ASLEEP-AWAKE
My eyelashes flutter and
flatline crescent-moons on crests of cheeks
behind
iris-lids is sky inside a pearl-mussel a swirling ocean
swell pitching me deeper,
deeper, deeper until I am skinless-skein
and silver umbilicus-ectoplasm from
The Cup Bearer I track Ptolemy
to waltz past stones of sleep to swoop and
soar I am a Sky-Traveller
in a Starship The Plough’s my jib and I fly elbow to elbow with
fluttering wings
I trail mountain
folds, isobars, snow caps and seeds, air-swim
over oceans and niblets of sand I am a wind-horse
weaving among clusters
of gypsophila with star-petals in my hair
I shadow the Big
Dipper to the North Star as I cartwheel around
The
Northern Cross a giant harp strums my skinless-skein
and silver umbilicus-ectoplasm and I forward
roll to Andromeda to foxtrot
with El Morya and Merlin on a magic carpet
through the maw
of the Milky Way until fingers of light edge around bare bones and
Saturn’s
curtain rings and Orion's Belt is the launch-pad
through the veil
of thin-air when the the
long and short hand siphons me back into bones
my heart the drum beat of a Shaman and alchemy
as my bones
uncurl and unfurl from its question mark — When
will it
be, ‘As Above, So Below?’
Published
in, The Haar, May 2021
THROUGH
THE TURNSTILE
BETWEEN
TWO FIELDS
I
shoogle through the turnstile between
two
fields of concrete and standing stones to roost
on a
stone pillar. Suck in clean
breaths
of hoarfrost. Puff up the bellows
of
my lung-bagpipes into haggis-balloons
of
wisteria blue. I hook them
with
threaded melon seeds around the hips
of
standing-stones - I anchor into them, morph
into
osmosis with soughs and stone
Twerk
an ear as I hear a fiddle and a dulcimer
of
drums. A pop and a portal appears
with
a sassy fairy in a parma violet tulip hat
She
upsy-daisy’s the balloons, clasps my palm
and
pulls me into a fairy ring. The octopus of balloons
become
a windmill of sycamore seeds yeasting
us
up and up and up
through
the veil of thin air - I rub my eyes
but
I’m back perched on a standing stone
at
Achavanich dressed in a cerise ball gown and tiara
of
mountain coyote mint. A golden eagle feather floats
down
and down and down and drops
melon seeds on my bubblegum-pink stomping boots
HERE
MEETS THERE
In a
moth-eaten sky-gansey a semi-detached house squats
a
muted cream
on
the corner of two street’s
The
bottle-green
door
looks to the east and the taxed south window is a cement canvas
waiting
for Banksy. Slate tiles are tipsy headstones
in a
skip-cemetery. New tiles a brood of rain speckled hens where
ariel-antlers
jive near a bevy of peat-puffing chimney pots in a pew
of
ochre, russet and toffee -
Terracotta
pots spout sprigs of parsley, fennel and dill. Seeds blown
on
chewy-wind seed in street-lochans - An air-besom mimics them
into
magic mirrors and a lamp post spotlights a woman
in
an obsidian
trench
coat. Her hair-curlicues plaster cochineal cheeks
in
gushel’s of rain and breath’s a wreath of cauliflower florets
As
goblin-grey
closes
in she ducks around pot-hole plant pots budding
holy
basil and bulbs of wild garlic
INSIDE
THE KIST OF CAITHNESS
I
AM
The
Land O’ The Cat’
scaling
Scaraben’s clavicle
under
stone-wash blue and slate-grey sky
ice came in Winter
mute
swan over hummocks and water hollows
a
plaid ribbon hand-fasting
the
Greylag Geese of Camster Cairns
their
drystane dyke lichen a vine and ivy
on
Standing Stones at Achavanich
and yellow blobs of Marsh Marigold
pirns’
of thread in ground-ganseys
of Bog Sedge and String Sedge
among
Kelpie’s in lochans
and
The Wee Folk on Fairies Hill
playing
Cat’s Cradle under a sea-glass sky
of
the Pentland Firth
I AM
the
mizzenmast in smoor-mist
on the Whale Road
and
whirling-dervish-winds
on Drove Roads and Clearance
Crofts
stone aikles in salty-tears
in
the shebang of sphagnum in the Flow Country
but
the Selkie of St Trothan sees not
Black
Crowberries and Black Bog-rushes
only
Sundew and Dragon Fly under the North Star
in
The Land O’ The Cat’
‘Where
I AM, You Are’
duck-egg blue ceiling on daffodils
and
yellow on the Broom
Aurora Borealis over stone rows
each
pleat and plaid of purple heather is I
even
after Muirburn
returning
to the Heavenly Dancers
my ashes will fly with Golden Eagle and Green Shank
birthing
into the next cleat of peat
the pearl inside a seed pod
Published
in, The Haar 01.06.21
NEEPS
& PUMPKINS ARE NOT JUST FOR HALLOWEEN
You
cut the gubbins from the maws of neeps and pumpkins. Gave them
lobotomies,
sliced slits and triangles into macabre masks
and
snuffed
out
their light
I
prayed
you
dried pumpkin seeds for nibbles? Planted
them
in wild spaces, vegetable beds or greenhouses? Perhaps
recycled
on compost heaps?
I
prayed
you
mashed clapshot or added carrots, cinnamon and ginger to warm
toddy-bones
in soups or stews? Fed foxes
birds
and rabbits or made pumpkin pie?
I
prayed
you
were a bit-green and used sugar beet eco bags. Didn’t post
your
neeps and pumpkins to dumps in plastic bin bags to swell and smell
of
methane and mould to add to ticking time-bombs. When
I
prayed
on
social media; implored you to feed animals with your unfostered
neeps
and pumpkins. It was fruitless
with
only nine likes, two shares and no hearts
I
prayed
that
17,000,000 UK pumpkins didn’t mutate into genetically modified
effigies
a dis-guise of your bairns trick or treat. What will
Greta,
Vanessa, Dominika, Mitzi and your ain say when
they
unearth the truth - that you
could
have
lowered
the thermometer and barometer of their planet
and
didn’t or did?
I
pray
Mandy Beattie’s poetry is a tapestry of stories & imagery rooted in people & place, often with an element of other-worldliness. Her poems have been published in: Wordpeace, Poets Republic, Dreich, Wee Dreich, The Haar, Purple Hermit, Wordgathering, The Clearance Collection, Spilling Cocoa with Martin Amis, Marble Poetry Broadsheet, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Book Week Scotland & contributed to, The People’s Poem of Scotland.
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