Selkirk Lapwing Press

the best contemporary poetry from both sides of Hadrian's Wall

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Mazzy Molotnikoff

Life and Porridge

Slowly,
like the drip of a loose tap
I’ve got accustomed
to the sounds.

The wheezing pipes,
the faint flush
of next door’s toilet,
the bloke downstairs
telling his wife
to fuck off.

The microwave
ticking down the seconds
heats my porridge,
counts down the seconds
of my life
0-60
and I’m sixty seconds older.

And although the pipes repeat
their wheezing.
and the man downstairs
keeps telling his wife
to fuck off even though she’s left,
all our lives
are silently being
used up.

Published in Life and Porridge (Selkirk Lapwing Press, September 2006.)

Nick Pemberton

Art, Medicine, Life, Death, Work and the Whole Ball of Wax:
For a Doctor on Retirement

Not long after my brother died
I saw, then tore from a Sunday paper, this:

‘Ognuno esta solo sul cuor della terra
traffito da un raggio di sole:
ed e subito sera.’

It was written by a Sicilian and translated thus:

‘Each of us is alone on the heart of the earth,
pierced by a ray of sun;
and suddenly it’s evening.’

A doctor retiring. Some joke.
Might as well ask a writer to quit
or a painter to donate his brushes
to the bin man. Society’s shaped
by our inescapable nature – red
in tooth and claw, shot through
with quirky mercy – and life
is no more than the breath
it takes to breathe it
in, to hold it, then
breathe out again.

Published in Art, Medicine, Life, Death, Work and the Whole Ball of Wax. (Selkirk Lapwing Press, September 2006.)

Tom Murray

New York: Arrival

I’ve arrived
Touched down but still flying
In the city that never sleeps, that is never still.

I’ve arrived
Landed but still coming down
Over junior league size baseball pitches
Multicoloured doll houses all in a row
Each with their own American backyard.

I’ve arrived
New York cabbie style,
That is, crazy, stop for no man
Or car, style.
‘Where you heading?’ the chewing
Mouth asks in the mirror.
‘Mid Manhattan, East 51st Street,’
I say as nonchalant
As I can muster as we swerve into the freeway
To a chorus of horns.

I’ve arrived,
Shaken and stirred,
Blood coursing through my veins,
Skin tingling,
I’ve arrived.

Published in The Future Is Behind You (Selkirk Lapwing Press, 2006. ISBN: 0953121291).

Penny Wheatley

Forgetting

Not a sound in the wood as I drop
Down the hill.
Just the pulse of my tread measuring
The nameless summer afternoon.
I move through scented silence
Where the landscape hangs, timeless,
Like a faded photograph.
And my brain loosens its chains,
And thoughts drift, softly
Through the soggy air, dropping
Like falling leaves,
Here or there
Or nowhere.

Published in Dream Down Blue (Selkirk Lapwing Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780953121205).

Lis Lee

Old Man Kangaroo

They are serving medallions of kangaroo in Glasgow.
'Darker than steak, velvety and luscious,
tenderloins of small, young kangaroo
are high in iron, low in fat.'

Back in Scotland now, I left an eye in Australia,
coveting 110 Kangaroo Ground Road, Wattle Glen,
a bungalow and four acres of grazing, ringed by bell birds
(the sound of a spoon on a half-empty milk bottle).

Kookaburras heckle daybreak.
Eucalyptus are forty shades of green,
grey, blue silver. Leaves like coins.
Old man kangaroo, the rightful owner, coughs.
Sitting on his tail like a three-legged stool,
he is taller than the barbecue.

Published in Sob Sister (Selkirk Lapwing Press, 2005. ISBN: 0953121259).

Tom Bryan

Hometown
(for Michael Graham)

From that street we went
to everywhere,
you, kitty-corner in your 'Peace Time' house,
me in a 'War Time' one.
We met a half-century later,
thousands of miles away, by chance.

Testing one another on nicknames,
bullies and Ukrainian cooking,
remembering shiny dimes
flattened on Canadian Pacific rails.

Where else (but everywhere)
could we go, besides the meat-packing plant,
the Grain Exchange or City Hall?

Our Neil Young took his guitar to Buffalo Springfield
while we took to poems, archaeology and
the Cree Indian Nation.

Now we listen to the sea pounding us
back to there. I show you
photos of a treeless place
where blond boys dreamed to run,
beyond where lonely freight trains
howled to go,
and went.

Published in Redwing Summer (Selkirk Lapwing Press, 2005. ISBN: 0953121275) .

Jay Whittaker

Worst

Worst is the fear of seeming odd
For their glory is conformity.
Worse still, the fear of being caught
Out beyond normality.

And what if I went? Would their sky light
Momentarily with fireworks? Would they cry
"We are past masters of regret, come back,
We love you, want you for ourselves."

But I've heard it already. I cry
To those whose guilt shies away
From newer, alien truths - ride on, away
From those still living in their world of clay.

Published in Pearl. (Selkirk Lapwing Press, 2005. ISBN: 0953121267).

Robert Leach

Namaste

We stand,
A little shy
Under unaccustomed rucksacks,
Hats, a sky
Tentatively blue.

We eye
Our porters
Shyly, tentatively.
They smile
Beguilingly at us,
Then look quick away
And kick their boots
On the gravel ground.

Their route:
Our way.

Our guide gives the word.
We begin to walk
And our joints, muscles,
Smiles
Loosen up.

Published in Journey flags. (Selkirk Lapwing Press, 2005. ISBN: 0953121242).

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