Aftermath
Body knows soul
does not accept—
the worst happened
it is over—
||nearly|| it is nearly over|
body experiences
s i l v e rdawnssong
blackbirdsong
silvers,
slivers of
its song
are a
silversong—
I feel it along
my arms
soul trembles
it is over,
nearly—
flowers were—their
lights
light
the path
body knows—
© Chris Murray 2023
First published The Honest Ulsterman, June 2023. Aftermath is companion to Violence, from fragments 1&2 first published Belfield Literary Review, issue 2, spring 2022, Eds. Paul Perry and Niamh Campbell. Both poems are from my forthcoming book.
Tag: Previews
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from “Violence” I am breathing. I am breathing lightly as, light as, shell— / breath as, moth— / breath as, bird— / breath moon’s faces a triptych sets Mars’ red against turquoise— a sister, (less 6) ~ serious now, it is— (a purple sonority pageant of silks, their faces— dive of bird cuts through watered silk finds its level (frozen) we are mouth -bound crystalline gold cold— a) woman walks into winter © C. Murray 2022First published belfield literary review, issue 2, spring 2022, Eds. Paul Perry and Niamh Campbell.
BLR
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Solinus, on the authority of Camden,
incontrovertibly declares that there are no bees in Ireland.
Keating impugns both Camden and Solinus
stating Such is the quantity of bees,
that they are found not only in hives,
but even in the trunks of trees, and in holes in the ground.
Modomnoc the beekeeper, who was with St David in Wales,
was followed to Ireland by an adoring swarm of bees.
Writing in the 8th century, Bede the so-called Venerable
opines Hibernia … et salubritate ac serenitate aerum
… Diues lactis ac mellis insula … Or, so Google tells us,
Ireland has a fine climate, and is a land rich in milk and honey.
In 1920 Benedictine Brother Adam hybridized the Buckfast Bee.
According to The Economist in 1996 Brother Adam was
unsurpassed as a breeder of bees. He talked to them,
he stroked them. He brought to the hives a calmness that,
according to who saw him work, the sensitive bees responded to.
The Buckfast Bee – Brother Adam’s supreme though far
from only achievement as a breeder – is super-productive,
extremely fecund, resistant to disease and disinclined to swarm.
However, it cannot perform miracles.
Good St Bega could. She fled Ireland for Northumbria,
away from enforced marriage to a Norwegian Prince.
There she founded the still-extant Cumbrian coastal village
of St Bees, pop 1,717 according to the census of 2001.
Sometime after, although not too long after, 850AD, St Bega,
to gain the land on which to build her priory
from the goading Lord Egremont, made it snow
three inches deep on Midsummer’s Day. Yes, she made
it snow three inches deep on Midsummer’s Day,
dispossessing Lord Egremont, as well as, presumably,
seriously upsetting the bees as a consequence.
Bees and the Authorities is © Dave Lordan, from Lost Tribe Of The Wicklow Mountains
About Lost Tribe of the Wicklow Mountains
‘It may be said, in truth, that he changed his manner almost for every work that he executed’, Vasari said of Di Cosimo, and in Lost Tribe of the Wicklow Mountains Dave Lordan’s poems embrace a wide range of formal and vocal possibilities. Internationally renowned as one of the most inventive and provocative of Ireland’s contemporary performance poets, Lordan reinforces that position in this new collection. There are also poems here that demand a quieter hearing, however, including a long and powerful elegy for Denis Boothman and an urgent meditation on the scourge of suicide in Irish society. The anger that often characterized the poems of Lordan’s first two collections is transformed in Lost Tribe of the Wicklow Mountains into profound explorations and expressions of loss, love and hope – ‘music as a possible sanctity’.Lost Tribe of the Wicklow Mountains is Dave Lordan’s 3rd collection of poetry and will be published shortly by Salmon Poetry.
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Fragments from Noticing
i The wick, uprooted/ left of light – ice-shawl thawing to the leaf-ends dissolves to the rain/ the rain’s bloom. ii Wet-edge/wet-air lifts the birds dampening to the rim of cloud quietly. iii Not-evening/ a dimming seam behind the treeline/rising a black whir of crows. iv Opposite/ unfastened flowers mantling the stone/summer’s tumbled frock. v Mirror-firth/silver with sky, with gulls’ backs. vi A dug-in place/a shadow. A black edge/a knuckle/a grave. Fragments from Noticing is © Gillian Prew
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Edge/Untitled
Waiting among ghosts on the bursting stone/ white of memory/the wild weeds moved-in. White of the rushing sea/ the gull backs/the moon. Waiting/as if a blue-lit eye/a voice of glass/a leaf-sway – rain. As if the rain a slow-motion dust. The past – a field/a room. Wearing the grasses/the books letting go/not letting go. These pieces corrupted by time. Small-sound stories half-writ. The past whittled to white/and it is ready a cut-through bone.Edge/Untitled is © Gillian Prew
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purple blue thistle
ghosts/ghosting mouths
they’re pulling purple blue thistle/our heads
prickle their grey thumbs.
the un-holdable bouquet/clamped
with their veil of see through teeth
blood is not blood it is
a shadow veining the natural light
that our eyes fail to adjust to
and our glossy mouths fail to lipsynch
the weeded purply hill
when we speak between that strained speech
purple blue thistle is © Candi V. Auchterlonie
lookers stone
looking glass/under glass eye stares they become lazy moons/but try to catch these petaled fliers with your hands,
just try, they’re slippery mints tonguing fate.
my house is plagued with the secret of mint moths and they’ve begun to eat the hearts out from all of my best coats.
lookers stone is © Candi V. Auchterlonie
tearing cotton from your breast
poems from grand static/stasis that hurts with its stained whiteness.
tearing cotton from your breast is © Candi V. Auchterlonie
the flood of man
the tall-tall creek/creeps into your backyard.
your very own backyard/and you flood
a river into the wild
your things/they trickle out of your life
the things you always meant to keep.
the flood of man is © Candi V. Auchterlonie
the long drive
you will always have
the right of way.
the long drive is © Candi V. Auchterlonie
into the day we dream/into the night we work
spines are bridges
for tomorrow
we hold every hope up
to the jagged shadows of our bindings
each and each colourless moth
of us dissolves within the window pane of day/flirting death
only separate as wings are.
we hold every hope/we might chance/ideas of forever
and stay with them.
into the day we dream/into the night we work is © Candi V. Auchterlonie
The above poems are from Candi V. Auchterlonie’s forthcoming collection , leave this death alone. I am linking here her previous collection , Impress (Published by Punk Hostage Press, 2012)
Impress
Candi’s Homepage
Chris Murray 