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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