Poetry G – The Recusant

Poetry G

Owen Gallagher

The Parliamentary Blacksmiths

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if during their term in office
Ministers used their tongues like wands
to legislate that houses, schools and playgrounds be built;

banks redistribute wealth; debating clubs be formed
in every workplace; and we use remote controls
on TV sets to vote on Government proposals!

Instead, they sweat like blacksmiths at the anvil
attempt to hammer us into shape.

‘Cuba Libre!’

Not wishing to undermine any achievements,
I want to peel back the posters of Che that promote
the worship of the individual, and recycle them
as writing-paper for children. T-shirts exploiting him
would be used as bed-linen for the homeless.

I want to graffito ‘Those who produce nothing
receive nothing!’ on the billboards, re-site the boards
outside the guarded mansions of Havana; storm
the State-controlled radio station, urge workers
to tear the masking tape from their mouths.

I want all State ministers to swim to the golden exiles
in Miami, while workers and prostitutes
dance salsa in the streets, and soldiers drink
‘Castro on the Rocks’ from the barrels of rifles.

Rule, Britannia!

Yes. I can sing Rule, Britannia!,
stand shoulder to shoulder with Millwall supporters.
I am darker than our darkest kit
and can match racist tongues and fists.

Yes. I can sing Rule, Britannia!
I bleed when knifed at work by graffiti,
cry when my son is whipped
by words in the playground.

Yes. I can sing Rule, Britannia!,
stoke your bank account,
donate my blood and organs,
carry the flag into battle for you.

Yes. I can fight for Britannia,
watch poppies sprout from my chest.

Crack Head

I never hesitated, as we exchanged fire,
to be the first to leap into the air
and race, foolhardily, across the Afghan sky

expecting others to follow.
I never thought I would fall out of the sky
on the heads of soldiers in my squad,

be a target for the Taliban. I thought
only of the sniper, who pinned us down,
watching the soles of my boots zigzagging

above and me staring down, his mouth filled
with so many bullets I was forced to reload.

Alex Galper

Over The Counter

The executive editor of Billboard magazine says it ain’t possible.

Fake glasses
looking through a two-way window I thought
it was
a one-way.

This is sad.

A middle-eastern circumference asks for identification.

A police officer wants to have a word
with you
in the corner of the gallery.

I leer over the counter, her straight teeth disgust,
but somehow
that sour-cream smile
contains a laughter
with which
I could dance.

Up to the Heavens

Outside, on a different planet
somewhere
Arctic winds chill
to the bone
and winter bites.
But here:
in a Palestinian hole
on E2nd
it is hot: carpets, pillows, hummus,
a plate of kebabs.
My friend
commands respect here
for his fluent Arabic.
A former Mossad,
he pulls on his apple hooka
smiles
at the waiter and
whispers into my ear:
“…How many o’our boys they’s
killed…
how many o’theirs
I’d packed up
into the heavens!”

Brooklyn Siberia

I live in Siberia
In the very heart of Southern Brooklyn
In the mornings people are flocking to the taiga of Wall Street
Returning in the evening barely alive, frozen,
stock-bitten,
Bleeding from computer-bug wounds
Some disappear forever
Mauled to death by the bears of big corporations
Or buying houses in New Jersey
In the spring I see their corpses
Inviting me to follow the same path
From the pages of respectable publications.

Jeremy Ganem

Woodcut of John Davidson. 1902. Robert Bryden.

When the barbarians come John,
We will meet them at the gates
Of the city we no longer live
In & we will give them flowers
John, flowers of the world-flower
John, burning flowers: gold &
Savage flowers John, savage
As your dream of England John,
Savage as the blank verse of your
Dreams John.

When the barbarians come John,
We will marry them & be new
Tribes & tribulations, new
Empires of nothing John, as you
Knew then always even as you
Died John, even as the barbarians
Come again for us in your after-
Life John, even when the fisher-
King found you in Mount’s Bay
John, & we wept.

When the barbarians came John
To dream of the £20 note that
We might receive if we had news
Of you, of your disappearing
Will John, the great will of a lost
Century given to you by
Zarathustra & your own
Implacable desire to
Testify John! To testify
Again & again until your voice died.

For when the barbarians come John
They will come bearing your body
As a testament to the fallen
Will John, to the fallen will of the
Great World-Flower that blooms
Upon the Great World-Tree of your
Infinite Will John, & we the
Barbarians will come John
To the gates of another lost
Empire & the gates will be cold.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche. Photograph from the series “Der kranke Nietzsche“ (“The ill Nietzsche”). 1899. Hans Olde.

You do not look well old friend
Of murderers & pariah
Dogs that scream on the streets
Of Berlin in the long night

Of the last century. Coming down
From the mountains you beat
The ground with your crooked
Staff & rage against things

As they are: imbecilic, raw,
& afraid. You made many
Things up—tore down idols
Just because you could,

Even if you once had loved
Them. You were the last
Decadent & the first as well,
For as you said many times,

Everything repeats, even this
Strain, this song, this light
Burning away your name
As you look out of eyes that

Are nearly dead. Always you were
Nearly dead, even with your sword,
Your mustache, your imperious
Gaze backward & forward—imperial

& reckless as your verse, as all
The books you vomited out of
The blackest lung of the Dead God’s
Dead soul. The Spirit that you

Hated probably crept up upon
You in the end Friedrich, as
You turned away, only to bury
Your head in the rotted cloth

Of the rank pillow & weep, to
Weep once again.

Inferno

Mappa dell’inferno from L’inferno dantesco. c. 1480. Sandro Botticelli. Book illustration.

L ‘enfer, ce n’est pas les autres
It is the eye of man bled through—
The morbid world’s blind mote
& the need to make it true.

Regardless of the pretty cost
Art’s hand performs the need—
The prison of the lost
Is not god or ancient creed.

It is this line, this ink & brush
This book, this mark in time,
That crucifies but for the rush
& to hear a pretty rhyme.

The printer is the damned,
To illustrate the seed,
Capital your pure demand,
Only pure ink may feed.

The Jerusalem Windows

The Jerusalem Windows. 1962. Marc Chagall.

I feel too, as though the tragic and heroic resistance movements, in the ghettos, and your war
here in this country, are blended in my flowers and beasts and my fiery colors. . . —Marc Chagall

The sun of Russia is the Lord of Kansas, Marc.
We peasants know these things. Even in the dark
I can still see you in Jerusalem
But we never reach asylum

Or lands of dancing goats & towers
Eifel & peasant women dreaming hours
In the village pure as power

Tells the real story Marc, not fame
Or faith or the Mystic with his shame-
Ful book, his beloved Shekinah.
No, rather it is shock & awe

& dead or dying presidents
That set the world’s precedent.
Sadly art is excellent

At dreaming sad gods & village
Maidens, not the swillage
Of exodus, a death-march drum
Haunting God’s bought Jerusalem.

Sarah Gonnet

Side Order

The ache

that a baby

is supposed to fill

waved at me from a distance.

I saw it

burst, what emerged

was grotesque:

blonde wires,

porcelain doll cheeks,

slightly cracked,

lips that refuse to meet.

She screams “You should have chosen me!”

Then she leaves.

Only her silvery imprint remains;

branded on my brain.

I stare into the space she filled,

then down another handful of pills.

Messages

Tight squares,

shapes of the computer age,

yet half scrawled over in paints.

The paint’s preoccupation being to

black out the blank screen

up to its next cycle of darkness.

Labels blaze in, pale grey fire.

They say “liar”.

They say “pain”.

They say “damned”.

They say “create”.

Maria Gornell

Irish crossing

Forgotten scrolls from Tara; float amongst drowned Irish
syllables, trapped inside bottles amongst driftwood,
seaweed tightly spun; strangling ancestors cries that
beseeches thee Patrick calling his name out into black seas
to feed the eels and snakes of miracles failed.

Thoughts bubbling to surface – pushing against a powerful force
of dreams submerged out into the wild abandon of waves
crashing with the force of mother nature’s violent fury.

Arthritic knees kneeling against cold stone,
obedient congregations whispering sounds; belly rumblings
holding the dish of coins over flowing, cough it up in black
swirls, take this drink this last supper of burdens wrung out
into the thick green foam of sea.

Scattered in the ashes of potato skin famines – as inland grows
pale in view. You trace the salt tears of rivers hoping to carry us
somewhere better – never no never

wanting to witness pride from shoulders disappear.
As you wrap these river urchins in strong, safe, love.
tiny flickers of lights like shards of glass on a black
horizon, into the Mersey you softly go.

And I have stood long searching amongst empty ports forsaken.
Wondering on the journey, haunted by those fog horns.
imagining slave ships, the cracks of whip that hold no connections
to your heart except the immigrant rivers that carried you to
‘no rooms for the Irish’ dirty grey back street slums,
gangs that got you drunk then robbed you
of half shillings, left drunken stupor in streets
that did not know your name.

The children you reared who turned their backs on roots,
the religion that saved you into categories of saints, sinners
and heathens. Its not hard to imagine what may have been
if the filthy English greed had not appeared on your horizons.
A shamrock mistaken for a four leaf clover floats on the breeze
with secrets to tell.

Catherine Graham

I Beg to Apply for the Post

after Jack Common 1903 – 1968

My school was tough:
the teachers weighed in,
tipping the scales with their red pencils,
their toxic, chalk dust.
I beg to apply for the post.

Like you, my father learned shorthand;
attended evening class at the colliery.
A cacophony of skills, don’t you think?
Like my mother, singing opera in the scullery.
Beware of the man who wants marriage,
isn’t that what you told your readers?
My father taught me to ride a bike
and not depend on stabilizers.
He hated smarmy men the most.
I beg to apply for the post.

No silver spoons in our house.
Our doorstep was donkey-stoned.
We refused to be shoved into snobbery,
refused to give up the ghost
when they refurbished The Dwellings
and named it Millennium Court.
Ashes to ashes, communities to dust.
I beg to apply for the post.

I’ve never failed to fit in,
never lived in a ‘culture vacuum’.
Why, our backlane was a canvas
to the local graffiti artist.
I beg to apply for the post.

Brought up on Dickman’s pies
but I never mince my words.
I don’t give anything I don’t want to.
I don’t go about hard-faced.
I’m not fighting any class-war
in silk-lined, kid gloves:
I have a voice, I haven’t lost faith.
I’m taking on life bare knuckled,
this kiddar’s luck has changed.
I don’t believe in the twaddle
I read in most of the papers.
I know when to tell the truth;
when to spout the necessary lie.
I learned all this at my cost –
I beg to apply for the post.

I would supply references
from my previous employer
though, fair to say there was no love lost.
He had ideas above my station;
his wife was all fur coat.
More edge than a broken piss pot.
I beg to apply for the post.

I pride myself on being punctual;
always on the dot.
I don’t pretend or hope to be
what I’m definitely not.
I tick all of the boxes –
I call salmon paté, salmon paste.
I know my place but I don’t like to boast.
I beg to apply for the post.

David Groulx

Butterfly Knowledge

A butterfly speaks to you
if you watch
it flutter

the butterfly speaking
its wings are lips moving

its language
feeling the air

A River Flowing

A river
has knowledge
if you listen
you can hear it
what does it say?

I tell you

Take this kiss from my lips
like Odysseus to Penelope
rest your villain heart
bring your fire-light
the thunder that moves away
from us

kiss me for this body
a river
through me
into you