Raven Signpost
Snail-driving
through a clutch of tiptoeing chickens, I skirt giant teacups of tar at the old
coastguard station — Single track road a ribbon through scrap metal, pylons of
trees stacked in cornrows, bodies. A carrot haired man and boy in a raspberry
van stop at a passing place; watch seagulls fly in greylag geese symmetry in
wave synchronicity above broody aqua-marine, petrol-grey, moss-green. I inch
past the chocolate Labrador knee deep in dead daffodils, sea pinks, drowsy
dandelions; collar gripped by a woman I know for seeing. We wave in the Highway
Code of one car roads. For no reason I turn my head like a right-angle triangle; see a raven the size of an outgrown piglet — a gargoyle sat on a
fence post staring into who knows when? I wonder what it’s doing here so out of
place and not up West? Is the next S.O.S another type of passing place in June;
similar to raven triplets in November? Is this messenger a signal to again gird
hearts like nutmeg, walnuts? — This noble nutcracker waits with me and ticking
hands against the wall.
Decoupage of
Autumn
In memory of, John Muir
In this forest full of ring fingerprints
and peacock feather
eyes
watching
you clung
fruit bats
on antler branches
under buttermilk
sky —
A Midas-butterfly of leaves
in a lava hoedown
onto earth’s clavicle, scapula. Each
leaf-palm
miniature tree of life
in pepper-pink
plum-magenta
mustard-mauve
coyote-brown. Watching
cornucopia-confetti float down —
Alone in silence,
without baggage
I pick a leaf-posy
to
fossil-frame, press
burnt-umber
ruby-russet
blue-spice
burnt-sienna in slices
of rice paper to dry
in a sycamore kiln.
Brushstrokes
building glue-bricks in an autumn
mimic of organdie
and lawn
John
Muir — Alone in silence, without baggage
Leaving The Ark
Bubble
of light
lengthens.
Lark-dawn
becomes
striated
stone
as cataract
ebbs.
Turnstile between
fields
under needles
of
backlash, whiplash
still
starch. Snowdrop traffic
un-jams.
Arthritic wood
ermined
in slush
and
snow invite
nest
and chorus. Glass
becomes
puddle
in
allotment of parsley
green.
Daffodil splash of
sun.
Under sky
of
spark and tinder, lambs
limb
stalactites unfold
their
chrysalis. Tractor
blades
become arc
of
swan's neck
Corvid’s Eye of Hag-stone
We recognise each other
from when I was raven-over-seer but us became invisible, indivisible because we
could take no more of seeing fast forward to what un-feelies would invoke,
transpire; at tethers-end looking into mirrored balls, shrouded fog. Of seeing
veils demist what was and yet to be and now it is again anew, as we mark time.
Pinion feathers stilled with bated breath at bewigged tomfoolery, folderol,
lollygagging folly as the earth fires, floods, famines, storms and all the
ravens arrive to prophesise but still you twiddle thumbs, unloose forked
tongues. Make widow’s peaks as oak weeps and owl heads swivel. Then will come
three days of night. The eleventh month. The eleventh hour.
Stroma: A Leaving & Returning
The
Boy James on the road over
flirts
with the Pentland Firth
Escort
of orca & humpback
whales are
half-moons leaping
in white-tipped
waves & fidgety
air. The Boy James
bumps into
black
tyres. Thick rope flung
hung
loose-hipped round
its
mooring bollard. Spilling
its embargo-cargo —
Class of '61's
daughters &
sons onto the quay
An auk's whaup
heralds homecoming
through
isosceles glass teeth
of
the scarlet phone box
The
black receiver a pendulum
in a Nor' Easter —
But & ben's windows
the third eye on
hiccoughing doors
& scalene
cobwebs. Fallen-arches
&
slate are sheep pens, runs for
hillocks
of sharn & guano in
scunnered
box-beds. In the tool
graveyard outside
a window
a mangle sits in
sunlight, its black
rust-iron handle a
closed parentheses
A
vintage of wheels of verdigris
&
rust: cart, tractor, car; Stainless
Steel
taps & soup spoons in whins
Buoys are
soil-plugged
blood-grapefruits
& radishes
sat beside a
bleached beached
yole.
Half-eaten stern folded
accordion
pleats. The Boy James
unfurls;
casts off in burnt orange
sunset, its petted
lip a diptych
Harbour porpoises
click & whistle
seals beach. On
the road back
o Yole — Traditional Stroma fishing vessel
Mandy
Beattie frequently loses herself in poetry, books & imaginings. Pen, paper &
words without borders are some of her favourite things. She has been published
in poetry Journals such as: Lothlorien, Poets Republic, Dreich, Wordpeace, The
Haar, Wordgathering, The Clearance Collection, Spilling Cocoa with Martin Amis,
Last Stanza, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Visual Verse, Book Week Scotland. Winner
of Poets Choice in Marble Poetry Broadsheet. Shortlisted in the Dreich Black
Box Poetry Competition. She has a forthcoming poems in, Drawn To The Light,
Spoonie Anthology & Journal, The Pen Points North & Crowstep & a
short story in the inaugural edition of, Howl. She is soon to be featured poet
with Lime Square Poets.
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