{"id":4325,"date":"2014-12-07T23:15:44","date_gmt":"2014-12-07T23:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4325"},"modified":"2014-12-07T23:17:37","modified_gmt":"2014-12-07T23:17:37","slug":"two-poems-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4325","title":{"rendered":"Two Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nostalgia<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

I too lived somewhere. Life had shape
\nI dream of now: journals and Schweppes,
\ncandles stubbed in empty bottles of wine,
\na painted plank on two wrapped bricks lined<\/p>\n

with midnight blue vials of liniment
\nand balms for her pulverulent
\narm skin, mornings spent in the afternoons
\nreading L\u2019Imitation de Notre-Dame la Lune<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I wonder what she thinks of the latest
\npoetry, she was so earnest \u2014
\nit was always more than just text for her \u2014
\nthe faux-whimsy of its non sequiturs.<\/p>\n

I think she\u2019s in retail now
\nbut the surprise is there\u2019s no surprise \u2014 how
\nimperceptibly we perceive it\u2019s too late
\nto be free, get a grip, give life shape.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 
\n
\nThe Field<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

This lane can\u2019t help but lead
\nonto that lane I followed
\nwhen I was nine, stretched to green
\nfields from my aunt\u2019s farm
\nalong the hedgeway that gives,
\nthrough a gap, to a blackthorn-guarded glade<\/p>\n

where my catty older cousin says he\u2019ll drop me
\nfrom the roof of the cow barn onto the cows
\nif I don\u2019t follow the rules and chant
\n\u2018Rise wormwood eyes\u2019 thirty-three times
\nwith eyes shut so the dead can crawl
\nfrom the ground where they were murdered.<\/p>\n

Sunlight streaks through the copse,
\ndribbles over honeysuckle
\nas a cabbage white flickers, a nervous
\nhand over black sloes; and under bridal-
\nwhite fluttering leaves I wheeze
\n\u2018Rise wood dies\u2019 and half-open my eyes.<\/p>\n

From the axe wound of a fungal
\ntree-stump they creep with bramble
\nfingers, bedstraw genitals, leaking hedge-
\nparsley. Light melts through their gaped
\nflowers, their tongues of ret flax.
\nMy hidden cousin wets his kecks.<\/p>\n

My mother played in those feeding
\ngrounds as a child before upping sticks
\nfor the city. Staying at the house
\nof her birth for the holidays, my aunt
\nhad proposed a picnic. And I would
\nfollow the lane, enter the green field,<\/p>\n

join those women in the meadow clover
\nand columbine, rings on their fingers
\nlike marigolds, breaking fresh bread
\nbut I shrink in the glade, waiting to be ravelled
\nwith furze-brake and thorn-roots and to twist
\nfor the rest of my days in this wake of the dead.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nostalgia I too lived somewhere. Life had shape I dream of now: journals and Schweppes, candles stubbed in empty bottles of wine, a painted plank on two wrapped bricks lined with midnight blue vials of liniment and balms for her pulverulent arm skin, mornings spent in the afternoons reading L\u2019Imitation de Notre-Dame la Lune. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[312,315],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nTwo Poems - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4325\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4325&page=2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two Poems - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Nostalgia I too lived somewhere. 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