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CAUGHT IN THE NET 146 - POETRY BY CHAR MARCH
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Up here, cold is the landscape; rain the absolute norm. And no pissing about with mizzle, drizzle, mist – we shove through solid water that holds us lurching at gravestone angles across bucketclanking farmyards
from Nesh by Char March |
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CONTENTS
1 - BIOGRAPHY
2 – POETRY
The Finding Of Parts Nesh Lest We Forget?
I Wonder What The Japanese For
Top Withens Sounds Like
Desk-light
This Is Where My Hands Used To Be
If I Ganged Oot Wi’ Ma Deid Pals
“They just use dogs to get more dosh – it shouldn’t be allowed”
The Arkengarthdale Artemis
Another Box Of Nipples Arrived Today
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3 - PUBLISHING HISTORY
4 - AFTERWORD
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1 – BIOGRAPHY: Char March
Char March is a multi-award-winning poet, playwright and
short fiction writer. Her credits include: a short story collection (Something
Vital Fell Through), five poetry collections (incl
The Thousand Natural Shocks and
The Cloud Appreciation Society’s Day Out),
six BBC Radio 4 plays, and seven stage plays.
She has been published widely in literary journals and anthologies in the
UK and the USA.
She has featured on BBC TV and radio. She’s been Writer-in-
Residence for: Leeds Hospitals
Trust; Ty Newydd (the National Writing Centre in Wales); the award-winning
Pennine Watershed Landscape Initiative; Hull University Business School; and the
NHS in North West England.
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2 - POETRY
The Finding Of Parts
I thought my granddad
a sailor of The High Seas, for,
in my picturebooks,
only pirates had tattoos,
and scars. He played along
with my stories of the ink
blurs on his arms, ‘Arr, Jim Lad.
Doubloons and a purple parrot!’
Thirty years later, I found
the dusty box of tapes; got
the reel-to-reel machine
working again. Heard
my dead father’s ‘One-Two, One-Two’.
Then granddad’s gravel
spooling out: the quivering
candle in the dug-out;
the Quink Permanent in a tin mug;
the needle passed round;
the extra ration of rum;
the wincing of each lad.
All that week his platoon
had been on Collecting Duty out
in No-Man’s – picking up
bits of their dead mates,
and failing to match them up.
So each unique design was scraped
into him by one of his KOYLI mates;
into each forearm, each bicep,
each calf, then torso, back, neck.
They’d each sat, bleeding, proud
they’d faced the pain; puffing
on Navy Cut. And then,
tongues pressed between teeth,
drew on the fly-leaf of their
1915 Soldier’s Diary, each tat.
Here is the stick-figure he drew
– transfixed with arrows –
my granddad as St Sebastian.
At each arrow’s flight-feathers
a cramped sketch that meant:
Private John Henry Taylor’s
left forearm, right calf, …
‘It was summat we could do’
granddad crackles from the tape
sucking on his pipe, sucking again.
‘So we could be…’ A rattling cough.
‘So all of us could be safely gathered in.’
And then there is his dry laugh,
and the tape – softly clattering
its red tail round, and round.
(KOYLI = King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry)
Nesh
Last week, they said it was cold
in London. A thin bit of mizzle
brought them out in a rash
of umbrellas, much buttoning.
Up here, cold is the landscape;
rain the absolute norm.
And no pissing about with mizzle,
drizzle, mist – we shove
through solid water
that holds us lurching
at gravestone angles
across bucketclanking farmyards
and out onto the moor.
Our air is luscious, alive, viscous,
slapping us awake
like a wet cod
across our chops.
Lest We Forget?
This quiet graveyard is now eulogised
as ‘wildflower-friendly’: Eggs-And-Bacon
thread through Ladies’ Bedstraw and Self-Heal.
The Norman porch displays a list
of the ninety-two lichen taxa
Found by the enthusiastic British Lichen Society
including the rare Porpidia soredizoides.
We stroll through knee-high Yorkshire Fog
and Sweet Vernal Grass mouthing
the graves’ names, their ages.
Turn a verdant corner and
come upon them: scoured,
buzz-cut, rawly new.
Do they want this regimented scrubbing?
This forever standing to attention:
All-ready-for-an-inspection-sir!
Why not let this 19 year old, this 22 year old,
this Private, this Lieutenant develop a skin
of lichen, a suit of moss, a softening
of bird-splatter?
Do they want their grasses and wildflowers
shaved to within a millimetre of their soil?
Does this six-monthly assault with electric sander
comfort them?
Or do they wish to rest, to lie
hammocked in the curve of the earth,
to become one with the bearded graves
that cluster round them, that lean in
like ears, like hands ready to soothe,
while the soldiers stand to attention
in uniforms stiff with bleach.
I wonder what the Japanese for
Top Withens
sounds like
Today a 67-year-old woman
from Nagasaki wept
on my shoulder, sobbing out to me
her longing to stand here since,
age 13, she had devoured
Wuthering Heights, hearing
the moor wind, and Cathy’s longing,
in the sound of Shinto temple bells
and the parping traffic
on the Shianbashi road.
We stand today, my arm around
her tiny waist, as she dabs her eyes
and smiles and smiles
and we listen, together,
to the bubbling trills of curlew above
and the heavy breath below of
The Keighley and Worth Valley
steam train and
to Kate Bush warbling
from the Bronte Balti House.
Desk-light
I sow crescent moons
from his laid-aside glasses,
him snoring in the wing-chair
while I read his letter
open on the blotter.
I am sun, hatted with red cloud.
I play with the ceiling,
cobwebs, cracked cornices;
give sideways glances
to the curtains,
open, and letting night
look in. While, suspended
in the dark garden,
my pale twin
flickers with rain.
This is where my hands used to be
Vapourised de-fusing the booby trap. Took
a goat with them. I kept the other guys safe
though. Maybe there’s a goat Jannah
with extra good grass.
The CO found my left thumb. Stuck to the APC’s
windscreen. Looks just like my Dad’s. The Doc
gave me the formaldehyde. Said this Damien guy
made millions from dead stuff – floating.
Quite a few ops. But I’ve got great stumps.
Never get chafing from these new pincers. They
can grip an axe now. Before, I had to use dynamite
to turn trees to kindling.
Last time I was down in Glasgow, they said touch
might be an option. Damn near cried. That’s why
me and the wife split. Couldn’t feel her. But
touch, eh? That’s well worth fighting for.
For Rita Boomi-Pappá, and all the women who have died from ‘domestic violence’
If I ganged oot fur a
gander wi’ ma deid pals,
the hale toon wud be
stowed oot wi wheeshtit folk.
Yon air wud be
mingin’ wi’ corpse stank,
ilka castle an’ broch
wud pit thur guid white breeks oot oan sticks,
an’ uvry’hin’ oan
uvry brae wud stap.
If I ganged oot wi ma
deid pals.
If I ganged oot fur a
gander wi’ ma deid pals,
yous wud see wan
thoosant lassies
thur burstit breests
fu’ wi’ pain.
An’ yous wud hear
theym whisperin’ at yous:
How come did yous send us up the stair
sae soon?
How come did yous no gless theym fit
cum fur us?
Whar wur yur shivs, yur Glasgae kisses
– eh?
How come did yous send us up the stair
sae soon?
Yous wud see aw that,
an’ hear aw that,
if I ganged oot wi ma
deid pals.
If I ganged oot fur a
gander wi’ ma deid pals,
Theym lassies’ hair
wud lash aboot like flags oan the Firth.
An’ Cameron
Squeezebox and Black Dan the Piper wud greet
hot, salt herrin’
tears – aye, baith o’ theym wi sunket e’en.
A’body wud see the
fu’ moon gangin’ awa up
like a flo’er frae a
bride’s band.
An’ loads ay yous men
wud fa’ doon deid!
If I ganged oot wi ma
deid pals.
“They just use dogs to get more dosh
– it shouldn’t be allowed” *
This is my person
He sleeps beside me
I have had him for two years
I found him in a Waitrose car park
I brought him some newspapers
My person likes newspapers – and cardboard
He gave me a cream cake from the bin
He tied himself to me with this string
This is our home
It glitters with smells
It is best in winter
Then the metal tubes blow hot air
In summer it is cars’ barks
And there are loud people
They come and kick my person
They try to kick me
Sometimes he is sick
I usually eat his sick
Then I take him to the big place that echoes
They give him a hot bowl
They give me crunchy bits and a stroke
Then they scare my person with pieces of paper
He takes his cardboard
He takes my blanket
I lead him back home
* Heard on a BBC Radio Leeds phone-in about people sleeping
rough in the city.
The Arkengarthdale Artemis
Crossing these moors has to be done lightly
with a quick tripping trot for
sphagnum hummocks disguise
peaty soundings deep as submarines.
The ping-ping sonar of curlews traces
from open blue to the sucking dark,
deep and brown – tender as cows’ eyes.
This bog’s surface is soft; yielding as an udder
licked pink and steaming by your hot rag.
For months of milking-times I lie on the lip
of Calver Clough to watch you, glistening
with steel buckets and rain, in sun and moon.
Your boots clump out your criss-crossing care,
calling your herd of ladies to you – all leggy
sweet-breathed and long-lashed.
Calm under your touch – the crown of your head
firm on their flank – they let down their calves’ milk,
yield to your hands.
I lie in the tormentil on that dip slope, and I plot.
It is behind the Methodist chapel I finally bring you
to ground. I stand close by the waterbutt
to watch you tuck a wilting handful
of hare-and-hounds beside her headstone.
Then follow you into the furniture-polish hush
of the pews. And, when enough minutes
have been spent watching your bowed head,
I huff on your bare nape.
Your tractor keys are a feeble talisman.
I take them from you, drop them onto stone.
You shift and shuffle against me;
uneasy as in an unknown stall.
But I am breathy-warm and sure,
and my hand’s a gentle lead,
helping you find your way to me.
Another box of nipples arrived today
The hospital computer’s gone mad
– that’s the third box this week.
You stick them on the fridge door,
the phone, the handle of the kettle.
And we laugh. Then you are sick again.
This evening you sit in your usual chair
in the bloat of chemo, your breath really
bothering you. And me, if truth be told.
You are darning pullovers neither of us
ever wear – and even Oxfam won’t take.
But what if I could give you a new pair?
That will always pass the pencil test, even
at 90; with winking dark aureoles
and pert tips that tilt cheekily, but
don’t show through your tennis dress.
You are muttering about camels
and licking the thread for the nth time;
specs half-way down – in your usual chair.
I don’t see hacked-at womanhood,
that you’ve sobbed salt-herring barrels for.
I see you. Darning your way to normality.
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The
Finding Of Parts
(Published in Agenda’s ‘Requiem’ issue, Autumn 2014)
Nesh
(From
‘The Cloud Appreciation Society’s Day Out’ – Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2012)
Lest We
Forget?
(Published in Agenda’s ‘Requiem’ issue, Autumn 2014)
I
wonder what the Japanese for Top Withens
sounds like
(From
‘The Thousand Natural Shocks’ – Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2011)
Desk-light
(Published on YorkMix poetry site, summer 2014)
This is
where my hands used to be
(Published in Prole, Autumn 2014)
If I ganged oot wi’ ma deid pals
(From ‘The Thousand Natural Shocks’ – Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2011)
“They
just use dogs to get more dosh – it shouldn’t be allowed”
(Shortlisted in the SASH ‘Homeless’ poetry competition – Dec 2014)
The
Arkengarthdale Artemis
(From
‘The Thousand Natural Shocks’ – Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2011)
Another
box of nipples arrived today
(Published in four different anthologies)
Other Publications
Ridge Walking – Pankhurst Press (1994)
Deadly Sensitive – Grassroots Press (1999)
The Crisis Collection – Grassroots Press (2001)
Some Girls’ Mothers – Route Publishing (2008)
The Thousand Natural Shocks – Indigo Dreams Publishing (2011)
The Cloud Appreciation Society’s Day Out – Indigo Dreams
Publishing (2012)
Something Vital Fell Through – Indigo Dreams Publishing (2013)
6 BBC Radio 4 afternoon plays broadcast
7 stage plays produced, with one touring nationally
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4 - Afterword
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