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3 poems by Joseph Minden

Updated: Jul 16


w/c 17 Oct 2022


The cliff was not there,

the space through which

I had just moved was

not there. The others

were – in one of my

repeated glances in

the direction of trees –

girders. Puff galleons

skirmished over the

water in displays

of agility and shade.

In the middle,

where the bright sun

made a dancefloor

of the waves, was

the Jelly Baby.

Like a simile that

collapses, he is a thin

mist with a foghorn.



w/c 5 Dec 2022


Kat and I, walking against

the river, the simple path detailed

with complex frost, observed

Reading’s toadish Thames-dreams

frittering out, boathouses jaw-deep

in water. Trains iced Tilehurst’s

black embankment; we were

infants against the citadel wall.

The law doesn’t care what you

intend, said Kat, intent’s complexity

resolving to the simplicity

of text, the frantic, although stately,

scatterwork of nude branches

mopping and mowing through the

dayglass. Complex blossom,

simple, bloody cherry. You press

yourself outwards, that simplicity

against the texture of the world,

the world as what it is. But even in

yourself, simplicity’s resolve blurs

into complex attention. A Tempest,

flown in corkscrews

high above the white, arrested

fields. Berries blown out, dressed

with a lingering drop and red by frosty

clearings; nighttime lasting

unbroken in its graveyards

into the day. At Pangbourne, Anna

rooted from a Nissen hut, turning

English; Poland receded into

the shade of beech and ash. Simple

seedling, complicating radicle.

And then, in Whitchurch, arcane village

intonations over apple cake and coffee

in the charity café – her flat is dark,

where is she now? – sounded merely

flat, the carpet complicated

with crumbs. Kat won a hot water bottle

in the raffle. Thank you, Anna –

farewell. What does it take

to feel at home? I asked above

the Thames. Flatness in the eyes,

the complex eyes, Kat offered.

Something unsuspicious in their

slick, barracked

in the simple dark. Blackcoat.

Hardwick. A pillbox

sailing by. Daylight bruising

bluer, chestnut mush, the river

steaming in constricting air, mouths,

self-thought benign,

yawning questions into disturbed

scenery. A boathouse gaped

into itself, cosy, though cold,

in dereliction, like a flooded

hearth. I must just look at this,

said Kat. Die Brust

des Einfache; die anspruchsvolle

Vielgestalt. Ice-reperfected,

bolted with displaced nighttime,

in a white made histrionic by the dusk,

another ruined mansion

watched the pathway turn to Goring,

Moulsford, Wallingford.

Look at that, Kat said.

What is it?



Interlude: Common


At some point, Kat would appear

in her green coat

walking beneath Cutter Ferry bridge,

the threshold from which Seth,

a different god,

approaches.

Life becomes increasingly sacred

in the privacy of its signs,

the forms mythologised by fog

on Stourbridge Common. All that

cometh is vanity, almost

five thousand years

gone and then Fen

Ditton. Some of us are taken

long inside, fixed to a statement

like a small, golden dragon –

I am evil –

mysteriously animate,

recurrent for attention,

more easefully present and

softer than most memory.

On Christmas Day, a psalm took

Kat. Let the sea make a noise,

and all that therein is. This

lasted until

now. I was taken, too,

but by the singing:

one man singing there,

against the whitewashed wall,

for thirty years, the glass

clear but centred on coloured

figures. Full

hours do not die

emptied. Satisfy us early.

Little St Mary’s emptied out

into the warm noon,

the disintegration of Cambridge,

hedgerows, fenland

darkness, Black

Shuck. The next day,

Kat set off along the river.

Small bombs in a cold haze

traced Seth. There was, as always,

a Fair wherein should be sold

trinkets, notions,

Silver, Gold.

Only strangers came and went

under the bridge.


_______

Joseph Minden is a poet and secondary school teacher. His book-length poem Backlogues was released by Broken Sleep Books in 2023. Paddock calls: The Nightbook (slub press) and Poppy (Carcanet) came out in 2022. 


These poems were chosen by Guest Editor Tom Branfoot.

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