Three Poems by Chad Hoogervorst

Ultramarine   

 

She was throwing grapes to the birds 

when I noticed her rosy-tipped fingers 

and long dark hair bound above her head 

like a fathomless black deed 

as she noticed she turned  

her face smiling eyes crackling 

 

Much later I found the way to her body 

and there was not a soul but a churchyard 

beautifully decorated by ivy  

and veronica colored heliotrope  

I felt crisp fear at how she moved 

in a menacing but superhuman way 

 

And in a flash of understanding 

I knew she was unfinished yet destroyed 

that she had run upon the lion for the wolf 

truth had stepped out holding a mirror 

and I felt the urge to bury my heart 

in the dope-sick warmth of her chest 

 

 

I Want to Go into Your Lying Down Head            

 

“Into her lying down head / His enemies entered bed” Dylan Thomas 

 

And steal a secret  

yank it out like a car stereo  

wires trailing behind frayed 

from the quick theft 

reselling it to the cosmic pawnshop 

of your perception 

 

I want to go into your lying down head 

into your towering conscience  

find the day residue 

speckled about your dreams 

and deliver you mouthed nights 

until atomic joy washes you awake 

         

I want to go into your lying down head 

unpeel your feelings and 

vulture them so I become them 

clad in your atmosphere 

I’d sketch you like a child’s drawing  

with the speech bubble 

“Why can’t I be you?” 

                          

I want to go into your lying down head 

to throw a party for your memories 

so I could meet each one 

shake their hands and mix them a drink 

combing your hair softly afterwards 

in front on the television 

as we rate our guest’s anecdotes 

 

I want to go into your lying down head 

to find the hiccups 

insecurities adjacent to uncertainties 

doubts shelved alphabetically 

orderly as your teeth 

as affectionate as the ribs 

covering your unknowable altar   

 

But mostly  

I want to go into your lying down head 

to get out of my own 

escape the asylum 

the wild animals in there 

at the water’s edge 

cautious and timid like an Irish goodbye 

to see if the sky darkens or lightens 

when I brush against that brainstem 

 

K

 

Starry declination talking 

to yourself again 

you leave so quick and flush 

I fix a drink in the dark 

 

This will leave a wound 

fingered by the sky and 

surely to be autopsied  

for weeks 

 

That’s where we’re moving 

trot to gallop 

carried to the abattoir  

grasping an oyster-colored mane 

 

Anti-body night 

do double murder  

and know that if jealousy takes three 

then it has sides 

 

Above the fuselage of a shining plane 

smooth orange and white 

blinks the sky  

I smile for intensification 

 

Love again has woven  

its extensive index 

into another breast 

and I’m essentially unknowable 

 

Two Poems by Joseph Tate

Alfoxden, now

Wm. unable to go all the way.
The sea very black.

Triton, late,
mute at the conch.

Proteus, soon, stuck in perhaps,—
the eustatic rising. 


Enyalion, to the last

Not enough / Too much
in the business of your cabinet:
past-noon sleepings
& late nights
in soil more than sea.

Two Poems by Paul Bavister

Campsite

The campsite sloped down to the beach,
and every morning I ran between the tents,
then jumped into the freezing sea.
I hadn’t been told it was only a holiday,
that we’d be back in a week.

I sat on a scorching grey rock,
looked out to sea,
forgot the fear of being beaten at school,
then smelled smoke and turned
to a line of fire ripping through the gorse.

Weasels, lizards, snakes and mice
poured through the stone wall.
We ran down to the beach,
and I couldn’t see through the smoke
to know if the tent was lost.

I worried, but thought we could
buy another, still not knowing
that in a couple of hours
we’d be on the road home,
me in the back seat

dreaming of the next campsite,
not even thinking
about spending another ten years
getting beaten senseless
at the school that made me.

Koi

When I heard the ornamental gardens
had been flooded by the river,
I thought of cherry blossom spinning
on the churning surface
and maples knocked from their pots.

Then I remembered the koi
in the deep ponds
and how they would have surged forward,
flashes of orange and white
in the water pouring into town.

As I waded through to reach my flat,
everything in the muddy water
became a koi – a plastic bag
caught on a branch, inflating, deflating,
a traffic cone, a fluorescent jacket.

When I climbed onto the town hall steps,
the water calmed and the koi
were all around, their whites and oranges
turning on the surface, reflected
in the windows of the flooded shops.