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All trace of lyricism surgically removed. ©Marie Marshall

92

“Stuff begun in ignorance lasts

as long as a charcoal hammer,”

she says, poet as she is, “and so

I’m nothing but a tourist on your

grief.” There was a message in

the sky, a taste on the wind, that

:

anyone could read but it stayed

a cypher. Observe how the dog

trots and interpret that in dance.

Yesterday we released balloons

for someone’s birthday; our calm

is barbaric, as banal as ice-cream.

__________

©Marie Marshall

91a, 91b, 91c, 91d.

Spectre-brave by association, chaotic by inclination, she chose the wilderness between two paths.

A million-million sparks, the bravado

that turns a street into a river, rainwater

reflecting shop lights, red car lights, the

glow of smartphones, are more poignant

for paralleling the real flow down from

distant hills, old snows, subtle weathers.

90

The world of lyric poetry has ended. You missed the wake. ©Marie Marshall

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©Marie Marshall

Click on Jupiter to go to my main web site mairibheag.com, or here to see the update to my ‘What?’ page.

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©Marie Marshall

87

It goes without saying that if you hear hoofbeats and think zebras you’re in the Serengeti; all poetry is a matter of such hotdogging. ©Marie Marshall

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Twa plain bridies, nae sauce. ©Marie Marshall

85

We live within the wynds of wonders,

or so it’s bruited. “If this is a Christian

country, and God says thou shalt not

kill, and Jesus says render not evil for

evil, turn the other cheek, why do we

go to war?” she asked. The carcasses

:

of pigs hooked up in the back of the

butcher’s shop sway to a tremor the

rest of us don’t feel, and their rhythm

is frankly beautiful, and flowers nod

when there’s no breeze, acknowledging

that something divine’s passing and

:

begging pardon for shining at all –

meanwhile that trap we’ve built for

ourselves is slowly closing, the warning

light’s blinking on the dashboard with

a little, subtle voice as backup. There

are children at play in all types of homes

:

and gardens. You’re a hard act to follow.

Each thing we see is a glyph in its own

right, we see and we supply a meaning,

in short we read everything, and biology

dictates that we are here one day and

gone the next. There is no feeling of guilt.

:

She joins in the dance, the same dance.

There’s a red, red evening, a sky too full

and massive to turn your eyes from, a

running sun, haunted clouds, upward-rising

stars, insistent coolness, a blackbird whose

chanting refuses to agree that the day’s

:

over and done with, a flagpole white

against the firmament, a flickering screen,

a little, little measure. There was once

a plain here, wild horses. The blooms of

the prairie are transient. She catches sight

of a man leaning against a wall; his attitude,

:

his angle of incidence to the brickwork,

is awkward, uncomfortable, and there

would seem to be some intent to his

leaning other than to have support,

maybe the experience of discomfort as

a discipline. So she learns to preach

:

on street corners. Once again we realise

that a question follows us wherever we

go, nags us with the bravery of a child

tugging at our skirts. Is it all about that

rhythm, that dance? Unfinished work,

god or no god, spends only false coin.

__________

©Marie Marshall

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Welcome home. ©Marie Marshall