No-one is watching
Unharness your two beasts
Ambition and Anxiety
from your chariot
Unharness yourself
from all electronic devices
You will not be followed
Did you look, did you
see the tree tops career above you
in an ecstasy of elements,
smell the damp brown
leaves under your feet?
Did you witness yourself
in the middle
of all this rejoicing
and all this decay?
Or are you still stooped
under the weight of your expectations?
See the grey clouds skitter across a yellow sky
See the fat bluebottle climb the window again
See the oceans
who have carried our ships on their backs
and from whom the feast was delivered
See the oceans
Rise up
No-one is watching
star
our smallness is vast
realised in darkness
my stardust is bone
animated by light
sculpted in our sway
stone is changing still
the moon
i am the crayfish, from the murky waters of the sea of cleverness
i am the yellow dog, the moon illuminates me and i shine
i am the dark dog, the moon illuminates me from behind
and i remain in silhouette
i am the path, i wind and dip
you think you can see me but you can’t see everything
i am the two stone pillars, i am petrified
i am seas of dust and rocks, the illusion of what has become known
i am the crayfish, my wet armour gleams in the moonlight.
Stupid Cow
Do you think he can hear you,
your missing baby?
his world lurches and surges
doesn’t know where he’s heading
still thinks he’ll come back
to solid ground and your warm flank
Do you think she can hear you,
your absent mother?
latched onto her udders
gluttonous metal jaws
drain every drop of milk
her body just keeps on
making for you
The Demon
You cannot name me
yet I mould your normality.
I make a squalid mockery of
all the pretty things in your house.
I slip like an adulteress
between your soft sheets,
and suck the air from your chambers.
You wake in musty spoil.
I stack up episodes
like ill-matched crockery
Rankled by uncertainty, you
deny me; I reign.
Unnamed, I crouch
in your heart’s lower cavities.
No-one is watching and other poems are © Nicola Geddes
 Originally from Scotland, Nicola Geddes studied Environmental Art at the Glasgow School of Art, and Cello Performance at the London College of Music. She has been based in County Galway for the past twenty five years, where she works as a cellist and music tutor. To date her poetry has been published in Crannog, the Galway Review, and Skylight 47. In 2017 Nicola’s poems received a Special Commendation from the Patrick Kavanagh Award. |
Chris Murray 