Five Poems by Mandy Beattie

 

The Feminine Misaligned & Maligned

 

Goddess Himalaya

The Evening Rose she held up nights

taking flight she who was

 

Eve & Seven Daughters. Her Garden

of Eden grew thorns on roses after

fig leaf wiles, lies

 

Thornless were Generous Gardener

Lady of Shallot, Amber Queen

Reviled rose-hearts grew stem-daggers

 

to Ring a Ring a Roses, to ward off all falls

from grace & those misnamed whore but still

Mary Magdalene, Apostle of Apostles

 

ascended from so called fouled apples

that never were — Clitoris-hearts broke

& apple dimples of roses turned into tear drop

 

drips like Fallopian Buds, Fringed Bleeding Heart

Squirrel Corn. Now we Roses rise to resurrect

winging among Bind Weed, Loosestrife, Cattails

 

Metamorphosis of all that is

Aphrodite, African Queen’s. Feminine

wildfire petals open

 

never bow heads in an Esperanto

of Roses. Untamed Rose-Valentina

She-Flowers need no trellis to hold up the sky

First Lady of Flowers

 

A Rose is anything

but humble, as if, A Rose by any other

name would smell so sweet, said Juliette

 

of Romeo. Rabbie

Burns’ Love was, Like a red red rose

Did Rossetti agree

 

with Avon’s Bard? Of all the flowers

me thinks a rose is best, as he poured Attar

of Roses on Venus

 

Verticordia, La Ghirlandata

Lady Lilith. Anointed

pulse points like Margaret MacDonald MacKintosh’s

 

The Three Perfumes

 

The End is Another Beginning

     after, I Found a Funeral in My Brain

—    Emily Dickinson

 

And then I heard them lift a box yoked on shoulders, stooped with pails, knees akimbo. Elbowed through on willow’s throne into sacred fire’s furnace. Released from this bone-cocoon I flit about light as thistledown with no caveat. Flicked a fringe from someone’s eye, straightened distant cousin’s black bow tie. In front row’s pew, swiped a tissue under close-kin’s nostril-faucet. Whispered in ears, I am here, more alive than ever there. Patted backs of purple haired rubberneckers, homeless teen looking for crumbs of shortbread-comfort & no need of confessionals. Slipped three gold coins into his hip pocket. Awoke to choices of ascension accelerator in eyrie, bluebell grove, long boat pyre?

 

Sea anemones

Honour guard of bowhead whale

Escort through this veil?

 

Song-Stitch in Time

      a Found poem of titles in, Weaving Songs

—    Donald S. Murray

 

Weaving-woven star woven-weaving seasons weaving-woven song travellers woven-weaving song weaving-woven spells for the woven-weaving  father of the weaving-woven  bride a dear woven-weaving child weaving-woven myths & legends in a woven-weaving love letter in a book of weaving-woven prose woven-weaving tales of weaving-woven spirits woven-weaving shearing woven-weaving threads weaving-woven weft & lap work of the woven-weaving mill weaving-woven fulling tweed woven-weaving wool waulking songs woven-weaving this island weaving-woven ghost a woven-weaving stone weaving-woven in bone woven-weaving weaving-woven

 

Yang-Fur

is Not Yin-Fur

 

Along

   River Foyle

       & Prehen Wood

           they

              preambled

                leash-less

             with Sam

               

       His snout a

   truffle-snuffle

of bluebells          

 celandine

     wood anemone

        Argonaut

              fleece

                 a longshore

               drift

        versus

     trunk of

   beech

       ash, birch

           as red

              squirrel

         long-eared owl

    & sparrow hawk

looked

    askance at

       cock-a-leekie

          & Atlantic

             salmon

         leapfrogged

   tickled trout

 

     Afterwards

         healing

            hands

morphed

               Sam’s

         floods

     into

squirt-bursts           

    but fetid

       & fouled

          rugs

       remain

      permafrost

   with nasal

  polyps &

prostrate

 

 

 

Mandy Beattie’s a former social worker & academic with an, MA in Social Work Research & Practice. She’s been published in journals such as, Poets Republic, Drawn to The Light, Verse-Virtual, Lothlorien, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Dreich, WordPeace, Visual Verse, Wildfire Words, Word Gathering, Spilling Cocoa by Martin Amis, Last Stanza, The Clearance Collection, The Haar, Purple Hermit, Crowstep, Spoonie, Abridged, The Pen Points North, Advent with Annick, Full House Literary, Five Words Volume XVI Anthology & more. Several short stories including in, Howl New Irish Writing. Features in, Big Girl’s Village Lockdown Showcase House of Commons. Poets Choice, Marble Poetry. Shortlisted, Black Box Competition & 10th International Five Words Competition. Forthcoming publications, Poetry Super Highway, Alien Buddha & Glisk Anthology.