All posts tagged: Crannóg

“Viksdalen” and other poems by Fiona Smith

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Shell shock   He built his laftehus in the old way, As it should be done, using cured wood, Beam on tremendous beam, an X joint With interlocking notches at the seam.   Sweating over plans, permits, rights of way. Helicopter drops in snow, cajoling The bureaucrats, architects, authorities. His wife, to just let him get on with it.   A truffle hog, he sniffed out each stick, churn Implement, coaxing farmers, dealers, Collectors to part with their cherished pieces For him to enshrine in his sacred wooden space.   In the hard work it took to fell trees, drag them, Haul them across the forest, dig foundations, And shape the beams, he buried some memories. Then he nailed a few more into the walls.   You can hear him up there still, pottering, fussing By the woodpile, stacking tins of condensed milk, Cod roe from Svolvær, provisions to last him Until he is forced to cede to a new generation.   Already they come, screwing up his systems, Logging their jaunts in his cloth-bound …

“A Gradual Eden” and other poems by Audrey Molloy

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A Gradual Eden After the lava had cooled, hardened like a carapace over the fresh-earth graves of our marriages, nothing happened for a while. Sure, you and I still talked all night, once dared to walk arm-in-arm like a real couple to the Vietnamese restaurant with the string-bead curtain and napkins folded into swans. I had to learn the basics: I only knew your every thought, but not, for instance, how you took your coffee, how you swam at five each day, leaving me to wake alone. Nothing grew on the hard-baked basalt of us. Ditches that had defined our highways vanished, once-shady trees now jutted like antlers where the lightning had struck. When the strawberries were gone we ate dandelion and fiddle-head ferns. You were an inventive chef, but I was sick of roots and leaves; I wanted Passiflora (or violets at the very least). Once, longing for old comforts, you peeked back under the edge of the rock-crust for a glimpse of green, but the lawns were mustard and thistle-pocked. Twice I peeked …

‘The Road Taken’ and other poems by Kate Ennals

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Cuckoo Before she was mine she drank red wine and spirits With class, in Egypt and Paris An educated forties woman From Wales, aquiline nose, my brother’s eyes Stylish in scarves, tight belt, full skirts, Intelligent. Conversation, politics. A woman of intellect. Studious, serious She pursued kingdoms of change But with each revolution comes sex And she became history. Mine Look, here I come. Cuckoo, cuckoo Before I arrived, my mother was beautiful.   After Alvy Carragher’s ‘Mother’ I have just read a poem: ‘Mother’ By Alvy Carragher over and over: “You said it was love at first sight” Mother, I don’t recall you saying that On this couch where I now lie where, as a child, I snuggled into your woven threads of bosom and breath The words, ‘I love you’? No I would remember Though I heard the scream you held at arm’s length Its tentacles tangled in our threaded embrace.   DNA I come home from time to time Motionless, I stand, glide down Steel de-escalates underfoot My eyes swivel, theatre bound …

‘Live Bulbs’ and other poems by Katherine Noone

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In May You are everywhere. Arthur Bells’ yellow bloom fragrant and fleeting, whitethorn buds abound. Mint makes it’s way to our door, ready for picking. Swallows sing a sweet song as they soar. On my route I detour, lured by a lilac in bloom. This month, of the mothers. Our Village in the Fifties Vibrant. Most houses endowed with broods of children. We run around freely unhindered by snatchers and traffic. Play out in the fields rich with daisies and daffodils. Scale over walls to orchards their branches bowed low with ripe rosy apples, maimed by migration it succumbs to stillness and silence. Neighbours reach out. Sheepdogs wait. Footballs deflate. Live Bulbs After red and yellow weather alerts when floods and storms subside. Broken tree twigs around you garden soil stripped aside. Your emerald shoots remain sturdy and serene. With enough resilience, robustness to turn a blue moon green. Live Bulbs and other poems are © Katherine Noone Katherine Noone’s first poetry collection Keeping Watch was published by Lapwing Press (2017). Her poems have appeared in Orbis, …