FIRST: “August” by Alex Porter
AUGUST
History, of course, will fail to record
the drift of your breast to my hand
and the arc of your pale shoulder
through the sifting half-light of that last dawn.
Nor the cursive loops of our avid tongues
and the warm simoom of your breath;
not our giving and taking done –
nor your keening song to the rising sun.
Prudish to a fault, it will not set down
how you donned my Sam Browne and cap
to clown, naked, around the room –
teasing the sap in me until I spilled.
Or how you snatched back the shade and caught fire
then stopped, suddenly, as if stunned.
Stone-deaf, it cannot hear you say –
is not Sarajevo too far away?
SECOND: “The Waiting Time” by Simon French
The Waiting Time
We apologise that an earthenware sky
floods meagre light into the booking hall.
That no luggage will burst
with anticipation. Grass of the runway
is currently unruffled by tyre.
You are not permitted to take a turn
around the time zone clocks, see your face
ticking in each city’s distant hubbubs.
Foreign languages
won’t be cluttering your ears, your mouth.
Should you decide to sit and wait
we’d like you to be aware
this is not an airport. This is something else.
No matter that you may wave
your passport or dream of sipping tea
from bone china of Boeing or de Havilland,
our customs and excise officers
have been unavoidably detained. Are unable
to explore you.
If you find yourself believing in arrivals
and departures, we would remind you
that the Ray Ellington Quartet
are providing musical enlightenment
in the control tower.
We do not sell Capstan or Pall Mall
should you contemplate inhalation
to steady your nerves.
May we take this opportunity
to disclose to you that starlings circle.
Our propellers are blooded.
We recommend
you leave by the nearest available daylight.
This is not an airport.
THIRD: “Amy – Locked in” by Liz Eastwood
Amy – Locked in
Exminster lunatic asylum 1944 locked in
ECT
Blazing Trails Nursing Home 2018
locked in dementia
I stroke my dementia cat as the band
plays My Way I joke
with Elvis he kisses my hand
I see tracers glide bombs going off in
Padstow
destroying my home in New Street
dog fights ash snows down I hide with
G.I. Joe
this home is hell I cry
take me to my bungalow
don’t make up those lies
I’m very well please let me go
Joe courts me dies on D Day
there’s this boy in the next town
Tom’s mother advises try Amy
I have his kids I mix up then down
at the home I try and try
to recall the man’s name
he cries Oh Mum cries and cries
who are you I fall in to my scream
I discover that Tom’s first love
has his baby I fall in to hell
I wish the child well he moves
our whole family to his nurse in Cornwall
in the home I know the worst
I was always a meek girl not brave
I would never speak up or go first
so that is how he managed to have
his nurse woman all our life
I slash out with war trench knife
I am a child around eight years old
I drive needles through my hands
see the scars? nurse falls cold
blood red
because father comes to my bed his
hands
give me my pills the drug trolley rolls away
I must be ill my mind is locked for
another day
FOURTH: “Hiraeth” by Jan Norton
Hiraeth
Sometimes he dreams of that village by the sea
that clung to the cliffside, bruised by winter swell and wind,
rainbow doors, windows muffled by lace curtains,
scoured doorsteps, the stony chapel on the hill
that frowned down on the yawning morning streets,
the suck of surf on sand, the harbour’s open mouth,
the hiss of waves, thunder clouds loud on the horizon,
his father’s fishing boat, shrinking out of sight.
FOURTH: “Why We Did What We Did When We Did” by Ian Royce Chamberlain
Why We Did What We Did When We Did
because we could
swing through trees
sail against the breeze
take our chances in the dark
not having heard of consequences
broke down fences
started fires in silly places
like that party where the girl
got pregnant in the bathroom
tied the knots but cut the rope
came crawling back to say our sorries
and tomorrow
did what we did all over
strayed like tomcats
dead-end tracks to not-quite-glory
swallowed everything on offer tasted nothing
thank you Leonard for that line
your wisdom wasted on us
made our beds and lay on them
in silence but not listening
scratched our stories in the sand
accepted that the tide would wipe them but
never guessed how soon
and now the beach is emptying
while those of us who’re left
in charge of everything we’ve learned
are somehow caught unprepared
to find the sun going down
FOURTH: “The Sea Children” by Madeleine Skipsey
the sea children
i
speak; hush child;
the waves will see you now.
an azure blanket offers
you more than just sleep.
it will whittle you down carefully,
lay you to rest
in a place we have yet to ruin
ii
you, drowning
in a counterfeit suit
her, pushing your body
skywards,
anywhere upwards
go, my love, go
iii
the priest tells us that we will be forgiven
that it’s enough to be forgiven
he tells us the men in pressed shirts
talking on the television
mean well, are Christian at heart
if not on paper
and so amen to that
iv
in the days before these
you could say there was peace
v
some days I am still waiting
for the funerals of people
who, in unison, danced
acrid smoke circles.
and now, konjo,
where are the bodies;
held hostage by sirens and seaweed.
FOURTH “A Lead Pellet” by Harrison Collett
A lead pellet
A lead pellet
pierces the wing
of a starling on the power line
and the schoolboys cheer
from an A-frame window
of a hay barn
they play Vietcong
with their B.B. guns
where the birds are
black bombers
and bales of hay
the musty underbrush of Saigon
the bird tumbles
from its perch
to the asphalt below
to the schoolgirls
skipping with tight pigtails
their gazes skyward
another shot rings out
and pierces the other wing
the beast now
barely visible beneath
the dust and shadow
of its brothers taking flight
and the boys gallop
in tidy squares
to the beat of
a rope slapping
against the hard earth
and the feeble cries
of fallen zipperheads,
or rather bombers,
or rather simply
a bird into which
a little town
has poured its anxieties
The Kent & Sussex Poetry Society 