Poetry E – The Recusant

Poetry E

Roger Ettenfield

Visiting Grandad

The frozen ground, mud turned rock

The gate latch glistened with frost

A bottle of milk, pushed up gold top

Like a top hat, or a creamy ice pop

Dad’s knuckles cracked on a faded blue door

And crows fly from the black, naked trees

No cover from fallen autumn leaves

With a silhouetted transit of a low burning sun

Inside, the smell of old boots and socks

Three ducks still flying high on the wall

Grey in the gloom from a single light bulb

And as always, sitting there, a crumpled heap of

Old tweed clothes, wearing a flat cap

I approach, my little shoes tread

On skeleton threads of ancient carpet

Avoiding islands of bare ship’s deck

Grandad’s pale, battered face lit up

By the coal fire’s yellow flames

“Is that you lad?”

I’m staring at white discs

Where blue eyes should be

Fascinated, no movement, no sound

Just the deep scraping of rusty lungs

His hand fumbles in his mysterious pocket

Then reaches out and grabs mine tightly

How did he do that? Can he see?

I open my hand and there’s a shiny coin

As big as my palm

I smile

My grandad chuckles, which becomes

Spasms of rumbling lungs

And I know what comes next

Curdled phlegm from a life underground

Gets flung through the air

With astonishing speed, on to the fire

Where it fries and it spits and it screams

I’m sent outside to play

The broken water tub is still there

Its surface a block of opaque ice

A red breasted robin sits on a pole

Then he starts singing, just for me

My father’s funeral

This is not my father,

A cold, withered body and sunken, grey face

Covered with the undertaker’s pantomime powder,

Eyes now closed against a trivial world,

Being gawped at, by the curious and idle

And the few who grasped your intellect,

But shuddered at the strength of your intent.

This was not my father,

A few words spoken by a priest who didn’t care,

People and places muddled, made to look small,

Against great, sonorous tales from the ancient book,

The exploits of the Israelites,

Ill-matched to my poor father’s life.

This was not my father,

The easy excuse for a day off work,

From vague kinsfolk, cramming down chicken wings

With blithe appraisals, of the buffet and the man,

Beery breath and sauce-smeared lips,

Daring to compare my father to a dull cliché,

Or a tedious anecdote belched,

By a spongy body in rude health,

Waiting to get home to the kids.

This is not my father,

A frugal wardrobe of out-of-date clothes,

Lacking their jolly company,

A gravy stain from a recent meal

And a faint smell of the aftershave, I bought

Many Christmases ago, with your corny jokes

I should have laughed at more.

This is my father now,

The hollow face of my mother, the skin red raw

From screaming at the loss of sixty years,

Soon to join those other widows, hoarsely chatting from

The mobility scooters, before winter comes,

Being side-stepped by a brash and impatient youth.

This was my father,

Strong arms pushing a small boy, on a rope swing,

On a long summer’s day.

Ecosystem

Today I felt the warmth of summer’s heat,

It scented itself over swaying hill grass.

I’d taken a walk along a casual bridleway,

Which had a certain destination, I guess,

But for me meandered into discovery

As climbing higher, I smelt the dryness of purple heather

Tempered by the brittle crackle of moorland bracken

And side to side, the horizon was shocked, by curlew shouts

As the odd frantic hare bounced, in and out, of view.

I’d gone to the countryside to find solitude,

But everywhere nature insisted my attention

And I left having been part of the drama,

As every movement I made, was echoed by the landscape.

Death by proxy

Watching as the smoke rolls out

Envelopes her body and mine, a mystical aura,

Large gulps, then cascading

Escapes out, soaps my hair,

Ash quivers my knee,

Her long nails reflect a glow,

Her fingers, eyes burn into me,

Pressing palms and mouth

Smoke me, stretch me,

Her shoulder crushes mine,

Moves quickly, extinguishes her

Screaming cigarette –

I am still,

Broken at the hilt,

Her stiletto stabs me on the carpet.

Taria

And she gave herself, slightly,

For a while; proffered a kind of love

With smiles, but lived in control,

So emotions were explorations

Rather than her soul,

As she danced around so lightly

On this desperate and dirty world

With her beauty … happy chance

As insurance against poor circumstance.

End of love

Where is that beauty that is now just

Morning sloth, mere grumbling companionship left?

Now woken from that drugged reverie of admiration,

The guidance counsellors negotiating a love contract,

Our sex and finances fixed with beauty confined

To those glossy magazines and Saturday night painted for

Dinner again with our sometimes friends,

The clever conversation as trivial as an advertising campaign

And back home, the remote switches on our sag and routine

Feeling trapped not well found.

Then after, the graceless slapping in bed by great limbs

And sleepless in the grey night with that ever-tightening, wedding ring.

Roger Ettenfield was born in 1961 in Skipton, North Yorkshire. He has had an amazing variety of jobs from factory worker, farm worker to corporate sales, around the UK and the world. He finally settled on English teaching as a kind of career – inevitably. These are his first published poems.

Neil Ellman

The follow poems are part of an ekphrastic sequence written in response to a painting in the Elegy to the Spanish Republic series by Robert Motherwell.

Elegy to the Spanish Republic, No. 35

(after the painting by Robert Motherwell)

Bombs whistled bloody black

as they fell

three at a time

a funeral dirge

where nothing would ever grow

or sound the same

again

charred earth—

so much for resurrection

in a requiem

of blackened flesh.

First published in Deep Tissue Magazine

Elegy to the Spanish Republic, 54

(after the painting by Robert Motherwell)

Black clouds clenched

impenetrable smoke

day to night

night to feverish pitch

of screeching birds

invisible crows

scavengers

feeding in the dark

the gas-bloated carcasses

of horses and heroes

lying in the road

cry defeat.

Here lies the soul

birds on the wing

freedom of butterflies

lost in retreat—

hear them in their silence

sing defeat.

First published in Cognates: Art and

Poetry, Kind of a Hurricane Press

Elegy to the Spanish Republic, 70

(after the painting by Robert Motherwell)

Death and dying

(almost the same)

intrusive

blackness

hear the cannons fire

planes dive

black-metal peregrines

the night insinuates

its own account—

save the darkness for me

eclipse of the moon

in the morning

free.

First Published in Abstractions: From Paint

to Poetry, The Camel Saloon Book on Blog

Elegy to the Spanish Republic, 108

(after the painting by Robert Motherwell)

When the next bomb falls

to wake me from my sleep

in the half-dug trenches

of my dreams

it will come as surely

as the last

with the whining cry

of a hunting bird

shrapnel shells like rain

upon the fractured earth

filled with hollow men

asleep, in dread

I count the days and nights

by bursts of light

minutes by the dead

certain that next is mine

If only I could fly.

In war, only the birds

have wings.

Elegy to the Spanish Republic, No. 110,

Easter Day

(after the painting by Robert Motherwell)

First, the silence of grass

green scent of peace

a willowing breeze

becoming wind, kettling buzzards

waiting for the not-quite dead

to die, only always boys

with pitchforks and bayonets

black smoke, trigger-cocked arms

embracing shapeless dreams

again, as always

soaring on vulturous wings

they come, shedding bombs

feather-barbs and -vanes

fracturing space

splitting air with steel

finally, again

the wind through silent grass

littered with metal graves grown over

you who are neither living nor dead

beginning nor end

for you no epitaphs.

First published in Bone Orchard Poetry

Elegy to the Spanish Republic #172

(with Blood)

(after the painting by Robert Motherwell)

Here it ends.

Hear the silent chorus

of the butterflies.

Here the last retreat

the blackened wings

of peregrines and owls.

Here the grass plowed under

by rows of men

and armaments

Here the groan of riven earth

beneath their feet

spilled blood.

Here wind through bone-dry plains

in the distance hear the rain.

Here los sacerdotes

cross themselves

before the alter of the night.

Here rests tomorrow

in its early grave.

Abandonad toda esperanza

vosotros que habels

entrado aqui.

EGJ

Not to breathe…

Not to breathe but to

gulp down rain

lochs rivers

further: messy seas

Filled to the brim I drip

tingle cough

say cunt as though I’ve caught

a Tourette’s cold

Wet feet sweaty

palms

Eyes too

watery

as wells

My texts dissolve trailing

phonemes

(they are)

washed-out ghosts

of thought […]

Justin Ehrlich

Alchemical Eyes

She speaks in myriad dimensions.

Refracting from the prism of her words-

Pernicious geometric scansion!

Rainbow insults on a Mobius curve.

Alchemical eyes burn with a black flame.

Incendiary incantations bedight

The sleep of reason; cipher with no aim,

A cabalistic plague of second-sight.

Unceasing reflection fermented gaunt,

Fantastic visions of her corpse defiled.

When she said, ‘you can hit me if you want.’

Ire faded, and I was a helpless child,

Awestruck by the angelic and obscene

Quintessence of my sweet, enchanted queen.

Nihilist Eurhythmics

We danced upon the skulls of fallen friends

To music of a grieving mother’s tears,

Shimmering in the woe that never ends,

Beneath burlesque shadows of wasted years.

In our complacency we lost our minds;

Couldn’t acclimatise to the pure land.

Memory’s torture tapestry unwinds,

Perverse Forms peel away in febrile strands.

Invisible hands tremulous with greed

Flutter to the palpitating heartbeat,

Shake in an autumnal rhythm of need;

Withering in our season of defeat.

Revelations in the glow of pyrite

Resound moans of a wounded Violin.

Goetic demons crawl in the twilight,

Satellite hands bug-sweep mutinous skin.

Comatose months drift free from reverie,

To ambient peals of monotone blight.

This time we’ll court to codes of chivalry,

We’ll plan a new regime; we’ll get it right…

Sweet Dreams

Her ghost flapped in the midnight oil

Alarmed by clamorous

Knells ringing patiently, I combed

The webs of spurious

Dream substance from my forehead, bright

Strings smouldered on my hands

As I picked up the telephone,

Her shallow breathing grinds

Through the white noise… ‘I’m sorry if

I woke you but I’d like

To see you one more time before

These pills I’ve swallowed take

The strength from my lungs.’ I said, ‘I’m

So glad you called, I can’t

Wait to see you.’ The haggard door

Creaked open; I lost count

Of the directions of her eyes,

The egg whites harmonized

Intuitively with her flesh

Of faded primrose dyes;

She fell down and said, ‘It’s okay

I never land on my head.’

Her willowy frame draped about

My arms on the way to bed,

I set her down and couldn’t let

Go; She talked of the small

Things seriously and explained

Them in detail, and all

The while I listened carefully,

And understood, and held

Her silently; She said nice things

Discreetly and compelled

Me to shine brightly, when her heart

Of dancing phosphorous

Exploded from her eyes, she died

In plumes of Hesperus.

Clippings

I dig my claws

Into the earth beneath

The blossom of your impressions,

When night has fallen

Miniature shoots grow

In the sunlight of concentration

And climb around my fingertips;

Curious purple grapes

Ripened, and as I rolled

Them on my tongue,

Obscene patterns emerged

In the intricate

Lifeline of the tendrils;

Fearfully I tugged

At them but they clung

To my flesh loyally,

And I could not separate

Myself from the gnarled

Germination

Of your intentions.

End

Mosquitoes

On the velvet

Precipice of slumber

Exotic murmurings

Trickle in my ear and spill

The moment I turn my attention.

With one eye opened,

I blamed myself

For all manner of suspicion;

Quaint peninsulars

Of luminous algae

Emerged from the damp

Patches on my pillowcase,

Mosquitoes hatched like particles

of a shattered light bulb,

Rallying in the aftermath

Of an electrical storm.

I rolled over abruptly

And refused to scratch my neck.

End

Nostalgia

In my prayers

I gambled with the devil

And counted the winnings

Of every form of madness;

The scars of reason

Floated before my eyes

In burning patches

Scored by the lovers gaze

Of a sphinxlike sun.

As I scraped lifeless ash

From pregnant tear ducts

Darkness crumbled

From a ruinous moon,

And I swam intoxicated

In the sea of samsara.

When I woke

On the sodden mattress

Of a citrine shore,

I felt like a different

Person; recalling

My hallucinations

With feelings of tenderness.

Neil Ellman

Genocide

There is a genocide

In each of us

Thirsting to destroy

Nations, peoples, races,

Ideas that could offend

The way we think.

There is a savagery

That forages at night

Diverted only by the glow

Of lucid thought.

When daylight comes

And formless notions fade,

We are as one at last

But waiting for the darkness

To descend again:

Amakehites and Midianites,

Carthage trampled,

Armenians strangled in their beds,

A Trail of Tears to Buchenwald

And Killing Fields of

Tutsi knives on Hutu throats.

There is something in the human core

Repeated now, repeated now

And then in all futurity–

So dark,

So hideously dark.