Poems

I have many (too many) poems that will probably never see the light of day, but these are a few that have.

Rainbow Cranes was inspired by the stunning multi-coloured cranes that tower over the countryside near Alfreton in Derbyshire. It was published, in 2010 on the Derbyshire Reading Detectives website and used as part of their Grassmoor launch. Thank you to them for letting me be a part of this project.

Rainbow Cranes

He stops when he sees the rainbow cranes
and forgets, for a moment,
where he is going and why.
Even his old lame dog stops at his side,
glad of a concrete seat, for a moment,
eyes on a level with the cars passing by
and a tractor rumbling at a slumbering pace.

Cars jostle together,
separated only by a nudge
and a word that clangs in the mouth
and a chin resting on a hand, fingers tapping
like pebbles bumping on a beach.

And the old dog sees a scruffy mutt
with her head wedged through the gap at the window's end,
pricks up his ears and sniffs the air,
catching a whiff of something else,
newly laid tarmacadam shaken by the breeze.
It doesn't register.
But then it's not dog.

He doesn't see what his master sees,
the rainbow cranes, towering
above rooftops and trees,
slam metal on metal,
the blue print yielding beneath the hook,
piercing the breath and the light at its brightest,
doesn't hear the knock on the door of his master's heart
as it opens to fill with longing

and opening,
forgets his old dog, sinks into the blue,
remembers its sweetness,
casts out and reels it in
until he feels the suck and the ooze of it,
the rising wave beneath his skin.

The tractor has moved on a bit now
and the traffic heaps up,
plugging the gaps
as more and more fingers flex and stumble
in the space between sighs.

Traeth Cerrig has been commended in the Thynks Poetry Competetion 2011. I am delighted! I wrote this poem as a result of many early morning walks along a deserted pebble beach in Wales last year. I have never seen a beach like it and doubt I ever will again. Traeth Cerrig means pebble beach in Welsh.

Traeth Cerrig Opening the farmer's gate of metal, rained on and rusted in, I step out into the wind to meet the bank of dry sand grass The tide has pushed the pebbles back, a pebble ridge beyond the dry sand grass, a row of knuckles clenched in, clutching sand and a badger, long dead, with colours smudged to murky brown, face up back down, claws out as if he died in a fright. Ivory bodies of shark, curl like washed out socks between the knuckles, no space to writhe and wriggle, just these knuckles closing in, and this shredded air. But there's space here, sand to cling to, to graze my feet and shape itself around my heel. A fractured pod of shark eggs with a sprinkling of seaweed has declared ownership of this place until the tide comes in and nudges it a little closer closer to the speckled crab gripping the sand like a sleeping child, while hundreds of empty Carling cans crackle in the sun. I try to help, but run out of bags having barely erased the silver sheen, so failing badly pick up fistfuls of pebbles and rocks, cram them into greedy pockets, stuff them deep so there's no way out. Now they gather on my windowsill - blocking up the corners, screening edges, spilling over. Knuckles closing in on this dry air.

I wrote Buried Treasures many years ago, but it was one of a few poems I re-visited this year and re-worked. Having sent it to Crystal Clear Creators in Leicestershire, who publish the Hearing Voices poetry magazine, the poem has now been published in their latest magazine, Hearing Voices, volume 4. This is available from Crystal Clear Creators here.

Buried Treasures

I look into her room and
it is empty, still,
though the mobile swings
and memories sing inside my head,

the lemon icing cover smooth and flat.
Only longing pinches and clutches
the places hands should be,
as the teddy in the corner
gathers up the light.

At Christmas,
I buy bunches and bundles
of presents, stuff them deep in drawers
beneath my bed,
to rest,

then a rush,
fingering the casing, the crust
in search of a beat or a pulse
to chase away the slack.

In secret silence I lay them out
touch each and every one with a solitary word,
clothe and cloak in glossy wrap
with a twist of silver swirl.

Then, I have a cup of tea
and look at what I've done.

Softly, gently, each gift slumbering
in boxes tucked in tight,
each waiting for the ebb
before I carry them out to the garden
to die.

© 2011 Abi Burlingham