moving on or going back to where you came from
Amy Clampitt
it is not the substance of a man’s fault
it is the shape of it
is what lives with him, is what shows
Charles Olson
a room crammed with sharp toys
a field zesty with fire
history as historia
cool as a shot to the mouth
*
in pinched shoes
cataleptic
merely to show up
the birdlime viscidity of the garden
the scalpel-like finger
of a shriveled leaf—
not accusatory
shadowed only
by itself
not pointing
towards a balance-act
but balancing
*
I was six and made of violins
stumped
by metronomic light
I wanted to energise him away
like glucose
globed
into whiteness—
a voice spoken slantwise
but faraway—
sleeping it off
I traveled in the dark
so as not to be seen
*
dusk-nervousness
in what is unclaimed
I wait and fail
paying off warders
at your door—
the thrillbox
of birthdays
whalecalls from waterclotted
condensation
the gazebladed kitchen
the uplander silences of television
blackish fingernails
from window-mould
eyes goggled
towards a lit hearth
fringe fraying
or cupping at the curtain frame
fearful of fire
on the domestic zodiac
bees cried in their flower-coats
collecting honey
*
how the air divides
like cutting a loaf—
as much childed
as fevered
left alone
in the dry season
to feed from the day’s nutrients—
naphtha mirage
over the wheatfield
at sunset
foxfur grinning on a spidersweb
dialysis of rain
inside a garden well
equal to breath
*
—to hear the substance of the earth
to know its shape
blessèd as an egg
and yet—
and yet bombarded
by the radio impulse
of survival
the whistlework of money—
her ivied hair
trenched at the oven or
admonished at the fire-grate
*
shuffle-worn cards
blanked-out letters
from the on-dead
how life tickles the palm at twenty
*
dreaming up worser devils
thinking the lesser disease might be
loneliness—
no-one to ignite
the red-eyed bird
of your mind
no-one told you why
love
blunts
*
if the bones sing
if chaos is chaos
returned—
no atom nuclei
no definitive cure
*
enter fortune
a ransacked house
half-emptied—
that which remains
preserved in boxes
now bulges
like a museum
*
baffled voices vow trounces
—as if from any archive—
I lean over and touch my ear
to the grid complex—
like hearing ritual cannibalism
in the byways of a river
by James Byrne
Please join us on Friday 19 February from 6-8pm here at Oxford Brookesto celebrate the prize-winning poets of the ‘Open’ and ‘English as a Second Language’categories in our inaugural International Poetry Competition. The event willinclude readings from the winners, as well as an exciting showcase of work fromlocal young poets, mentored by award-winning writer, Kate Clanchy. Lightrefreshments will follow. If you would like to attend, please let us know viae-mail: poetrycomp@brookes.ac.ukby 10 February.
‘Historia’ is copyright © James Byrne, 2015. It is reprinted from White Coins (Arc Publications, 2015) by permission of Arc Publications.
James Byrne’s most recent poetry collection Blood/Sugar, was published by Arc Publications in 2009. Byrne is the editor of The Wolf, an internationally-renowned poetry magazine, which he co-founded in 2002. He won the Treci Trg poetry festival prize in Serbia and his Selected Poems: The Vanishing House was published in Belgrade. Byrne lives in Liverpool and is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Edge Hill University. His poems have been translated into several languages including Arabic, Burmese and Chinese and he is the International Editor for Arc Publications.
White Coins rewards the reader with a nomadic poetry for the 21st century; one that mingles personal, social and historical spaces whilst celebrating, at all times, linguistic versatility and innovation. Read more about the book on Arc’s website, and hear James read from his work on the Archive of the Now site.
Since it was founded in 1969, Arc Publications has adhered to its fundamental principles – to introduce the best of new talent to a UK readership, including voices from overseas that would otherwise remain unheard in this country, and to remain at the cutting edge of contemporary poetry. Arc also has a music imprint, Arc Music, for the publication of books about music and musicians. As well as its page on Facebook, you can find Arc on Twitter. Visit Arc’s website to join the publisher’s mailing list, and to find full details of all publications and writers. Arc offers a 10% discount on all books purchased from the website (except Collectors’ Corner titles). Postage and packing is free within the UK.
Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers.
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