Five Poems by Oonah V Joslin

 

Two Faces of Ouija

 

“When lads are left in shell-holes dying slow,
  With nothing but blank sky and wounds that ache,
Moaning for water till they know
  It’s night, and then it’s not worth while to wake!”

                                           from “To Any Dead Officer” by Siegfried Sassoon

The night before battle
the planchette pointed 'y e s'.
I would return. And I believed.

                   belief is key to survival

 

I felt no pain when the shell exploded.
I was lifted out of battle,
falling, floating down, disoriented feather,

 

                   the angular gyrus maintains balance

 

imploded consciousness
sinking in
mud mingled with blood

 

homeostasis is a function of the brain

 

pressure, pressure, pressure of blood,
pressure of mud equalised.
The Ouija said I would return.

 

out of body

 

I saw myself
laughing with relief
walk away on two good legs

 

awareness shifts

 

striding into our kitchen
in an instant all was well,
my mother’s face filled with joy.

 

to the illusory body

 

Her boy, her boy
was home from hell.
Fading consciousness invests in

 

intense emotions

 

The self grasps to retain
some form,
some semblance of identity

 

this doppleganger

 

sees her joy transmute to grief.
A wave
of anger, then of disbelief.

 

death posturing

 

Lower limbs
dissolve
in dank earth. I am

 

two shells

 

one mired in suction,
grave already dug,
the other, implausible,

 

a figment of the mind

 

The planchette pointed
'y e s', I would return and I believed
that in some form, I did. 

 

 

A Hide in Time

 

I can’t hide in the past.
My paucity of memory
prevents it.

I love your memories though
the way they highlight this
or that detail this
or that
pause
move on
refurbish mine.
I am hidden within them.

Now
from the window
sparrows flapping in the water dish
an iris opening blue to a jealous sky.
Clouds fat with possibility
converge on a patch of empty.

The first drop licks the window dust
drives it to the ledge
abandons it
fills a paving dimple
plip plip
in silent morning.
This solitude I love
the lone, black pretty-pretty bird
each soft leaf hanging
and spiky yew
a-drip with being
alone among the many
one tree
in just one garden
in this one place on Earth.
Now.


I’d love the future though
wish I could be there
and now I am
and now I am
and now
I’m thinking
maybe once around the garden is enough.
Other kids play rough.

I can’t hide in the future
yet unwritten
not made into thought
cloud unformed
bud unbroken
suspended raindrop
may or may not fall
today
surrounded by my dust
I must dwell. 

 

I don’t have to own the title.

Nor witch nor ogre
nor a poet as you know it
with metaphor honed to perfection,
who loves to perform.

My identity
is vital. I am
not here to spin or to be spun
not a maid to be won
not a spell to be intoned or cast
in some pantomime role.


Some things must remain nameless
unperceived, unexpressed, not dressed
up or clothed in cultural guises
as something other. Love, hatred,
patriotism, maleficence. Nuance
has a billion shades depending on
how you choose to see it.

 

And so until
I choose a label for myself,
envious, the gods look down
and frown upon my story.

 

Dark Wanderings

The perfect place for inhumation.
The body undisturbed moulders and moulds
melding in the network of woodland floor;
bulbs, roots, flowers, fungi, vegetation,

a symbiotic communication
we ignore, thinking we live above all
that. Yet we depend above all, upon greenery.
Kelp forests deep in the locker of our seas.

How many things lie hid among the trees?
Unwanted babies, victims of ancient crimes,
witches, wanderers, age-old regressions,
grudges, compulsions, ceremonial

rituals, echoes, dances, hauntings and hunts.
Woods always house uncomfortable beds.
The story places of the world are such
our presence constitutes an invasion.

Listen child, listen. The gurgle and buzz
of life and death rests in depths and tree tops.
This is no fairy tale I tell. It is
the world as you too must learn to know it. 

 

 

senryu

 

ink flowed page to pen
tense past written words – a ghost
who used to be me

Oonah V Joslin was born in N. Ireland. Her first poetry was published in the school magazine. Teaching took over but she never stopped writing. For the past 15 years she has accumulated an online body of work which includes Flash Fiction from MicroHorror to humour, a Novella, 'Genie in a Jam' in Bewildering Stories and a her book 'Three Pounds of Cells' published by The Linnet's Wings Press. Oonah served as poetry editor at Every Day Poets and until recently, at The Linnet's Wings for a total of 12 years. You can see Oonah reading Almost on Brantwood Jetty, from her book, aboard The Steam Yacht Gondola in a National Trust video and follow her on Facebook.