) and Dr Kate Pullinger (London). The project is inspired by Edward Said’s notion of ‘imaginary frontiers’, an idea which both destroys and rebuilds comparative literary aesthetics, working towards the possibility of a true ‘world literature’. The aim of the project is to bring together theoretical and practical aspects of this inspiring concept of ‘imaginary frontiers’, and to investigate what it means to be writing within and beyond cultural boundaries. For further information, see http://medi-cafe.britishcouncil.org/ This special issue of The Grove features new work by Medi-Café writers from Morocco and Tunisia. The editors wish to express their thanks to The British Council and to Professor Andrew Hussey (University of London Institute in Paris) for their support. AHMED NAOUAL

Overactive Arabs We used to keep a low profile, Watching the world go by. Nice show, very showy indeed, This western world, You’d hear us say, nodding our heads In appreciation - and disgust. But we never took part; Too busy living in our past, Licking age-old wounds, Whining, sometimes, in agony And in despair, 3

POETRY IN TRANSLATION

In our little corner of the world, Far from the festive crowds Of the wild western world.

RUTGER KOPLAND (Translated from Dutch by J. M. Coetzee)

Rainbow Martyr

Descent in Broad Daylight

I almost die When I look up at the sky And see no rainbow there. But if I die, At least I die for thee, for thee.

IYou see it happen it is broad daylight- and behold before your eyes the body of a man plummets living in to the earth.

MOULAY DRISS EL MAAROUF and IMEN YACOUBI

The Doorstep Lhousine, going to work, would often find a young girl sleeping on a cardboard next to the entrance of the building where he lives, her little one closely clinging to her. Many times, he would find them lying on the very entrance of the building, so that when he wanted to get in, he had to make a large step to avoid trampling over them, as quietly as he could, lest they woke up. When he did, a dormant unease stirred in his chest, and his tongue would, somehow involuntarily, start reciting some verses of the Koran. Simple rules taught to him by old people in his childhood and believed to be the momentous tenets that cast off the iniquity of malevolent spirits, came to his mind. ‘Don’t sit or stand on a doorstep!’ ‘Don’t walk over the threshold with your left leg!’ ‘Never ever skip over the body of someone, while they are sleeping!’ A series of dos and don’ts which he thought he had forgotten, a gibberish at which he, the educated man, would often be content to twist his lips in scorn, but which, despite that, continued to weave nets in the remote corners of his unconscious, feeding on his unyielding fancy. He wished they would move a few metres away from his doorstep. Only a few, to create an opening. At times, Lhousine would lean down to see whether the baby, who spent the night outside, was still breathing. Before driving his car to work, Lhousine would gently put a banknote of 20 Dirhams beneath the head of the baby. Sometimes he would even lean too close to kiss the creamy brow with affection.

Bright day, the sort of intense spring light in which it all comes back; yes, this this was the landscape sky, earth, pollard-window, grass. Body, I think, if you are my own body where did you find me where are you taking me where will you leave me and how would it be without you how long, how deep, how alone. RAINER MARIA RILKE (Translated from German by Martyn Crucefix)

from The Ninth Elegy And so we press on and we try to achieve it, trying with our simple hands to encompass it, in our over-brimming gaze, in our speechless heart. Trying to become it - who can we give it to? We would hold on to it all forever... Ah, but what can we carry over into that other relationship? Not the way of seeing that has so slowly been learned and nothing has happened here. Nothing. The suffering, then. And above all, the heavy weight and the long experience of love - just those things that are inexpressible. But later, standing beneath the stars, what is the use? They are better 25

too washed and groomed, my cuticles tenderly pushed back and pruned, both thumb-nailed capped with a full half-moon, each fingernail manucured, pared and polished... We can work hand in hand if we stick to the rules: he keeps his cunt-hooks out of my wallet, I keep my tentacles out of his pocket. Taken from Book of Matches. Faber and Faber, 1993. DON PATERSON

Poetry In the same way that the mindless diamond keeps one spark of the planet’s early fires trapped forever in its net of ice, it’s not love’s later heat that poetry holds, but the atom of the love that drew it forth from the silence: so if the bright coal of his love begins to smoulder, the poet hears his voice suddenly forced, like a bar-room singer’s -- boastful with his own huge feeling, or drowned by violins; but if it yields a steadier light, he knows the pure verse, when it finally comes, will sound like a mountain spring, anonymous and serene. Beneath the blue oblivious sky, the water sings of nothing, not your name, not mine. Taken from 101 Sonnets. Faber and Faber, 2002.

Winter soon arrived. In time. Its nightly storms raged against shaky doors and vulnerable window-glasses with weapons merciless, unkind. The neighbours started making protests and decided the woman should go away, especially that she had withdrawn into the safe haven of the building, now sleeping by the more intimate doorstep of Lhousine. Why his door and no other? He often asked himself. That his corner was her perpetual shelter gratified him. The woman and her baby continued to sleep on the brim of his province in fearless tranquillity, unmindful of all taboos. Perhaps taboos were not among the obsessions of she who lived in the open, and most fittingly, of she who lived in the open, with a baby. People as such live outside society, outside culture, outside taboos, inside taboos-within and without edges and thresholds- so much so that they grow, bit by bit, into taboos that few people would dare to discuss. Every morning, before setting off to work, he would anticipate all sorts of thought. ‘Would she be still there? Would she have left?’ Somehow, he wanted her to go, and yet he wanted her to stay. ‘Leave her alone! She only spends the night!’ Lhousine once retorted to the neighbours. The face of the timorous man, whom they all respect, turned red, his body alert like a cat set for a fight, a cat with kittens. He was ready to act, to battle, to lose temper. He had now cooled down when the neighbours began to disappear indoors. Lhousine was an upright and serious man. “The neighbours might soon get the wrong impression about my unusual kindness to this woman.” He said to himself. ‘They might,’ he went on thinking ‘give me dirty looks. I have already started to get dirty looks from some of their children. They must be saying things when the children are around.’ Before he switched off the light to sleep, he wondered what they could be saying that provoked so much disgust in the eyes of their kids. Coming back from work one evening, Lhousine did not find the girl. She must have gone round there for something and would soon be back, he guessed. However, night fell and she was still not back. Not the next morning, not even the day after. If they were back, he would have sensed their coming, he wouldn’t be feeling so abandoned. Days passed. And many a boring night. Many more days and nights passed, yet the girl did not come back. Lhousine wondered what might have become of them. Did the neighbours conspire against them while he wasn’t there and sent them away? Had she been attracted into the embrace of a friendlier building, and- please not this one- a warmer doorstep? Were they run over by a car? Every time he walked his house entrance, a disquieting alarm gripped

his heart, as though a deep abyss had opened where the girl and her baby used to sleep. One day, as he was putting the key in his door, Lhousine heard little whimpers coming from the dark area below the stairs. Upon looking closer, he saw the girl sleeping there, while the baby, --who has just waken up presumably— was making the little whimpers that had drawn his attention. This time, he did not walk away to let her sleep. He shook her slightly, and when she woke a little startled, he asked: ‘where did you go?’ she did not seem to understand what he was saying, and Lhousine thought she was still under the powers of slumber. ‘These last few days, where have you been?’ he inquired, his voice rising a little up to a near-remonstrating tone. She made some gestures and produced hums and incomprehensible utterances, and he understood her at once. She couldn’t speak. A poor and homeless mother with a baby, and no voice. He deduced from the tremor of her gestures that she had been all the time there, sleeping under the stairs; somehow, he knew the neighbours had something to do with it. Lhousine could not sleep that night. He wished she came back to sleep on his doorstep. Yet, what an offer to make! What with the looks of suspicion that would be born in the eyes of the neighbours, he totally gave up the thought. But something had to be done. For the rest of the night, Lhousine remained sleepless and brooding, forever yielding now to the spell of doorsteps and the girl who lingered readily on the indefinite boundaries of thresholds. When he overheard some of the neighbours, in the early hours of the following day, complaining that the baby’s crying was too loud for their sleeping kids, Lhousine married the young girl. Two weeks later, a woman with a baby was found sleeping on the doorstep of Jamal, the widower living on the third floor. Of the same building.

and Carter fleeced her. As Carter once put it: when we’re on the ball we can clean someone out, from a comb to a coil, and we need nine eyes to watch for the coppers though at Goodison Park when I got collared two bright young bobbies took me into the toilets and we split the difference. Bent policemen; there’s always a couple around when you need them. It’s usually Autumn when we loosen our fingers at the Charity Shield which is pretty big business though semis and finals are birthdays and Christmas. Hillsborough was a different ball game of course; we’d started early, then saw what the score was so we turned things in as a mark of respect, just kept enough back to meet certain expenses (I’m refering here to a read and blue wreath; there are trading standards, even among thieves).

Art

Carter keeps saying he’d be quick to wager that worse things go on in the name of wages, but I’ve let Carter know there’s a place and a time to say as we speak, speak as we find.

Moon O Moon! Ostentatiously set on the Dark Firmament Among a host of pious stars, Moon O Moon, You swash and swagger,

Speaking of Carter, and not that I mind, he thinks I’m a touch on the gingery side: my voice a little too tongued and grooved, my locks a little

HOSNI MOUELHI

the cheque-books, the readies, the biggest fish, or the easiest meat, or both. Consider the chap we took last week: we turned him over and walked of the terrace with a grand exactly in dog-earned tenners; takings like that don’t get reported. Carter, he’s a sort of junior partner; it’s two seasons now since we first teamed up in the Stretford End in The FA Cup; it was all United when I caught him fliching my cigarette case, and he felt me fishing a prial of credit cards out of his britches. Since that day we’ve worked these pitches. We tend to kick off by the hod hog vans and we’ve lighted a good many fair-weather fans who haven’t a clue where to queue for tickets. Anything goes, if it’s loose we lift it. At City last year in the derby match we did the right thing with a smart looking-lass who’d come unhitched in the crush from her friend. We escorted her out of the Platt Lane End, arm in arm along the touchline, past the tunnel and out through the turnslide and directed her on to a distant police car. I did the talking 22

You flashily moult and wax For you have long been praised, O Moon. Moon O Moon, Now I want to inform you that (moon) you are only a floating pebble. TOURIA NAKKOUCH

African Serenade Inspired by Anouar Brahem’s “Conte de l’ Incroyable Amour 8” A troubadour, now selling dreams, Now selling love for a little company I fall back on things familiar: Toddling my way home, Worn out and all tattooed from The roads, living, and too much love. I come down, an unborn Christ Filling the cradles of Bethlehem With the larva of unfinished joy. I thought I had touched the moon, And drunk from the cup of the gods, But my hand, As it fell back on my body, Was all black, from the soot of the daily, And red-swollen, From the fire of my own flesh. Heading towards the sun, A braveless, purposeless Icarus, I fall back on my dreams, And since these, too, let me down, I land, servile, on my knees Unable to stand up and Walk ahead to meet my doom. Like a fallen Magus, I eye the last star. While distant drums echo my wailings I hum, in incantations, my love song 7

Before I crawl back to the bleak retreat Of my silent, immeasurable solitude.

I’ve lived through some hard times. My face is lined; my body so frail. I used to think I might be able –

October 21st , 2007

II. Morning Twilight in East Agadir from “The Two Twilights: Evening and Morning (In Tribute to Baudelaire)” The day broke on my garden in frosty colours. The thrush poked its head in sudden jerks As the lark stood guessing at the day’s humours. A weary spider, back from her long night hunt Trod heavily home; her legs silently seeking The silken quilt of her magical bed when, Suddenly, she was pecked by a hungry beak: One life chant interrupting another! The white sun, its rays starting to leak, Stood, an evident witness to the sacrifice. A few miles away, a sulphurous cloud, Octopus-like, hung over the next district; Its spongy tentacles sucking the population With its machines, dreams and progeny, In an endless, windless motion of Reeking bodies, cheap sex, and allergy. Contained in sleep by the cool, black night, The monster was now shaking itself up: The morning heat steamed its threat into matter Your honourable host? The public garbage dump! I stood stunned, pondering this other tale of two cities, And pitied, for the untimely barbecue, the East Gadiris.

When the river ran to meet the sea, When the sun and moon shared the skyTo look out as far as the eye could see, And raise a glass to the girl looking back at me Taken from The Lamplighter. Bloodaxe Books, 2008. WENDY COPE

Flowers Some men never think of it. You did, you’d come along And say you’d nearly brought me flowers But something had gone wrong. The shop was closed. Or you had doubtsThe sorts that minds like ours Dream up incessantly. You thought I might not want your flowers. It made me smile and hug you then. Now I can only smile. But, look, the flowers you nearly brought Have lasted all this while. Taken from Serious Concerns. Chatto and Windus, 1992.

June 3th, 2008 SIMON ARMITAGE LAMIA TAYEB

Brassneck

Morning Twilight A Translation of Baudelaire’s ‘Le Crépuscule du Matin’ The reveille was chiming in the army barracks, And the morning blast blew over lanterns and lonely alleys. 8

United, mainly, every odd Saturday, or White Heart Lane for a worthwhile away game. Down in the crowds at the grounds where the bread is: the gold, the plastic, 21

But it needs yours to stay that way.” No one could live for ever in A suspended gleam-on-the-edge, As if sky might tear any minute. Or not for ever for long. Those icicles Won’t be surprise any more. The little snapped threads Blew away. Glamour left that hill in Dumfries. The sculptor went off with his black equipment. Adzes, twine, leather gloves. What’s left is a photo of A completely solitary sight In a book anyone might open. But whether our touch at the door gets forgotten Or turned into other sights, light, form, I hope you’ll be truthful To me. At least as truthful as lightning, Skinning a tree.

It was time for a legion of dreams, evil and uncouth, To tear the pillow of lusty youth, And like a tearful eye, twitching and fluttering, The lamp would splash red stains over day’s limpid face, And crashed under the weight of heavy grumpy flesh, The soul would play the battle of lamp and day. Like a tearful face swept over by the morning breeze, The air is overcharged by the twitched winged-flight of things And man’s poetry has dried up, woman’s heart jaded.

Sound of Sleat

Houses here and there puffed up their morning fumes, The town’s harlots trail on their silly slumber, With open mouths and sallow eyelids, While the pauper women, pulling their dry cold breasts, Rubbed heat into their fingers and blew fire into their embers. It was a time when in between freezing cold and needy toil, The pangs of gestation tear up the women with child; And like a sob choked by frothy blood, Distant cockcrow cut through misty air, Waves of fog washed the prostrate forms of housetops, Men dying in the bleak rooms of poorhouses, Heaved their last broken breaths, And the dissipated forms of debauchery, broken by their ribaldries Trudged back home.

I always looked out at the world, And wondered if the world looked back at me, Standing on the edge of something, On my face- the wind from the cold sea.

Shivering Dawn, in green and pink robes, Creeps slowly over the deserted face of Seine, And bleak Paris, rubbing his eyes, Straps on his tools, an old man broken by toil.

Across the waters were mirrors to see Faces that looked like me, People caught between two places, People crossing over the seas.

Parted Ways

Taken from Rembrandt Would Have Loved You. Chatto and Windus, 1998. JACKIE KAY

And it seemed from my croft -With the old stones and the sheep, And the sound of the songs in my sleepThat the music of folk somewhere meets On the edge of the place we would be. 20

Shall I entreat you – Listless lines of my song – To twist ’n curve ’n join Hands ’n dance together, To twitch ’n jerk ’n flap Waxen wings to the everlasting fire Of his cherished company? Shall I entreat you 9

– Tameless lines of my song – To trumpet order in your troop Trim and smooth unruly thoughts, Spruce up the garlanded face Of he that’s bade farewell To the flurried world I call mine? Shall I entreat you – Careless lines of my song – To send a few words waltzing Upon the winds of regret ’n longing, Gild the wan face of my memories And cross in time endless ways With him that’s walked a different way? ABDELKADER HAMOUCHI

Teaching a Man Who Knows Much I can’t remember when the idea of doing something, anything, to help with my villagers’ well being first struck my mind. In truth, the prospect of having an impact on my surrounding had nagged my conscience more times than a thousand. Yet, how to get this wish was neither easy nor obvious. So, on a summer’s evening I seated myself on a chair that lingered in what could pass for a veranda. I put up my forearm and set a thumb under my chin and a forefinger against my temple in the attitude of a thinker. I pondered; and since nothing grew out of my pensiveness I shifted my business to the contemplation of my fingers. It occurred to me all of a sudden that Afak Association was a venue where I could be useful. So I rushed there with a strained mind, thinking of teaching and the trouble that might attend it. On arriving, I looked searchingly, then walked up to the secretary’s desk, “excuse me!” said I, looking levelly at her. “Could I see the association’s president?” I demanded; “the president did you say?” she repeated and glanced at me above her glasses. “Come on,” she added, rose and preceded me to his office. The president bent on his desk and sipped mint tea when I walked in. With great composure he lay down a cup, looked up at me and smiled in greeting; then he pointed to a plain chair on the opposite side of the desk and I sat down. “Well,” said I, “my wish is to teach Classical Arabic, if you think this may concern illiterate villagers”. He nodded his agreement, chuckled and gently patted the arm of his chair. “Oh, that sounds very interesting,” So, he listened intently as I delineated my plan, the fact which culminated in a warm, encouraging handshake. “Oh, it’s kind of you,” said he, “your enthusiasm shows in your eyes.” He went on af10

Imagining itself Aretha Franklin Singing “You make me feel like a natural woman” In basso profondo, Firing the bark with its otherworld ice The way you fire, lifting me Off my own floor, legs furled Round your trunk as that tree goes up At an angle inside the lightning, roots in The orange and silver of Dumfries. Now I’m the lightning now you, you are, As you pour yourself round me Entirely. No who’s doing what and to who, Just a tangle of spiral and tree. You might wonder about sculptors who come all this way To make a mad thing that won’t last. You know how it is: you spend a day, a whole life. Then the light’s gone, you walk away To the Galloway Paradise Hotel. Pine-logs, Cutlery, champagne - OK, But the important thing was making it. Hours, and you don’t know how it’ll be. Then something like light Arrives last moment, at speed reckoned Only by horizons: completing, surprising With its three hundred thousand Kilometres per second. Still, even lightning has its moments of panic. You don’t get icicles catching the midwinter sun In a perfect double helix in Dumfriesshire every day. And can they be good for each other, Lightning and tree? It’d make anyone, Wouldn’t it, afraid? That rowan would adore To sleep and wake up in your arms But’s scared of getting burnt. And the lightning might ask, touching wood, “What do you want of me, now we’re in the same Atomic chain?” What can the tree say? “Being the centre of all that you are to yourself That’d be OK. Being my own body’s fine 19

ENGLISH POETRY RUTH PADEL

Icicles Round a Tree in Dumbfriesshire We’re talking different kinds of vulnerability here. These icicles aren’t going to last for ever Suspended in the ultra violet rays of a Dumfries sun. But here they hang, a frozen whirligig of lightning, And the famous American sculptor Who scrambles the world with his tripod For strangeness au naturel, got sunset to fill them. It’s not comfortable, a double helix of opalescent fire Wrapping round you, swishing your bark Down cotton you can’t see, On which a sculptor planned his icicles, Working all day for that Mesopotamian magic Of last light before the dark In a suspended helter-skelter, lit By almost horizontal rays Making a mist-carousel from the House of Diamond, A spiral of Pepsodent darkening to the shadowfrost Of cedars at the Great Gate of Kiev. Why it makes me think of opening the door to you I can’t imagine. No one could be less Of an icicle. But there it is Having put me down in felt-tip In the mystical appointment book, You shoot that quick Inquiry-glance, head tilted, when I open up, Like coming in’s another country, A country you want but have to get used to, hot From your bal masquй, making sure That what you found before’s Still here: a spiral of touch and go, Lightning licking a tree 18

ter a thought, “we’ll make necessary preparations for the operation.” “Thank you so much,” said I, “thank you.” “To start right,” he promised, “we’ll put up an announcement on the notice board and launch a campaign for adults’ literacy.” I was satisfied. In the hope to cater for my subjects I found myself running after old men and women, explaining to them that my intention was to fight illiteracy. In view of my acquaintance with the so called Moha, a man who prided himself on knowing much from experience, I went straight to him like an arrow. We talked over my enterprise and he agreed with a sigh, but not without arguing against the feasibility of teaching people who have witnessed the reign of three kings. “You can’t teach old apes new tricks,” said he with a chuckle. In another moment he looked up at me, grinned, narrowed his eyes, contorted his face and said, “Son! We fought colonialists and crickets.” He paused allowing the words to take effect; “Now, what is it you want to fight?” added he. The next day, men and women swarmed into my classroom whose size didn’t suit the purpose. Moha looked sideways and mumbled, “We’re in a pot!” At first they showed some apathy to attend my lessons: at times Moha, like some others, groaned at my explanation; in other times they rose to walk out; yet this didn’t deter me in the least from making preparations and proceeding to the instillation of things into their brains. Bearing on my vocation as a teacher, I thought the use of a stick, ruler or something alike to point to items on the blackboard, picture or map, would never fail me; yet I realized afterwards that it’s not always the case. When I wrote the alphabet on the board, I asked my students to repeat after me while indicating each letter with my pointer. Things went well and gave me the same satisfaction as a parent who discharged the responsibilities and pressing demands of life might feel. As we went through the letters, however, I pointed again to the first one with my stick and asked one of the men to say what it was. “It’s a stick,” said he with a sense of confidence. Silence composed everybody’s nerves; a touch of sorrow tinged with nervousness possessed my heart, and I immediately I spared my pointer. Then I pointed to the letter with my finger hoping to direct the man’s attention to the item in focus. I tried in vain. “It’s a finger!” answered the man, to my surprise, with a tone giving the impression that it was beyond question.

SEMIA HARBAWI

On Brueghel’s “Hunters in the Snow” (This poem is told from the perspective of a female skater on the rink in the painting’s background) The blade creases the thin crust Screeches and scratches the sugar icing Hiding the hibernating Sluggishness below.

In some beyondbrilliance way. They carried tiny letters In the creases of their Knees: Tiny kissed handkerchiefs You sent with miniature wings. JESSICA MURPHY

Learning to Howl These thoughts return redundant like shade of trees in dark of night and empty hollow depths, smoky moments of breathing shallow beat. If abandoned pursuits fill these gutters, then life will open, burst out raw exposed sore with possibility. And I chase you only because wounded pride drives desolate obsession and can’t let go imaginings fill these voids of me and mine these voids that you emptied with your turned cheek and reaching touch stop. Chasing the lean teahead dreams separate sphere suspended scattered skies surrounded by orange and foreign laughter walls sitting in silence and never ending sound self-knowledge hidden found uncovered naked. See in shaded eyes unseeing acceptance. My receptacle body, worn bruised filled shudders broken sweep across skin plains and open carved heart mines. Searching and finding only come joy and joinings cacophonous. Now howl. Hurt trepidations through acres of absent space and smiling faces returning redundant wishing and self delusions. After destruction dynamite disappearance discovery, even now, these gutters fill unwarranted.

The bird croaks and swoops Drops and rises, a black slash Caught in the kinetic languidity Of limbo and grace On the hill, black shapes. Pinpricks dotting a map of despair They stand watching, mourning In a wake hallowed by The shivering howls Of lonely hounds I clutch his hand. He is My ballast. We zoom by in A frozen blur Ensconced in a spell of Giddy oblivion I wish them away, they remain There expecting the creaking Crack, crack, crack The Going Under But I will be the one who will Stay Above. You will not quench the fire.

Sawdust packed, Belonging to a tinman, But somehow transplanted in me.

STUDENT POETRY REETTA HUMALAJOKI

Something fragile and papery, This cut-out love shape. It is wilting Like the flowers in my garden That follow their faces to the Sun But are over-burnt And loll their tired heads.

Flight All the bad things are here, I fear boredom and perspiration. These locks clicked into place, Left me chained and my Eyes despise returning. Seated, my head feels drugged, Nodding off again, again. Squeezing these pages to my breast and resting the cells of my fingers, I thoughtless, think. Right now it’s up in the air, me. And this kid too, kissing on my Shoulder, smiling not blank But uninformedly. Yet we are Happy everywhere, except here - Inbetween.

Yes I always was a daisy Like litter on the lawn. And I’ve only ever opened These dull petals When those yellow wheels Marked the sky. Glittery tyre-treads. But I grew a little too tall Like a beanstalk straining to lip The sky And these petals are becoming Like puff y marshmallows Left in the fire too long. And a sweetburn smell is in My skin.

Night Traffic

I cough my heart up And it’s in my throat again, But I am in no beanstalk stories, And there is no yellow brick road in sight, This is just me Chewing haemoglobin Ignoring my injuries And looking for the Sun again.

Miniature Wings The beetles were singing today 16

Bed-pressed, sheets weighed Down with heady voices. One voice, round round My voice my plans my worries. Unfamiliar silence, it has again Evaded me in this nighttime. This flash-awakening, this internal headlight flickering, These tractor tracks traced Up my neck, up my cerebellum. And, flaky lands Good luck! growing anything here, But trials they don’t cease, Plows they do kneed. 13

Canals creaking open, Pipes turned on and washed Down every limb joint digit. Filling and burning and – Yet not giving in! Not breaking off, breaking down But sticking through once more! Gasp and breathe Through every hollow rib Down to the emptied marsh ground, once more now! Remind, teach yourself once more to breathe the dusk And let all light snuff out.

EMILY CHESTER

Parachutes I am here- balanced on a tight-rope pulled Taut with longing and unfilled crevices And someone’s scissors cut little star shapes out of me Leaving this paper lantern of human emotion Dangling. I am tired-of trying to say how I feel or Of trying to see why it’s necessary to know such things. Watching old ghosts of me Drop out of aeroplanes, Forgetting to put the parachutes Up.

A Scale, A Meter

Out of Order

A mirror masked, A glimmer, a twitch, And I envisaged this ending: Swan neck fading, Cute, upturned nose melting, Light blonde curls evaporating. I tried, it did not work. I see my eyes as always Dimmer than Yours. These fragments don’t add up, Straight or a smooth curl? A thin stick or some more curve? I’ve mixed and matched, Weighed and measured, And come up empty-handed, Diminished. Uneven skinned and unreplenished. This does such bad things to me, I know, but I don’t take in. Give me some time, but the past fades in, Highlight, underline it Maybe this time I’ll abide it This comparison must end.

The poems will not work Today They aren’t angry enough They have not been sharpened By master craftsmen And no matter how frantically I Scribble, this frustration Gnaws like some undeserving Rat Obsessed with attention And I try to capture The essence of what we were In the nihilistic fall of a raindrop, It almost works.

KATE HUTCHINGS

Chewing Haemoglobin I cough my heart up And it’s in my throat again: A sodden red tissue, 15