Five Poems by Sarah Davies

 

Moonscaper

 

It wasn't like here, where you can't get away-

there were always the hills, lonely and irregular,

to reach. There were only the hills,

where we would go, lonely, but it was good.

To get away and be with a grass mirror,

only the authority of sky to bow to,

but not the need to answer. At the end 

of town, the end of day, always the out.

 

Will you miss it, the elemental?

I do. A friend of mine once went

among them, the hills, the beinns,

with a thin white carrier bag of soup cans

and lemonade, up until the trail ran out

and then a bothy, where he stayed

until the drugs had left his body,

until he was, like the rock, scoured clean.

 

No sense of leaving, rather being found,

up there, where the grass devolves

to moss, where the grass becomes

one with water and rock and the only

colours are greenblack, bruise yellow,

bruise purple. From where, in rain,

 a woman might not return

till she had found a teacher in herself.

 

This is the kingdom of vertical perspective, 

of cloud coronation. But this is a tale sold by

a road mender in high vis neon, half cut,

testifying on a slow cold bus in February, 

late from Cambridge to Luton- 

But I was listening. 

I am listening. I am in the hills too.

 

 

The museum of you

 

The exhibition of yourself in retrospect,

illuminating and dot to dot,

a gorgeous comic strip

 

but you hurry to the gift shop

like any other visitor,

congratulate yourself for all your patience

in the face of this familiar culture

 

buy a small, plain postcard

and a magnet for the aching fridge,

with the close-up printed on it

of your name, your elbow, smile,

send it to me.

 

 

Memento

 

You once showed me a better way

of keeping water, so your cupped wet hands

were pressed with fingers closer together

nearer than mine would fit,

begging, I thought at the time

rather than praying. But you drank

when I was thirsty, the gone water,

the splash and trail , looking like

a river on a map, a true straight vein.

 

The Scholar

 

Do you like History// is it always true?

I take it as it comes// sometimes it begs attention

 

A thousand years// the green houses in moss

A thousand years// the buried make their trade

 

Hardly any land ever // hardly any land is new found land

Hardly a home// there is no new

 

As an ocean traveller// if the ocean is time

As an ocean traveller// land is the waking

 

By the tongue of Greece// by the mouth of Troy

By the shoulder of Tyre// by the purple of Damascus

 

A sword lost in water // steel takes years to sink

The seabed its arsenal// bullet teeth of rare fish

 

Pearls in the handle// rust on the skin

Look at this artefact// the shape we are in

 

If a woman was ever armoured// the suit invisible

If a woman was a killer // the suit worked better

 

If the battle was this// and this was a reflection

The raven on the field// the battle in its eye. 

 

Fragmental

 

A man with diamonds

in his teeth is sleeping

on the street

 

April

please turn the year

around

 

After the mending,

I find a pin in the fold-

small wound by the heart

 

A stone in your shoe,

however small, will change

how you walk this earth

 

Still, the words arrive,

like little boats and freedom-

language will make room

 

Cloud in my breath

so I become cloud, so

cloud becomes me.

By Sarah Davies