Deep by Lynne Rees

Deep

Who was I that summer

I met you? Loose with desire

I moved like cream before it’s churned to butter

and men I hardly knew

stopped me in supermarket aisles, B & Q,

to talk about nothing, standing closer than they needed to;

when a day without talking

to you splintered my mind – snapping

at people I loved, hiding upstairs with a phone, crying

at night; that night

you left and I sat in the dark, the polite

bones of your words sharpening with the sneak of light,

afraid of the days

opening like empty rooms, a maze

of your absence: a puzzle the years haven’t erased.

Lynne Rees

Another poem from 'Not Only The Dark'

The Year of the Tree

I carried a tree

through the Underground.

It was hard. At first,

people scarcely noticed me

and the oak I was lugging

along the platforms –

heavier than a suitcase

and difficult to balance.

We threaded through corridors,

changing lines: up and down stairs,

escalators, and for a moment

I imagined everyone on the planet

taking turns

to carry a tree as daily rite.

A few people asked

Why a tree?

I said it was for my own

edification –

a tree always

has something to teach.

***

Sharp gusts

whirred through the corridors

rustling the branches

as I hurried on

past the sweepers

picking up rubbish, scraps of paper.

Be sure to take the tree

with you, they said.

Don’t worry, I’m taking it

to my garden,

the start of a forest.

When people stared,

Relax, I said,

it‘s a tree, not a gun.

©Katherine Gallagher(2010)

(From Carnival Edge: New & Selected Poems, Arc Publications, 2010

The poem that inspired the anthology's title...

Not Only Dark

Some black holes have a ring of x-rays and visible light surrounding them.

Nothing but dark, I said

as I drew our curtains on the darkness

of the birch tree and the robin singing

a snatch of late song,

and yet light all round.

And you understanding. The paradox

of light and dark, a black hole

and a ring of light,

in the space between teacups at ease

on the table and pyracantha

scratching the window beyond

as the wind blew.

Now on a small hill, that place

of wind and silence, the silence

of futures… trees

cut off distances.

Stones, gravestones are master there.

But arriving home I take up that book

of Chinese art, your inscription A trillion

kisses forever.

I turn the pages, find the vase with peaches

showing flowers and fruit together,

as in that paradise where peach blossom

lasted for ever.

Irrelevant paradise? But I read

again your inscription: Perhaps this

is a kind of heaven, the warmth of feeling

and memory,

light circling a possessed absence.

Daphne Gloag

Another taste of 'Not Only The Dark'

HECKMONDWIKE

This is his first afternoon with Madame
in her flat above the bookshop, the buses
whining through the drizzle along
Islington High Steet. He likes
her colour scheme - bold purple, gold,
everything flickering in the candle-light,
very different from the magnolia anaglypta
and white skirting boards in Theydon Bois
- and the scarlet drapes and Turkish kilim
where a one-eyed ginger cat
regards Madame’s whip phlegmatically
as she trails it across his thigh. He likes
the joss sticks dropping ash
onto the floor like insouciant students
though he’s less keen on the actual pain
the bite into the flesh; he slips further
from the room, each lash a descent
into darkness, his skin laid open,
vision blurring and that’s when
he realises he’s forgotten the Safe Word.
It’s a place, yes - some northern town
he visited as a child. He remembers
grit-stone houses under a film of rain,
women in beige with bosoms big enough
to offer shelter and the smell of baking,
a wet dog itching its fur against his legs.
He’d said to Marjorie several times
he’d like to retire somewhere like that,
somewhere with hills, real hills, the light
on them blue as the day went. Look,
he whimpers to Madame, do you think
you could stop that now - but no,
she’s in her stride, a real professional,
and he’s so tightly bound, his wrists
chafing on her iron bedstead.
He can feel her breath on his neck, yeasty
and warm as the loaves in the bakery ovens,
swelling and rising to greet the new day.

c. Catherine Smith 2006

Launch date for 'Not Only The Dark'

The launch of our anthology in aid of Shelterbox will be on:

Tuesday 6 December 6pm

Keynes College

University of Kent

Canterbury

All welcome for a glass of wine and fantastic evening of poetry.

A sneak peak ... John Siddique

Not Only the Dark will include John Siddique's poem Thirst from his anthology Full Blood. He has kindly allowed us to share this video of him reading it.

Thirst - A Poem For Who We've Become Since 9/11 from John Siddique on Vimeo.

THIRST

Imagine thirst without knowing water.
And you ask me what freedom means.
Imagine love without love.

Some things are unthinkable,
until one day the unthinkable is here.
Imagine thirst without knowing water.

Some things we assume just are as they are,
no action is taken to make or sustain them.
Imagine love without love.

It is fear that eats the heart: fear and
endless talk, and not risking a step.
Imagine thirst without knowing water.

Fold away your beautiful thoughts.
Talk away curiosity, chatter away truth.
Imagine love without love.

Imagine believing in the whispers,
the screams and the gossip. Dancing to a tune
with no song to sing inside you.
Imagine love without love.


© John Siddique 2011
From Full Blood (published by SALT)

Who's who for Shelterbox

Read a full list of contributors to our fantastic new anthology in aid of Shelterbox http://wordaid.blogspot.com/p/contributors.html