Tuesday 16 March 2021

One Poem by Pratibha Castle

 



Domestic Gods    

 

the house is full of them

spider demons spinning 

lace to throttle flies

   

wood lice sprites

snuck in from the garden 

to struggle up the stairs   

 

each step a MacGillycuddy Reek gained 

to drop   a minute later   back 

onto the hall floor where

 

they bicycle impossible legs 

in a hopeless bid 

to set the world to rights   

 

nightmare of bodies rushing 

to and fro   their faces like

ripe brie in Daliesque collapse   

 

sunflowers fleeing Van Gogh 

vases with a single ear  

suns, crazed, sizzling ice skies   

 

the shepherdess above the fire -

snake flames flickering from

out the grate - who

 

flouncing her skirt 

follows her sheep 

over the cliff edge mantle  

 

the sole relic amidst

the splintered porcelain

beside the grate   her smile 


domestic gods   the house

is full of them   so why 

not ditch the auld 

 

fella with the beard  

give a break to

apron angels

 




Pratibha Castle’s award-winning ‘sensual, sacramental’ debut pamphlet, A Triptych of Birds and A Few Loose Feathers (Hedgehog Press) publishes in 2021 and includes Domestic Gods. Her poems appear in literary journals and online sites including The Honest Ulsterman, The Blue Nib, One Hand Clapping, Impspired, Fragmented Voices, Sarasvati, Reach, Fly on the WallWords for the Wild. She has work forthcoming in Agenda, Dreich Magazine Season 2 issue 4, and Dreich Special ‘Summer Anywhere’, and Beyond Words.

Her work achieved highly commended in the Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition January 2021, won the 2009 NADFAS poetry competition, age range 13 - 17 has been shortlisted in various competitions and appears in anthologies. Castle broadcasts regularly on West Wilts Radio, The Poetry Place.

She was born in Dun laoghaire in 1950 and moved with her parents to England in 1953. As a child, she turned the bed-time story tradition on its head when instead of listening to stories told by her father, she entertained him with stories she made up herself.

 

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