Five Poems by Peter J Donnelly

 

The Other Bennett

 

Is he remembered in Fenton,

the town he left out of his Five

of the Potteries? Or even by guests

at the Savoy who order omelette

with haddock in it? Do readers

of Virginia Woolf know the cause

of her dispute with him,

or even that they had one?

I think many years hence I'll recall

the plot of Clayhanger and why

I read it after Hilda Lessways

whose story I've forgotten, like I've

forgotten what happened to my

copy of These Twain,

though I remember where I got it

and why I tried to read Bennett

at all, whose life and works

would have passed me by

had it not been for his biographer.

So would those of Angus Wilson,

perhaps confused with A N,

as Arnold often is with Alan.

 

 

Despite the Myths

 

There's no doubt that A- is Scarborough

where she died at the Grand Hotel,

but was the Weston named after

Agnes Grey's suitor? She loved the sea

as Emily did the moors, Charlotte the city,

yet unlike them she would never cross it,

though her other heroine does. 

Even Lucy Snowe never touches

Paris or Rome, or not as far as we know.

When we took my grandma to see her grave

she said, 'Well thank you Anne

for The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.'

I still have the copy she bought me

for my fifteenth birthday

which I must have read four times,

maybe five, on the train to school,

at York station, before bed,

in Room 203 Lloyd Thomas Hall.

Sellotape so old it's no longer sticky

or clear covers its fraying spine, 

Winifred Gerin's notes at the back,

written the year I was born are falling out.

I open it now at random and discover

a forgotten detail. Helen visits London

which her creator has yet to see.

 

 

Just a Few Lines

 

To accompany this year’s Christmas card -

I think you would have liked the design.

It’s as well you didn’t manage to write 

to thank me again for the hand cream

I sent you for your birthday, as you

may not have received my reply.

We couldn’t find it amongst your things -

did you take it with you to Cumberland Grange?

 

Your orchids seem to like it on my windowsills,

three in the lounge and one in the bedroom.

My two are now in my office. That purple vase

I’ve placed on a piano stool, the Chinese

floor vase is in the hall, as it was in yours.

I hope you’d approve of the framed 

taxidermy moth hanging in the bathroom,

faux roses on my bedroom bookcase.

 

I’m not writing this with your Kingsley pen

or his rollerball with Lindley Fabritech

engraved on its case, though I’ve put new

refills in them both. Your square tin I’ve 

used to make a cake from Knightshayes Court -

a recipe not in your National Trust book.

I didn’t come across a CD of carols, though

I’ll listen to many on your Sony radio.

 

There’s more I could say about your 

Catherine Holm fruit bowl, your cracker jar

with one stale oatcake left inside,

the little teapot and his Leica binoculars.

But I think you would get bored up there.

I will break off now where normally

I’d say I trust you are well, and 

wish you all the best for the coming year.

   

 

Curlew

 

In Wales they used to fear my call

like the sight of a magpie

or the sound of an afternoon cock crow.

 

I can’t imagine why they call me gylfinir

there, for it sounds nothing like

the noise I make, cur-lee.

 

Now they dread the thought

of my demise, rejoice

at my return to the Yorkshire Dales.

 

Some think my name means running, 

which I never do at all. My beak

catches worms as chopsticks do noodles,

 

or a pair of tweezers pulls out

an unwanted hair, which when closed

it could be said to resemble.  Curved.

 

 

Language and Music

 

It’s no surprise that I recognise it 

whenever I hear it spoken

like I did that Boxing Day 

at M&S in Bath, though I hadn’t 

heard it for years, and couldn’t 

pick out a word - diolch, diawn,

and not at that time of day nostar.

 

My dad thought it was Polish

but I knew it to be Welsh,

for I used to listen to it spoken

every day in the shops, on the bus,

in Sospan Fach. But it’s a mystery to me

how just recently, whenever Monteverdi

comes on the radio unannounced

           

or I tune in half way through,

somehow I guess it is him 

and guess right as I learn

when the music ends

or from the text on the screen

or by saying to my phone

What’s this song? 

 

The only tune I know is Pur Ti Miro, 

perhaps not in fact written by him.

He’s on none of my CDs 

or old tapes. With other composers

I often guess wrong.

What does this reveal about me

except how long I've listened to Radio 3?

Peter J Donnelly lives in York where he works as a hospital secretary.  He has degrees in English Literature and Creative Writing from Lampeter University. 

He has been published in various magazines and anthologies including Atrium,  Fragmented Voices,  Obsessed with Pipework,  Black Nore Review,  High Window,  One Hand Clapping and Ink Sweat and Tears. 

He was a runner up in the Buzzwords open poetry competition and the Ripon Poetry Festival competition. 

His chapbook 'The Second of August' has recently been published by Alien Buddha Press.