Only the Moon Howls
Members of the
Hall Writers’ Forum
2019
Chough Publications
Published 2019 by Chough Publications
Poems, photos, and artwork ©2019 with the individual poets, photographers, and artists This collection © 2019 Chough Publications
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, stored, or utilised in any form, by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including printing, photocopying, saving on disk, broadcasting, or recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, other than for purposes of fair use, without written permission from the publishers.
front cover painting: Jude Cowan-Montague back-cover painting & bok design: Peter J. King
Carmen Bugan’s poem “Moon” has been published in The Irish Times. An earlier version of King & Christofidou’s translation of Karyotakis’ poem “Tonight the Moon...” was published in the Worcester College Record. Doros Loizou’s poem “Amica silentia lunae” is included by kind permission of the poet’s widow, Barbara Bell
Printed and bound by imprintdigital.com, Upton Pyne, Exeter
“We ran as if to meet the moon.” Robert Frost
“Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly. Then your love would also change.” William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
“There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.” George Carlin
CONTENTS
Darrell Barnes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Lunar Eclipse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 photo by Peter J. King. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Carmen Bugan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Once in a Blue Moon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Jared Campbell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Samson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stuck Like Film to the Face of the Waters. . . . . . . . . . . Cattails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5 5 6 7 7
Tom Clucas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Nocturne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Jude Cowan-Montague . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Peeping Tom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Man under the Moon (Evolution). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Hymn to a Moonwalk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Cathy Dreyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . All this bloody mooning about the moon . . . . . . . . . . Frack tide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . From the Song of Theia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12 12 13 14
photo by Peter J. King. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Tony Hufton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Hush! The Moon Has Come . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Peter J. King . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nach dem Regen(Gustav Sack) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I@ N,(("DV64 "B`R,... (Kostas Karyotakis) . . . . . . . Amica silentia lunæ (Doros Loizou) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cotswold Gothic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
18 18 20 22 24
Lucy Newlyn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stolen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Prête-moi ta plume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Unrequited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
26 26 27 28 29
Bruce Ross-Smith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Verlaine at Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island . . . . . . . 30 Robert Graves: 20th July 1969. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Mohammad Talib. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Moon for the Darker Nights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Moon through the Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Unlike the Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Life and the Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I and the Moon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
32 32 33 34 35 36
Darrell Barnes Lunar Eclipse The lanterns hang from fishing boats at sea. I watch them at a distance from the shore where no one is abroad. Alone and free I mark the breathless interval before the dazzling moon will all but disappear. I marvel at the universal law that makes Selene’s surface, once so clear, slide into a ghostly pall of death. I gaze in sanctified amazement, fear. All around is still. I hold my breath. The morning stars emerge from hidden night to multiply a sacred garland wreath, giving, like gods, their share of heavenly light to every fisherman’s poor feeble flame which now on silent waters burns more bright. On such a night God’s sons together came, in chorus sang and shouted in acclaim.
1
photo by Peter J. King
2
Carmen Bugan Moon The full sunlit side of the moon filled Our room with light That broke through autumn trees; We could have stayed awake all night trying To name it, as it lit up the clock, corners, Our heads on the pillows. But we fell asleep with its light On our eyelids, with nothing to hide, Not even private dreams. I felt not too far from being translated, The same way sunlight was interpreted By the moon face we could see.
3
Once in a Blue Moon 31st January 2018 Heavens stirred with the blue moon today, And I waited for the blood in the blue hue— I didn’t see the red big moon cross from its ordinary Place in the firmament, to the extraordinary. I waited for a sign of a miracle, Which didn’t manifest itself. But it was there all day, no less real Because I had missed it. Just like the faces of my children glowing, Teary from squabbles, then singing: Picture frame by picture frame, their shouts Of joy secure, holding up the miracle of my life.
4
Jared Campbell Samson She calls me up from somnolence; I wake with normal confidence. My bonds hold fast. I realise I told her what I never knew. I’m at the door and through, and into night with opened eyes. A lock of hair, a lover’s bond, both shorn. And I discover now that strength and bondage correspond. My strength resided in my vow. The wind blows where and when it will. Whatever love may grace your bed whatever wine may touch your tongue are sweets extracted from the dead. A rising form obscures the moon — the slender arm that holds the spoon. I twitch beneath the spoon.
5
Scum Sometimes on lazy summer afternoons I meditate on all those living things that dwell on surfaces, conceal the deep, that breed and colonise, a spreading ring, aimlessly making swamps of their lagoons, blooming where other life is starved to sleep — they labour turning sunlight into food, they neither plan nor calculate nor think, they striate like the veins upon the moon, they live not learned, but native aptitude. They stink.
6
Stuck Like Film to the Face of the Waters Stuck like film to the face of the waters – a disk of quivering clear lustre – she wonders as she dances “how did I get down here?”
Cattails The trees define the sky beyond their perforated screen. The same moon floats on sky and pond with worlds between. So come tonight, we’ll walk along the bank where cattail grows. The frogs and crickets sing one song in different tempos.
7
Tom Clucas Nocturne Full moon in London and the light has changed: shadows interrogate; with stark relief the streets I knew deny me, grow estranged. Tonight all purposes seem cold and brief, thinking what depths of space the moon has ranged, mutating thought the way it hauls the tides. When Theia struck the Earth and spawned the moon it did not spurn its twin or shun its hold but stayed to orbit, counterpoint Earth’s tune; observing as life’s mundane feats unfold it beams unreadable, a dazzling rune mocking small steps, most reticent of guides. It is not progress that the moon derides, gleaming off glass and stone, but false divides, the fractal rifts that time’s perspective hides: there is no sense in taking human sides thinking what depths of space the moon has ranged. Mutating thought the way it hauls the tides it beams unreadable, a dazzling rune mocking small steps, most reticent of guides.
8
Jude Cowan-Montague Peeping Tom Walking across the bridge, the moon came with me keeping to heel, like a dog. I jumped in the car but he followed. I got out at the traffic lights and sped over the roundabout and he smoothly glided along the street while my steps hit the road like the bass notes on the piano, lighting jazz town with his beady eyes through the heavy curtains. In Libya, France and deepest Antarctica, he goes in search of entertainment, safe in his high hotel with an excellent vista. He’s bored, obviously. Suspicious, isn’t it. When the sun’s around he goes dim, not drawing attention to himself. Yet at night the moon has been keeping everyone up and encouraging saxophone players. Why doesn’t he go home to his family, or find something intelligent to do rather than peeping in on us, the nosy cur.
9
Man under the Moon (Evolution) or They're All Out Tonight
10
Hymn to a Moonwalk flow along intimate channels tracking past undrawn curtains a grey, slow rabbit hedge blink to back away from prints of wind waves and the bands of hair him sedimentary, him interlocked trotters and ankles belabouring road hunched in the spitting heather and there are miles to go in the air moon gaining height bound beneath docks a story of dry ears and mouth, a freezing telephone box huddled in a bag, gleaming nail varnish between pub and lesson before music vigorous spirits hung a boulder in the sky for us to ignore at the end of the sun Sunday followed the line down into the foolscap hoards into impossible volume of futurist creep.
11
Cathy Dreyer All this bloody mooning about the moon The bigger the moon, the greater the threat of being seen, and when I want to commune with my community, a big moon can punish us us with impunity, allowing the watching foxes to tremble greedily in their hides, deepening the shadows twitching in the wind, as they bide their time until one of us runs full tilt enjoying the jilt of a hopeful lover, realising too late the risk of being alone under a big moon, the opportunist fox seizing the light sending the hopes of love into the clover as you might roll a hoop into the looping canopy of Old Man’s Beard where it would lean beyond the reach even of the biggest moon —
12
Frack tide The first time that ever I heard your notes I was on the beach in June’s Donegal. Far out to sea the lights of fishing boats outshone the stars and we toasted mackerel and drank whiskey. Out of the black beyond the sound of your voice calmed the waves fretting on the sleeping granite and the cold sand. We looked up and lost ourselves, forgetting time, tide, anything of daily order, freed from gravity, floating on music, dizzy with high Cs in gentle rapture then tranquillised by low E’s soft acoustic. The windless sea lay glassy, mirror flat holding the moon in pieces, white and fat.
13
From the Song of Theia Frag. cod *4.19 pap. 201 Eo.Magn. engulfing flames, just heat. How you laughed saying, ‘Foolish Theia, charge your mighty mother [ ] you blind in the belly?’ Chaos and Eros [ ] mark on families, they say, and isn't it easier to §blame§ [ ] an error or forced, even (though both female). Shame, hotter engulfing flames [ ] women the crash itself. Selena and Gaia humiliated spectacular [ ] boiling seas etc leveret longs for too small to draw §her to me§. You say, ‘Theia, this is your fate, your only fate. How many more times can you go round [ ] this unending line?
14
don't hear me reply: ‘[ ] illumination in second hand light and no warmth either, now. Long ago sea of tears scorched to pale ashes now [ ] no sign at all that anyone reads my code, my naked brilliance.’
15
photo by Peter J. King
16
Tony Hufton Hush! The Moon Has Come Hush! The moon has come to look at her reflection in the fen’s mirror. Here’s another moon floating in the midnight street a round phone-lit face.
Moon The moon is staring through the tree — oh close the curtains, bolt the door, I loathe the way it looks at me. The moon is staring. Through the tree there! Sallow, greasy — don’t you see? It leers. I cannot take it any more, the moon’s staring through the tree — oh close the curtains, bolt the door.
17
Peter J. King Nach dem Regen Zwischen des Gartens stierköpfigen Schatten, aus denen des Tages letzte Lichter wie blutrot müde Augen funkeln, wandeln wir um und sprechen leise von unsren geknickten Plänen; von den Bäumen fallen die Tropfen und zuweilen stürzen, dort wo die Wege sich biegen, des Gartens Schatten wie wollige Stiere jählings auf unser Herz – dann klettert mit seinen hageren Armen der Mond an den sparrigen Zweigen hoch und will mit seinen zitternden Händen, seiner messingnen Greisenglatze und süffisanten Magisterfratze unser Leid in ein ironisches Lächeln umwenden; aber ein Wind schüttelt die Wipfel und durchnäßt und schweigend gehen wir heim.
18
(Gustav Sack)
After the Rain
(Gustav Sack; transl. Peter J. King)
Between bull-headed shadows in the garden gleam the last rays of the sun like weary blood-red eyes; we stroll about, and softly speak about our shattered plans. From the trees drip raindrops, and from time to time, there where the paths entwine, like shaggy bulls the garden’s shadows plunge precipitously to our heart — then, with his skinny arms, the Moon climbs high into the raftered branches, sets himself with trembling hands, with brassy old bald pate and smug schoolmaster’s gargoyle face, to wrap our sorrow up in his ironic smirk. But a gust of wind sets all the treetops shaking; soaked to the bone and silent we go home.
19
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20
Tonight the Moon...
(Kostas Karyotakis; transl. Peter J. King & Andrea Christofidou)
Tonight the moon will fall upon the strand, a heavy pearl. And over me will play the mad mad moonlight. The ruby wave will shatter at my feet, and scatter all the stars. From my palms two doves will have been born; they’ll rise – two silver birds – be filled – two cups – with moonlight, sprinkle moonlight on my shoulders, on my hair. The sea is molten gold. I’ll launch my dream to sail upon a caïque. I’ll tread a diamond into gravel, glistening. The encircling light will seem to pierce my heart, a heavy pearl. And I shall laugh. And then I’ll weep... And there, there’s the moonlight!
21
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22
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Amica silentia lunae
(Doros Loizou; transl. Peter J. King & Andrea Christofidou)
My maritime dreams through the nights’ shallows aching lonely tales this evening once again the leaves will get a soaking and the mockery of night will go to roost in reverence for silence. Again we’ve been left solitary gazing at a moon that’s lost its charm. Perhaps it’s that we’ve learnt to think of things a different way. And so we’ve turned love into shame how – painlessly – to replicate the look of Spring?
23
Cotswold Gothic i. The moon’s a fingernail off full — was brass when rising, polished pewter now; the wind-blown cirrostratus tatters greyly past its face, like streaks of tarnish, fleeting. The shrieks and hoots of tawny owls reach frenzied climax, then subside; a brown hare pauses by the field edge, seems to check the moon, then fades into the hedgerow gloom. ii. The lane that ran down to the bridge was shadowed by a bank on either side, the moonlight silver-blue along a narrow central ribbon, jagged with the shadows of the winter trees. Halfway to the bridge we came upon an adder, flattened by the traffic of the day; we paused beside it, and were feather-kissed by swooping whiteness searching for a meal. Closer to the bridge, the blackness at the verges – neutral, friendly even, when we’d started off – grew colder, more forbidding. Even now the bridge was indistinct, the overhanging trees and crowding undergrowth subsumed it in a dark, undifferentiated mass. We edged a little nearer to each other.
24
Is it the bridge that moved, or someone – something – on it? We’re not sure, but carry onward: one step, then another, then... Before we get there, though, we turn and stride away (a little quicker than our normal pace, perhaps — by no means running, definitely not), and postpone the bridge till morning, and the sun. iii. From the wainscot, sibilant and yet subdued, malicious whispering, intent conveyed by tone alone — the odd distorted syllable is recognisably linguistic. Not the central heating cooling; not the wind — the night is still. Perhaps it’s rodents of some kind, a-patter in their secret passageways; perhaps it’s just the rustling of rats. Oh Lord, let it be rats!
25
Lucy Newlyn The Window Moon in your austere watch-tower watching, be still! Your restless swaying motion unnerves me – like an eye, which roves in its unseen socket, searching the hidden reaches of the midnight sky. You are the whiteness of the thought-police. The stars are your conspirators. Cloaked and partly-hooded, they report to you in secrecy. Their winking is not meant for me; their passwords cannot be decoded. Set me free to think my own thoughts, though unwanted. I’d rather be alone on this unruly sea with a blank patch of window-darkness.
26
Stolen Moon you were stolen from me for a while, your cold white wholeness hidden. I thought to chide you for your stubbornness When you appeared, unbidden. The clouds have opened their veils for you And look, you are gently driven Among the roof-tops and the skeleton trees, Over the winter garden.
27
Prête-moi ta plume If the moon could influence me by day I’m sure she’d try. But she’s so distant, cold and thrawn: when she’s most needed she seems most withdrawn. She only shows when darkness falls — and then, full-on, she takes my pen, and writes my words. She’s tugging at my thoughts, my verse, the same way that she pulls the moving tides: I’m at her mercy and must do her will. When she’s full she’d have me howl. So be it. Let her hatch her giant egg of thought in secret when I’m dumb. When night comes creeping, let her write — and I’ll pay fearful homage to her light.
28
Unrequited Moon, you are pale and passionless, circled by frigid stars. If you could speak would it be in disdain? You are the Queen of Night, and all your courtiers bow in dumb obeisance. The trees raise supplicant arms. Even in sleep your earth-bound votaries are abject. One glance, one subtle sign would be enough to prove that you acknowledge them. When will you peel off your robes, your shining skin?
29
Bruce Ross-Smith Verlaine at Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island “… sangloter d’extase les jets d’eau”* which translates without pause “the fountains sob in their ecstasy”, curious here in deep-water coves where passion against the tides turns in on itself for a moment only, then clair de lune becomes moonlight when swimmers go as far as they can, no statues in these coldest of waters to celebrate the shortest shining doubt. The lovers didn’t arrive on time to canoe across the bay, no matter the moon took their tongues away, cougars somewhere else to say very little or too much for staying in touch, middle night Nootka Sound the darkest illuminations in sight, not a supple paradox for God’s sake, eyes set as the moon seeps down to the starfish beneath the crown, forest stayed in circles of hope, all meaning comes beyond this point.
30
Robert Graves: 20th July 1969 Shutters fastened to keep out the light, you sat still, eyes closed this moonwalking night. Down the road in the upper café the only TV round about drew for you the shrill and the slick, faithless as the lost must be who can’t “count the beats”, the shame of their game cutting through limestone as the Goddess retreats. “All saints revile her” spelt out in a dream, her gift absolute where the torrent outguns the stream. This made no sense that night in war: bisecting craters when the moon too bright, you couldn’t kill against that light. And now? You sight Diana Nemorensis (Mother Goddess Vesta) and know your duty is her rite.
31
Mohammad Talib Moon for the Darker Nights As crescent or fully-formed, the moon does not speak. If it must, it does silently to the person it relates. Upon leaving for the given round, I have always heard it loudly said: ‘You must look for my proxy during darker nights.’ But the people don’t believe my story. What they hear, they say, is me speaking to no one on a full moon night.
32
Moon through the Earth
photo by Mohammad Talib
33
Unlike the Moon You aren’t like the full moon. The moon doesn’t announce its coming. It simply comes, without tales about the intercepting clouds, or the forcible eclipse veiling its appearance before the viewers. When it appears in full, there isn’t a half-way pulling back, for modesty or moderation. It presents itself fully. Unlike the moon, you merely promise, backtrack, and disappear in silence.
34
Life and the Moon Life parallels the moon. Split between what is for viewing and what lies behind; scarcely presentable without the borrowed light. The lover’s or the poet’s musings on the moon or life are bereft of both. Much of life, like the moon is spent in letting out its surface for reflecting someone else’s light; then making it up as one’s own. The showmanship reaches the dead end at its zenith. Both recede to darker days for a periodic change. Like the moon, life too must go into hiding beneath its own peak for another round of the same course.
35
I and the Moon Faces more luminous than our places. Weak gravity, light without warmth. Faint solace for the grieving hearts. Casting ample illusions for fantasies and celebrations. Both shoulder their vocations on the endless travel track, alone and silent.
36
