Three Poems by Siobhan Potter

 

 

Liturgy of the Hours 

 

 

Ears incline toward forgetful 

The body inclines to memorialise 

Alarm peal mummering  

abscess in retreat 

Arise remind, arise remember, arise  

repaper the cracks  

in the veneer  

of my hand painted mother 

Layers lair 

Thinner, thinner 

Due care, to not fall 

for the paper cut debris of  

the umbilicus aeternalis 

The cracks she ‘ppears through 

all hallowed  

objects of transition 

wherein we sup tae  

mull over samples 

Patterns to emboss for safekeeping  

onto the skin of the next generation... 

 

 

Daily  

 

 

I listen to life, frantic 

looking for me, afraid  

that I have left it. Refusing 

to leave, or to let me 

The way out—a not yet 

Praying, that the dog, will not betray 

where I have us, folded 

in a crevasse, between silences, tired  

of dialogue. Stillness  

my only own 

Tasting sounds  

searching and shuttering  

exits 

It is distressed 

 

I always come back 

It hates me for that... 

 

 

Steak Tartare 

 

an exercise in restraint from a bare-handed endeavour 

Moves her, from monolith, through devouring mother 

to swoon like a Koons on the roof of the Met 

endorphins disturbing brutalism at its core 

It is by the grace of God that she uses a fork 

Prey now 

behind his prawn cocktail watching 

her, single handedly googling pejorative 

always with the googling 

It means that you, are an arse for using it  

Yes. This 

is the woman he will divorce 

For now, propose 

one knee, in the garden 

she'll like that 

Give her the makings of poetry.... 

Siobhan Potter works as a verbal artist, and body psychotherapist in Ireland. Her practice, centred in relationship, explores the capacity of poetic form to midwife experience. Siobhan has poems published in both oral and print form, and she exhibits occasionally in relation and participatory ways.