pit ponies

Old George like all others
 given half a chance
 knew tha had two
 bits o’ snap*
 one for them
 one for thee sen
 so he’d nuzzle inside
 your donkey jacket.

 Times on entry to pit
 down drift* leading others
 he’d stop
                  swing his head
 to              and            fro

 Wait

 a         moment    or    two

 turn and gallop up and out ‘pit.

 Take thee 3/4 of a bloody shift
 to get bastard back 
                                  down there.

 When tha were leading
 guarantee some wily bugger’d
 stand on thee toes
 if tha got behind ‘um
 he’d hit you so hard
 tha’s winded three days.

 That ‘un got nowt
 Out my donkey jacket.
 Pullin’ them tubs
 were noa joke. One
 after a week pullin’  doubles*
 just up and died.

 Old George were best.
 He were me mate.

 .              :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 * snap is dialect for ‘food’
 *drift. A drift mine enters ground at an angle not vertically.
 *doubles. Sometimes pit ponies had to haul more than one tub of coal.

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atti loses his bollocks, after Catullus 63

(1)

After a bellyful of roiling watta
 Atti landed his feet
 and trogged
 into shadow dark wood
 of goddess Cyb his mam
 who piped up

 Stop touching thi sen.
 It’s immoral, obscene

 And slapped his hands
 And slapped his legs

 till madfrenzied
 by leaden weight
 of his cock and balls

 he grabbed a sharp flint

 And stabbed and gouged
 And gouged and stabbed
 And struck it off

 And he was a she
 looked at his bloodied
 cock and balls

 blood dripped into soil
And he died, birthed again as a lass

 her delicate snow white hands
 took up a hollow ox-hide
 rattling timbrel
 and sang to her ship mates

 (2)

 come and go to forest-heights of me mam, all together now,
 together get thi sens
 tha wandering crew,
 who hankered foreign soil
 like exiles, and followed
 my rule with me as tha boss.
 My folk, tha endured flit sea
 and roiling deep cos tha hated Venus. Please Cyb in tha heart
 with tha headlong hanker.
 Hurry thi sens up.

 Together come and follow
 to goddess forests,
 where cymbals clash,
 where timbrels jangle,
 where flute blows deep
 on a curved reed,
 where ivy-hatted female ravers
 toss their wildheads,
 where they rattle their long honey dripped ivy or vine leaf wrapped pinecone tipped sticks
 with piercing cries and bare hand
 bonesnap fleshrip  forest birds,
 hares, deer to bloodwet carcass
 to this place where it is our right to party

 (3)

 soon as Atti, not a real lass,
 finished song to her crew,
 her holy band of followers
 cried aloud with tongues quiver
 light timbrel echoes
 hollow cymbals clash again
 quick chorus on flit feet climbs
 fertile mountain . At same time,
 their leader Atti frenzied, gasps,
 without her senses wanders all over shadow dark woods to timbrel jangle
 like a wild heifer avoids burden of it’s yoke  swift crew follow their flit-footed leader. And so, as they reached his mam Cyb’s home, knackered, starved,
 they sleep, their mad fury gone
 in napping calm.

 (4)

 When sun’s bright eyes and gold kite lit clear air, hard earth and wild fret,
 and dispelled dark with his horses gallop, then sleep left quickly left Atti awake
 with acquired sight what she had done
 and where she were what she had lost,
 she flitted back to beach looked out over wide watta, miserable, tearful she told her Dad’s land

 (5)

 my tussock, birthsoil,
 me Dad’s oyle,
 that I, poor sod, abandoned
 as a son his father.
 I made me way to woods
 to snow and cold
 wild animals and while mad
 visit all their lairs.

 I’ve forgotten where you live.

 I want to scan thee a while
 Me mind is free from wildmad
 I’m bound to these remote woods? 
 Away from me Dad’s land
 possessions, mates
 and kin
 Away from market-place,
 street, race-course, and gym?

 I have been all now
 as am now a woman.
 I were a young cock,
 an adolescent, and a boy.
 Once best in gym
 once a street fighter.
 For me, doorways were packed,
 for me, doorsteps warmed
 by tarrying admirers,
 for me, house decked wi prizes
 when I had to leave me bedroom
 each sunrise.
 Now am a female slave of me mam, Cyb?
 Am I to be a raver?
 I a barren cock?
 Am I to live in frigid snow
 of fertile mountains?
 Am I to live me life under peaks,
 with pigs and deer in woods?
 Now, now I’m sorry, now I regret.

 (6)

 At this quick cry from her blood red lips
 Cyb, his mam let lions out
 goads one on left, enemy of flock

“Come on now,” she says, “Tha fierce, get thee sen off, away
 See to it madness drives her,
 see madness set her back into me wood,
 she who scarpers from my rule.
 Come, whiplash tha back with tha tail, suffer tha own tailpain
 make all places echo
 with tha bellow and  roar.

 Cyb utters these threats and with her hand frees lion from it’s yoke. Lion urging himsen to rage, rushes, roars,
 breaks brushwood with flit paws.

 About watery stretch of white shore and saw tender Attis by marbled sea
 attacks
 Attis, out of her mind, scarpers into wild woods, agin
 whole life her mam’s slave.

 Great goddess Cyb,
 let all tha fury be far from me house.
 Drive others to frenzy, drive others mad.

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coincidence

Every morning our tabby
 sits beside the grave
 beside the wall
 of her black predecessor
 Our lass and I joke
 she is speaking
 to her ‘grandma’

 My Nana hated cats
 who left “messages”
 in her garden
 “Don’t know how
 people can live
 with cat hair…

 disgusting how people
 let them walk
 on surfaces.”
 She never visited us.

 Cat and Nana never met.
 Their senses failed
 at the same time.
 Eyes, ears, mouth.

 Something told me
 not long after our cat
 went Nana would too.

 Arrived from work
 our cat rigor mortis stiff
 across her armchair.

 Three days later
 I got the phone call.
 Nana had fallen.
 I sat beside her
 hospital bedside.

 Arrived home to find
 a new tabby cat
 who asked me
 to stroke her
 in the way our
 black cat did.

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benefit

benefit is never enough
 to feed and clothe

 of getting out
 from under
 memories
 of this house

 of laugh and joke
 and good singsong
 with me mates

 of me children
 growing warmer
 and beyond me

 of leaning on
 those living close
 and waiting

 of your kisses
 long as you don’t
 take me seriously

 of you staying away
 what he dunt know
 he can’t hurt

 of these weapons
 to keep me safe
 if he tries owt

 of not another serious
 not yet while there’s
 the full benefit of meself

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a fist in the ear

what she needs
 she pushed me to it
 harder than any squaddies

 and her children
 her little bastards
 that’s what they need

 I’ve told her
 a fist in the ear
 and they don’t
 lack discipline anymore

 they’ve got to tell me
 she’s got to tell me
 where she goes
 what she does
 who she meets

 I’ll not worry then
 will I?

 what she needs
 if she’s off with some other
 I’ll bring a shotgun to her

 *******

 Recently rediscovered poem to add to The Place For Breath chapbook. This poem is  Linda’s ex husband’s perspective.

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immigrant tongue

closed mouths
 welcome occupation
 of tongue by tongue
 gypsy together

 into each private space

 breathes, ripens
 restless unsettling in

 make a home in us
 shape our tongue
 their tongue entwines
 with ours

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lake jewellery

under bushes
 around the lake
 todays decoration

 urban jewellery
 silver squashed
 energy drink cans
 crinkly crisp packets
 supped brown bottles on a roll
 down the hill
 where it’s up tails all
 black plastic bin bags
 steaming dogshit droplet earrings
 swing from trees

 pizza boxes fold
 under Hazel and Oak

 a place of recreation
 a place of recuperation
 a pleasant relandscaped walk

 better than dirty, noisy, smelly
 pit and sidings that used to be.

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Proud of who we are

‘Are there any English here?’ a woman shouts to market day shoppers
 in Peel Square before joining
 a bewhiskered chap holding
 large 7 up bottle perfumed with ale.

 Me garden were best on street,
 gorgeous Azaleas, Petunias, Roses.
 Started disappearing. Spotted immigrants across road in rented. Challenged them.

 “You English think
 you own everything!”
 they told us.

 Thirty years down
 mines to get this, cock.
 Thirty bleeding years.
 I own me house, cock.

 “You English think
 you own everything”

 Abroad for a better life
 Abroad for an easier life
 Abroad where we are worth more
 Proud of who we are.

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fugues

far

how far is dark
how dark is

how far
is far

open dark
lift latch

how far is
latch

open latch
lift dark

how far
open latch

how open dark

2.  stops

hear light leave
listen door shut
listen eyes close
listen breath stops

hear leave light
shut door close
stops eyes breath
listen
listen

door breath light
hear shut eyes
listen leave light
close door stops
listen

3.  rests

how light rests
on this skin

rests how
on this skin

not my skin
that light

not light rests
on this skin

that light
this skin

rests

4. hold

this flesh in
skin out

in this flesh
in this skin

hold

this skin out
flesh in

out this flesh
out this skin

hold

5. word

your blood word
is my blood breath
is my word beat

your breath word
is my blood beat
is my word blood

breath needs blood
beat needs breath
blood needs beat

your word breath
is my breath blood
is my beat blood

is my beat breath

6. wood

follow grain
woodshine

wood line
round not

follow line
grain round

not wood
not follow

woodshine
woodlight
wood follow

round

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