Returning

 

 A poem for Remembrance Day   

Returning

For now at last I know

That there is no escape

(Alun Lewis, ‘The Sentry’)

 

For how do you learn how to breathe again

                           after years of holding?

Your mind full of mud and shit

you stand by the cliff edge among an abundance of thrift,

the mass of pink splits your brain like a mortar shell,

lightning strikes your heart

so hard it burns ventricles.

 

For you have longed for this moment –

clear sky, fresh sea air.

 

Breathe in     hold     out     pause     repeat.

 

Your nose and ears still clogged with dirt and dust

but you hear the roar of waves below

over the bombardment that echoes in your head.

 

Salty brine of Irish Sea air penetrates

the fog of gas and stink of the rotten trench

as you wait to scramble over.

Smoke and barbed wire, the bullet hail attack,

bloody limbs flying, brains and guts scattered.

 

in      hold     out     pause    repeat.

 

Shouts and screams. Your mates’ eyes staring up

through drifting ochre smoke.

Nothing looks at nothing.

 

Life was finished, tears rain all down your face.

You peer over the edge

see red rocks pummelled by surf frothing far below,

blood bubbling from a blown-apart throat.

 

How do you come home?

Will this wide open space sometime bring peace?

 

Breathe  in      hold     out     pause   repeat.

 

How do you learn to live again?

Remember to breathe freely?

         If you want to keep breathing.

 

For the pinks are only grey, the sky steel,

the sea rutted iron, the path a trench

                                        and death lives in you.

 

Breathe in     hold     out           pause …

©JackieBiggs2020

Abandoned

This poem was Highly Commended in the 2019 Welsh International Poetry Competition; and appears in the latest edition (#26) of the radical annual publication from Wales, Red Poets. My thanks to them both.

Abandoned

He’s on his own throwing stones,

a scruffbag lad on  a dusty square

down a deadend street

 

at the end of nowhere.

He’ll target windows

until all of them are blank.

 

A jagged piece crashes

and smashes into flinty sparks

on a concrete floor –

 

a small highlight for this

early evening boy

who wants to stay out there

 

until darkness rises

and the heat of day drops

a grey covering

 

over ragwort and buddleia

that pokes from cracks

around a small building …

 

Door hanging open

roof collapsing

‘keep out’ sign peeling paint

 

by a broken down fence

and a useless gate.

‘No trespassing’ whines

 

 in distorted red and

‘DANGER’ shouts in crooked capitals

but the boy can’t read the signs.

 

The last complete window

flares like a sheet of flame in glancing sun.

He chooses half a worn brick

 

hears firecrack of glass

sees the blaze shatter.

He kicks up smoke filled with dust

 

and heads back towards town

where orange streetlights start to glow

as the sun goes down.

Barn owl over Teifi Marshes

I was very excited to hear from the Welsh Wildlife Centre at Cilgerran that three barn owl chicks have successfully fledged at Teifi Marshes this summer.  They have stayed on the reserve, feeding over the meadows and reedbeds. The Teifi Ringing Group managed to ring and photograph the chicks (under license) and will continue to monitor them. I wrote this poem a couple of years ago when I used to watch a solitary barn owl frequently fly over the marshes at dusk. I am so pleased there is now a family of them here.

Barn owl over Teifi marshes                                

I am white air

sailing over meadow

shadowless over reed beds

 

I lighten dusk

float in circles

fly-swoop for prey.

 

And someone waits among bare trees

I fly towards her, straight and level

face to face

 

eye to eye as I pass

nothing to concern

I flow on,  feathered mist

 

dissolving into twilight

and I turn my attention

again to night business

 

Those were the days

 This is me on the beach with my Dad when I was four years old. It would have been on the Kent coast somewhere. Here's a poem I wrote recently about memories from childhood beach holidays. It seems that I already knew something about social distancing in those days.

Those were the days

 

when rectangles of ice cream came in waxed paper,

you had to peel it off and place the little block in the cornet

or sandwich it between two thin wafers.

 

The white confection would melt in the sun

dribble over my hands, down chubby arms,

mingle with sand, a sweet grit stuck to skin.

 

What I remember most was the hot pricking,

salt-pique in heat under the bathing suit,

scratching,  itching.

 

Dad made castles just for me, and together

we chose paper flags to stick on top of tiny turrets –

with golden lions, red wolves, fiery dragons.

 

We’d dig a moat together and watch

as the tide came in to slowly wash it all away

in a sea of tears. I’d retreat to my rug

 

draw a big circle in the sand around me,

and no-one was allowed to cross the line.

do not disturb my sand, keep off!

 

I’m the Queen of the Castle.