Redeeming Faith |
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Category: Images
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press-to
drop-by-drop
raindrop-and-sinew
the whole woman
not tamp-in
onto the still-living-soil
a new shape
embed-in
the bone and the
living-sinew-of
the still-warm blood
slowly-so
and infinitely blue
the milk-flow from crystallising breast
a stone-dress
.material as silk-soft
caul or veil
can be sweet as silk or rain or
blue
rain sinews against and into
chalice of womb.
half-into the wall
and often not
still
a lone bird night-sings
Fossil 1 is © C. Murray
First published, A New Ulster issue VI , 2013 -
untitled image , oil on canvas by © Michael McAloran 2003
histology slice 3
[ a tissue cloth so delicately coloured in mauves and purples indigo
and ivory cells become tissue whereas this isn’t at all the case
all is one in febrile disequilibrium not excluding momentary states
of euphoria and relative equilibrium the macabre beauty of histology
like a travelogue along enlarged detailed drawings of funghal spores
or sporoform zoophytes white exquisitely and hypersensitively drawn
by haekcle against a black CSO corps sans organes the hubris debris
humus against which lines flightlines maps nomadologic trails micro
politic events pointillistic gestes rhizomatic ghanaean junglean infra
branchings dadaistic or ba’akan pygmee refrains establish unfold
glare and disappear amongst glacis’ of ice basalt slate sapphire or
northsea grayness and mist histology is that : the slice with obsolete
or ephemereal or contingent a truth to leave the observor with her’s
his’s own ponderings of carcinogenic intimacy or clean tissue missive
towards the ones receptive the ones donating slices out of their body
to be mapped navigated coloured in mauves grays deep purples
to indigo ]Text is © Aad de Gids
- Discussion of the paintings and texts of Machinations is here
- Purchase link for Machinations
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Stone weighting my palm
has sprung a cathedralheart jumps
walking in the flesh of its surpassing grace
groin-vaulted and high asno bird ever escaped to soar this
high-up—
seamless andthere is no blood
no feather
no bone—stone cannot make the bird.
© C. Murray
- A version of Precarious Migratory Spectacular by C. Murray is one of two poems published recently in the Galway Review. This poem was collected in Cycles at Lapwing Publications (2013)
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Excerpt from Woman and Scarecrow by Marina Carr Enter the thing in the wardrobe, regal, terrifying, one black wing, cobalt beak, clawed feet, taloned fingers. It is scarecrow, transformed. Stands looking at woman, shakes itself down, woman stares at it.
Scarecrow takes woman’s hand, pierces vein in her wrist, a fountain of blood shoots out. Scarecrow dips quill into woman’s wrist. A cry of pain from Woman.
Woman We don’t belong here. There must be
another Earth. And yet there was a moment when
I thought it might be possible here. A moment
so elusive it’s hardly worth mentioning . . . an
ordinary day with the ordinary sun of a late
Indian summer shining on the grass as I sat in the
car waiting to collect the children from school.
Rusalka on the radio, her song to the moon,
Rusalka pouring her heart out to the moon, her
love for the prince, make me human, she sings,
make me human so I can have him. And something
about the alignment of sun and wind and
song on this most ordinary of afternoons stays
with me, though what it means is beyond me and
what I felt is forgotten now, but the bare facts, me,
the sun, the shivering grass, Rusalka singing to
the moon. And I wonder is this not the prayer
each of us whispers when we pause to consider.
Make me human. Make me human. And then
divine. And I wonder is it for these elusive
prayers we are here, these half sentences that
vanish into the ether almost before we can utter
them. Living is almost nothing and we brave
little mortals investing so much in it.Scarecrow You’re determined to go with romance on your lips.
Woman I know as well as the next that the arc of
our time here bends to tragedy. How can it be
otherwise when we think where we are going?
But we must mark those moments, those
passionate moments, however small. I looked up
passionate in the dictionary once because I thought
I had never known it. And do you know what passion
means ?Scarecrow It comes from the Latin, pati, to suffer
© Marina Carr , all rights reserved
Excerpted from *Woman and Scarecrow, published Gallery Press, 2006.
Gallery Press celebrated their 43rd Anniversary in publishing this week of February 2013. Marina Carr is a playwright known to us for the excellence of her work. I was incredibly privileged to witness Marina read from her play Woman and Scarecrow in Galway during Gallery Press’ 40th Anniversary celebrations three years ago. I blogged about Carr’s reading here. I am interested in how writers use the theatrical-space to create image and symbol, as much as I am interested in how poets use the theatrical-space for poetic works. Gallery Press publish both poetry and drama, thus I wanted to look at Marina Carr’s use of structure and symbol in Woman and Scarecrow. Thank you to Suella from The Gallery Press who has helped me to find the relevant sections of the play, and who has often aided me in the past with regard to permissions for hosting Gallery poets on this blog.
- Images from Woman and Scarecrow can be found at the SecretSpaces blog
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Irish Poets and Reviewers call-out.
Recours Au Poème is edited by Matthieu Baumier. Baumier is inviting contemporary Irish poets and poet-reviewers to consider submitting to the journal. There is a contact form link available in the base of this post for those who are interested in having their poems published in a modern multi-lingual contemporary poetry journal dedicated to excellence in poetry and review.
In order to give the Irish poet, poetic-reader, reviewer, and/or essayist an idea of the breadth of the site I am adding herein the index of Recours Au Poeme for issue #26. I suggest that the aspirant poet-writer would read some of the critiques and essays before submitting.
Below the index I have included some examples of works that I enjoyed reading recently. These include an essay on Poetry In Translation by Raymond Humphreys, a review of Surrealism, Underground Tour by Paul Vermeulen and the works of the two women poets, Marissa Bell Toffoli and Dominique Hecq
I am excerpting a teeny piece of Hecq’s Canted bone poem here as a taster. The entire poem can be read at this link
Canted Bone Poem
Poems grow in the dark, trace
the descent of sound
into silenceThis is a song of silence
This is the sound of the bone
breaking through the skin
of a slow waistingCanted Bone Poem is © copyright Dominique Hecq. Published, Recours Au Poème
Recours Au Poème, Issue # 26 (index):
Rencontre: Jean-Charles Vegliante, traducteur de La Comédie, de Dante.
Focus : Abdourahman Waberi
Poèmes: Cécile Guivarch, Laurence Sarah Dubas, Sonia Khader, Triunfo Arciniegas, Nikola Madzirov
Chroniques: S’ils te mordent, Morlay, la chronique de Christophe Morlay autour du Manifeste pour la vie d’artiste de Bartabas.
Notes pour une poésie des profondeurs (5) : Marc Alyn en présence de la poésie, par Paul Vermeulen.
Essai : Vu de New York : Is Poetry (Scene) alive in New York (and beyond)? par Maya Herman Sekulić
Le jardin des adieux : flux et reflux de la perte ou l’abandon lumineux, sur la poésie d’Alain Duault, par Sylvie Besson
Critiques Michèle Finck, L’élégie balbutiée, par Mathieu Hilfiger
Une syllabe, battant de bois de Mary-Laure Zoss, par Pascale Trück
Vision de Roger Munier, par Fabien Desur
MIDRASH d’Eurydice désormais de Muriel Stuckel, par David Schnee
Mon pays ce soir de Josué Guébo, par Etty Macaire
The following are a collation of links mentioned in the post above. They are to a review, an essay on translation, and links to the poems of Dominique Hecq and Marissa Bell Tofolli.
Related Links
- Poetry in Translation par : Raymond Humphreys
- Surrealism, underground route by : Paul Vermeulen
- http://www.recoursaupoeme.fr/marissa-bell-toffoli/threshold
- The poetry of Marissa Bell Toffoli
- Recours Au poème contacts
- http://www.recoursaupoeme.fr/dominique-hecq/canted-bone-poem
Thanks to Matthieu Baumier for requesting submissions and proposals regarding the work of some contemporary Irish Poets. I thought the best way to deal with a call-out to Irish Poets was to link the site (as I have done so above here) and see if any poets wish submit to it.
Note – I joined the Recours Au Poème mailing list in recent weeks. Weeks that have been incredibly busy, and in terms of collaborative and writing work both very interesting and fruitful. I sent along a few poems for consideration, and they will be published later in the year.
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World Put to Rights
The dream that burst riverbanks
held you; blackstrap molasses,
antidote for your poison.Your plummets spraying wetness
like a coin in a cascade
woke no-one, not even us.The church spire grew legs, scaled bricks,
ran to your side, spotlighted.
I put glass over that glow.Quiet-huff of your refuge,
flailing arms, spluttering snores.
Ungainly crooning tunesto the realms of purity;
I found too sickly-sweet. You
fought the humdrum, from your seat.You would sleep outside, would sing,
stand on ledges mollified.
I won’t sing, no matter what.Float on, keep your whistles of
booze-hounds. When I awaken
I will join you, watch for me.World Put to Rights is © Kelly Creighton , all rights reserved.
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You can read more about Kelly at the following link.
Kelly Creighton/ Ceallach O Criochain is an Irish artist, writer of fiction and poetry; born in Belfast in 1979 she writes about contemporary relationships and local landscapes. Kelly has previously published poems and short stories in anthologies and magazines.Currently her poetry is in literary ezines including A New Ulster, Lapwing Publications. Recently her work was feature of the week in Electric Windmill Press.Kelly is editing her novel Yielding Fruit, a historical fiction set in West Yorkshire, she is also compiling her first collection of poems.
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“The Chinese New Year 2013
marks the year of the Snake
graceful and dark at the same time.
As one year bows out to another
I often reflect on past occurrences
failures and wins, silly mistakes,
see if I have learned from them.
Death brought many clouds of grief
at losing my brother so suddenly
family gatherings feel strained
we all want to talk about him but don’t
for fear it will create even more sadness.
Like a lost bead on a necklace, the space
a constant reminder of his passing.
Death is a leveler of sorts a stopper of tracks
just like the new year as it approaches
vows will be made and broken
there will be make-ups and break-ups.
Haves and have-nots, peace and war.
With my anthology of wishes I push on.
I wish 2013 be the year man returns to listening
to his intuition like the ancestors did
working from within using inner radar
learn to be more spiritually aware of others.
Respect the songs of others like the birds in the sky
their choruses are many and they live freely.
Slow down and awaken to the new.”.2013 is © Aine MacAodha
Thanks to Aine for her poem 2013 to mark this New Year on Poethead. I am adding Aine’s website landing-page, Poetry and Links. Aine has published Fire of the Gaels on Poethead previously, and I have included her in my Index of Women Poets.
- Look out for Aine Mac Aodha and a bevy of contemporary poets at A New Ulster
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Tree-Wheel
In the rain its knuckled bark
has the gloss of polish,a bottle-green patina.
There isn’t a skull-head for pivot,
tension is held in back of its palm
it fists into the soil,raising it up.
Beach
Dragged impasto of seaweed
aches against silver waves.I watch the wormholes
ferry their glitter of sand
in kaleidoscopes.
‘Tree-Wheel ‘ and ‘Beach’ by C. Murray is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.- First published at Bone Orchard Poetry as part of a sequence.
- Image is ‘Willow trees’ by Pieter Wenning
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Thanks to Mariela Baeva for her legacy project In The Hug Of Arms , an anthology of writing dedicated to the child victims of conflict. I am honoured to be a part of this work with a poem that was initially published in a group called Two Songs of War and a Lyric, by the SouthWord Journal at the Munster Literature Centre. The Poem Gernika was written to be read out at the 75th commemoration of the Guernica Massacre in 2012.
About Angelita
The image Mariela Baeva chose for her cover is of a small girl from Anzio called Angelita who died from shrapnel wounds at the end of World War II. The contributors to the Anthology are from, Uganda, Somalia, Ireland, Russia, Belgium, Angola, the municipality of Anzio (Italy), Pakistan, Lebanon and Bulgaria. The texts are in English, French, Urdu, Somali, Russian (with translations into English).
- There’s more information about the Anthology at this link.
- PEN International newsletter is here , PEN
Chris Murray 