What Word Would You Choose to Be?
I’d
want a word with body, cute with curlicues
A
word to curl your tongue, alert, inveigle you
in
close. A word with a whisper of intrigue
onomatopoeic.
I could be a call of nature
a reverberation,
a craw in the back of the throat
or be
meaningful like the bleat of a new-born
kittens
tied up in a sack of stones.
I’d
like to sound like a badge of courage
Or a
shout for change. The Scream, maybe?
But
I want my word to make you laugh
signal
cunning. I’d want to be a clever sound
packed
with guile, colour, a flash of solar
a
ray of lunar, scarlet with a green feather boa
Be burlesque
like a Reubens character.
Eureka!
If I could pick a word to be…
The
word I’d choose is ‘fleshy.’
On the Day of my Death
(after Pier Paulo Passolini)
On the day of my death
When my eyes do not open
Cash tills will ring
still in supermarkets
A million babies will cry
Church bells will toll
across the land
Trump will tweet and dogs
will bark
Guns will be fired
Parliamentarians will
stand up and make speeches
I know In the USA, Iraq,
Israel and Iran
School children will
stand to attention
Protesters will lie down
in the road
Students will drown
sorrow in bars
Men will dress in a blue
suit and tie
Traffic will tail back in
a snarl
On the day my eyes remain
shut
Seven billion people will
be silent
For at least one minute
Possibly not at the same
time.
Taking Stock
After a
devastating election
in which Labour
lost to Boris and Brexit
I was persuaded
That to beat the
Tories
you must out
manoeuvre
them at their own
endeavours.
So, I decide to
invest
Surf the Internet
Put my pennies in
Canadian maple trees
The Futures of no
Meat,
exotic spices
green businesses
Up here, my eyes
pop to see
how people thrive.
No poor people
live on streets
it’s all figures,
graphs and acronyms
troughs and peaks
that look like ski runs
fine lines of
blue, red and green,
windfalls, stocks,
shares. Dreams
in thrall to gold,
thrill and risk
They bet on
product
blind to
consequence
cause boom and
bust
lost jobs,
queues at food
banks
bleached coral
blackened forests
In fur hats, with
fat wallets
they slalom across
the blue skies
of endless futures, snow blind.
The Mona Lisa Smile
The charcoal portrait
sketched in Montmartre
Montmartre, Paris
Paris, France
is of a woman
a middle-aged woman
propped against a window
spattered with rain
spiked with Montbretia
Montbretia and sorrow
Sorrow of late afternoon
a middle-aged woman
a black flower in her hair
a Mona Lisa smile
in the blush of her skin
her eyes well-spaced
looking for other
looking for else
a middle-aged woman
in a charcoal portrait
sketched in Montmartre
Montmartre, Pairs
a portrait of a woman
propped against a window
spattered with rain.
Un Mute
Behind the only man, sprawls a sprig of shamrock
It hangs, limp, down a metal filing cabinet.
He doesn’t say where he is. He is gaunt
bespectacled. He places a hand to his neck
inside his checked shirt, looks down, focused
on himself, he writes, seemingly oblivious
Next to him is Smiling Gilly from Peckham. On the wall
behind her stretches a coat of arms, with green
embroidery on red background. It is next to a brass
framed mirror which reflects the open of a window
filled with London shine. Six twisted African statues
writhe on her mantle, contorted, twisted.
Barbara sits at a wide, neat desk in Belfast
in a red bricked terrace, window dripping with rain.
Victorian shutters frame her position.
Her elegant hands run astray, fiddle with pencils
Scribble, distracted. I see her remember
to look up which she does, staging diligence.
In a skylight lit, unadorned kitchen in Dublin
presses of pale grey ash scaffold a dark head of hair
a long, charcoal face. A pursed mouth
spouts words in silence. She talks hands, picking
and scattering points. We watch her in silence
for a minute. Then Gilly says, ‘you need to unmute’.
Kate Ennals
is a prize-winning poet and writer and has published poems and short
stories in a range of literary and on-line journals (Crannog, Skylight 47,
Honest Ulsterman, The International Lakeview Journal, Boyne Berries, North West
Words, Crossways, The Blue Nib, Dodging the Rain, The Ogham Stone, plus many
more). In 2017, she won the Westport Arts Festival Poetry Competition.
Her first collection of poetry At The Edge was published in 2015. Her
second collection, Threads, was published in April 2018. Her third
collection, Elsewhere, in November 21.
Kate Ennals
Board member of Irish PEN/PEN na h'Éireann
Published collections:
At the Edge, Lapwing
Threads, Lapwing
Elsewhere, Vole Imprint - November 21
Coming collections:
Practically Perfect in Every Way, Salmon Spring 23
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