In the morning I'll ride a motorbike
black leathers and no helmet
white hair streaming loose, a challenge.
For lunch there will be crispy bacon
in white bread, with butter,
mouthwatering aroma of defiance.
from; On my 85th birthday by Maggie Butt
7 ___________________________________________________________________________
CAUGHT IN THE NET 109 - POETRY BY
MAGGIE BUTT
Series Editor - Jim Bennett for The Poetry Kit -
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In the morning I'll ride a motorbike black leathers and no helmet white hair streaming loose, a challenge. For lunch there will be crispy bacon in white bread, with butter, mouthwatering aroma of defiance.
from; On my 85th birthday by Maggie Butt |
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CONTENTS
1 - BIOGRAPHY
2 – POETRY
3 - PUBLICATION HISTORY
4 - AFTERWORD
___________________________________________________________________________
1 – BIOGRAPHY: Maggie Butt
Maggie’s poetry is widely published in international magazines and has
escaped the page onto the internet, choreography, BBC Radio 4, readings,
festivals, and schools. Her books include three poetry collections and a
historical collage of poems, photos, paintings and extracts from memoirs and
letters.
Her pamphlet Quintana Roo was published by Acumen Publications in 2003
and her first full collection,
Lipstick,
was published in 2007 by Greenwich Exchange. In 2010 a collection of short
poems, petite, was published by Hearing Eye and in 2011, Oversteps
Books published Ally Pally Prison Camp, the story of 3,000 civilians
imprisoned at Alexandra Palace during the First World War.
Maggie returned to poetry after a career spanning many other forms of writing.
After an English degree she became a newspaper reporter, moving to BBC TV as a
documentary writer / producer / director.
She is a Deputy Dean at Middlesex University, London, England where she taught
on the Creative and Media Writing degree. She is also Chair of the National
Association of Writers in Education – NAWE. In 2007 her edited collection
of essays: Story The Heart of the Matter was published by Greenwich
Exchange.
Maggie has a PhD in creative writing from Cardiff University and is a University
Teaching Fellow and University Orator.
She lives in North London with her husband. They have two daughters.
Website: http://www.maggiebutt.co.uk/
______________________________________________________________
2 - POETRY
Lipstick
In war time women turn to red
swivel-up scarlet and carmine
not in solidarity with spilt blood
but as a badge of beating hearts.
This crimson is the shade of poets
silenced for speaking against torture,
this vermillion is art
surviving solitary confinement,
this cerise defies the falling bombs
the snipers taking aim at bread-queues,
this ruby’s the resilience of girls
who tango in the pale-lipped face of death.
On my 85th birthday
For breakfast there will be chocolate,
heaped and glossy like a race-horse,
sweating with saturated fat.
And I will devour it,
cramming in the melting mouthfuls
coating my fingers and my face.
In the morning I'll ride a motorbike
black leathers and no helmet
white hair streaming loose, a challenge.
For lunch there will be crispy bacon
in white bread, with butter,
mouthwatering aroma of defiance.
After my nap in the bed-shop window;
I will invite my doctor in for scones,
and lick thick clotted cream along the knife.
And in the sunset
I will ascend to heaven in a glider
singing in the eerie silence.
The next day I’ll dance barefoot in the rain
or take up smoking (inhaling deeply)
or sub-aqua diving,
or run with scissors
if I choose
Fathering
Because I could not bear to let you go
my body found a way to bring you back.
Part-dormant genes pushed out a root
and half of me took flower.
My jowls drop just a feather’s breadth
until your jaw-line smiles back from the mirror.
I swim the strokes you longed
and my slow breathing meets with yours.
You use my eyes to note the detail of the world
your calmness soothes my path like honey.
Because I could not bear to let you go
my body found a way to bring you back.
______________________________
The Shape of It
two
at first
entwined
then billowing
out, sails brimmed
with wind, belly with
movement, house with noise
and muddle, hours crammed
with loud and rush and full,
until doors start to close
peace settles and
I see that it will
narrow down
at last to
just we
two
_______________________________________
List
Just a sec, I know they’re here somewhere,
if you’d stop rushing me I’d find them.
Perhaps I might have packed them in a case
or wrapped brown paper, tied with string.
They might be in the loft or shed, or , ah! Look now
my crumpled list of Great Good Things to spend
a life upon. And so they must be here…
Under the bed? Or slipped between the pages of a book,
the minutes of a day? Re-check the list. Oh dear.
No ticks. I lost the list and have been busy with
I don’t know what. But there’s still time. Give me
the list, I’ll start today. What do you mean?
Right now? No time to get my coat?
…
Pigalle
This Rue is where my
daughter plans to live:
a tatoo artist
yelling at a drunk;
three old men sun
their leathered chests and give
her leering looks; a
flame-haired punk
holds fresh baguette
and tiny dogs on leads;
a corner bar boasts
cross-dress cabaret;
the scent of urine
rises; heat forms beads
of sweat – a spring
Parisian bouquet.
But strangers share
their picnic in the park
and she will climb
five flights of champagne night
where rooftops of
Montmatre after dark
gleam with reflected
gold and ruby light,
throw wide the
shutters, sip the air’s rich wine,
intoxicated, think,
“All this is mine.”
The Ballad of Kurt Engler,
Master Hairdresser
His salon was a trip abroad
a place of flirty fun
till local lads broke windows
and painted “Go Home Hun.”
Then Special Branch came calling
(and didn’t want a trim)
they scrutinised his papers
before arresting him.
They wouldn’t drop him off at home
to tell his wife and son
but took him up the Pally –
imprisonment begun.
He set up in the barber’s shop
swept up beneath the chair
and fashioned wigs for sale outside
from other prisoners’ hair.
Like ancient barber-surgeon
he pulled their teeth as well,
filled dental requisition slips,
discovered he could sell
for quite a tidy profit
something to ease the pain,
for boredom and for loneliness
administered cocaine.
Until the army wondered why
he needed such a store,
extracted his supply chain
and said there’d be no more.
He found the artists’ studio
and showed a flair for paint,
his pictures sold like contraband
till guards made a complaint:
he painted future dog-fights
which Germans always won;
his canvasses were gathered up.
No more Victorious Hun.
His missus sold the hairdresser’s
and made a little cash,
her letters and her visits stopped.
He worried for his stash.
So chose a moonless, rain-soaked night
when guards stayed by the fire,
threw doubled blanket out across
the walls of looped barbed wire,
rolled on his back to freedom
and stumbled to his feet,
hopped on a passing omnibus,
and rode home to his street.
Banged on the door and shouted
could see the lights inside
his wife just wouldn’t answer,
she ran upstairs to hide.
A neighbour came eventually
and told him what he feared:
she’d found a nice new English bloke,
“So go home Hun,” she jeered.
Now sodden and despairing
he caught the bus again
returned to Ally Pally’s walls
beyond the alien rain.
It’s Just
It’s just a cold dear.
We all have colds.
the laundry flutters with our handkerchiefs
flags of surrender.
It’s just a cough dear.
We all have coughs.
A thousand hacking men who bark
all night, keeping sleep at bay.
Do I look thin dear?
We all look thin.
The fish is sometimes rotten
and it twists within our guts.
It’s just a life dear.
We all have lives.
Some spill them in the trenches
others in a cage.
It’s just a war dear.
We all have war.
The Patron Saint of Remaindered Books
She haunts the bargain bookshops,
calls them to her softly, hears the faint
flutterings among their leaves;
as stray cats would purr and rub
themselves against her shins;
she gathers them, abandoned children
in a shanty town, living on scraps,
fighting seagulls on the rubbish heap,
ekeing out echoes of their rave reviews,
envying the few, scornful of best-sellers;
she garners them – a harvest-home
where every one is dusted, shelved
in the eternal dewey decimal.
The Patron Saint of Ugly Towns
You’ve been to towns like this: shabby
as an old tramp, unwashed and moth-eaten,
shambling along from day to day; ringed
by black mountains, glowering
against
the sun; paint peeling from the buildings
exposing plaster like old sores; a market
thronged with tired people in cheap shoes,
stalls heaped with out-size knickers, floral
aprons, itchy socks; a town where work
is history, mines closed, a slag heap
like their self-respect, where even stubby
trees refuse to grow, grass fails to root.
Out in fields the sunflowers bow their heavy
heads like congregations at a funeral,
listening to their doom, counting the hours.
My candles gutter in a grimy church
where mildew blooms on leaky walls,
and you might think my task as hopeless
as world peace. But watch me fly
and brush
a feathered wing tip here or there:
a crow drops next year’s sunflower seeds,
the gangly boy pulls down his cuffs and
slicks unruly hair for his first date,
a tabby cat twines round the widow’s legs,
the too-young girl feels the first fluttering kicks.
Watch me fly, and see love shudder into life.
3 - Publication History
‘Lipstick’, ‘On My 85th Birthday’ and ‘Fathering’ are from Lipstick, (Greenwich Exchange 2007) First published:
‘Lipstick’ – The London Magazine
‘On My 85th Birthday’ – Poetry Life competition winner ‘Fathering’ – The Shop
‘The Shape of It’, ‘List’ and ‘Pigalle’ from Petite (Hearing Eye 2010) First published:
‘The Shape of It’ - The Rialto
‘List’ - Snakeskin
Pigalle – The London Magazine
‘It’s Just’ and ‘The Ballad of Kurt Engler’ from Ally Pally Prison Camp (Oversteps 2011)
‘The Patron Saint of Remaindered Books’ – The London Magazine ‘The Patron Saint of Ugly Towns’ – Acumen
4 - Afterword
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