God Loves You E-Book

Kathryn Maris

• Herausgeber: Seren
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 41

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Kathryn Maris borrows rhythms, vocabulary and themes from the Bible in her new collection of poems. Although a sly wit is in evidence, the result is far more than artful parody: it is an approach that ushers in large themes, unfolding them in surprising ways. The first section,'What will the neighbours think?', offers a kaleidoscopic view of the sins and sinners of the modern city and opens, appropriately enough, with a vision of a flood to rival Noah's.The poems feature domestic discord, gossip, suicide, celebrity, and anxieties about children and spouses. It says much about her meticulous poise and tone that we are lured into these scenarios with our sympathies fully engaged. The following sections subvert scripture more directly.A mock-prayer opens: 'My father, who art in heaven,/ sits under an umbrella that is his firmament'; a sonnet begins:'Kyrie eleison! I said it in the pub.'Such burlesque moments mask poignant themes of praise or blame.A skilful use of form is characteristic, as in the sestina 'Darling, Will You Please Pick up those Books?' Other pieces are set out in the numbered style of psalms or parables but have an entirely contemporary edge and are darkly funny. These poems sometimes recall another expatriate American living in London, the T.S. Eliot of the Four Quartets, sharing something of his ironic methods and essential tensions - but Maris brings her own inimitable brand of humour to the mix. 'This has a Dorothy Parker air, metropolitan and crowded, intimate with other lives whose own limits may never be known.' George Szirtes on The Book of Jobs 'There's a delicious sense of both open-mindedness and devilry in Maris's work. Her company is quirky, stimulating and sparklingly intelligent.You could say she's like Sylvia Plath with added chutzpah. But, really, Kathryn Maris is like no-one but herself.' Carol Rumens

Leseprobe

GOD LOVES YOU

for Mathijs and Cosima

GOD LOVES

YOU

KATHRYN MARIS

Seren is the book imprint of

Poetry Wales Press Ltd.

57 Nolton Street, Bridgend, Wales, CF31 3AE

www.serenbooks.com

Facebook:facebook.com/SerenBooks

Twitter: @SerenBooks

The right of Kathryn Maris to be identified as

the author of this work has been asserted in accordance

with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

© Kathryn Maris 2013

ISBN: 978-1-78172-035-6

Kindle ISBN: 078-1-78172-037-0

e-book ISBN: 987-1-78172-036-3

A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted at any time or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holder.

The publisher acknowledges the financial assistance of the Welsh Books Council.

Printed in Bembo by Berforts Group, Stevenage.

Table of Contents

I

What Will the Neighbours Think?

What Will Happen to the Neighbours When the Earth Floods?

The Witch and Macduff Exit My Neighbour’s House

Why I Will Gladly Take Your Man Away

Hilary Has Left the Building, Unless She Hasn’t

Kill a Tree, Kill Me

This Is a Confessional Poem

Darling, Would You Please Pick up those Books?

Will You Be My Friend, Kate Moss?

I Told No One for as Long as Possible

On Returning a Child to Her Mother at the Natural History Museum

I Imagine We Will Be Neighbours in Hell

II

God Loves You

God Loves You

It Was a Gift from God

The Devil Got into Her

Why

Doubting Thomas

Lord Forgive Me

Last Supper

My Father Who Art in Heaven

Knowledge is a Good Thing

Variations on Melissanthi’s Atonement 1-3

Iconography

The Angels Wept

Here Comes the Bride

III

Praise Him

Angel with Book

Metrical Charm 10: For Loss of Cattle

Bright Day

The Sun’s Lecture Notes on Itself, You and God

The Devil Will Find Work for Idle Minds

If You Relive a Moment You Cannot Outlive It

Assembly

The Tall Thin Tenor

Legacy

Number Plate Bible

Street Sweeper

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Crow realised God loved him –

Otherwise he would have dropped dead

So that was proved.

– Ted Hughes

I

What Will the Neighbours Think?

Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?

– Lamentations 1:12

What Will Happen to the Neighbours When the Earth Floods?

In the foreground there is an isolated flat slab of rock on which some helpless

humans have taken refuge just at the moment when the flood is welling nearer

and is about to cover them.

– Goethe on Jacob More’s painting ‘The Deluge’

Sometimes I mistake Noah for God, but sometimes I mistake

God for no one.

I mistake Noah for God because even in his arms I’m

abandoned.

From my High Ground you can see my neighbours, but it’s hard

to look.

So here are my glasses.

Is that a raft? Because I think it’s a boatman who hangs his head

in the storm.

But is that a raft or is it a rock? Could it be one rock lower

than Ararat?

I love my neighbours and I think God would love me for this.

But I covet my neighbours too, and God might proscribe this if

he had laws.

Look at my neighbours with nothing to covet. Now see the

container I live in with too much to hold.

There are my neighbours; here’s my container.

Here’s me, the doves, the griffins, the dogs, the bears, the boys,

and my man who can look like God when the weather’s

not clear.

And the weather is unclear a lot.

I remind him of the neighbours, but he says, ‘Look. I don’t want

to be reminded of the neighbours.’

I can be distant with him, but I feel affection when he eats.

When he eats, he bows his head like that boatman who probably

isn’t a boatman but a neighbour pressing against the weather on

almost the last land in the world.

The Witch and Macduff Exit My Neighbour’s House

My neighbour was a bitch

in Stoppard, a witch

in Shakespeare, a lawyer

on The Bill,

but she’s ‘herself’

when she’s over the wall

with her daughter,

my favourite child

next to my own,

who are friends with her one day

and not the next,

like when my son

accused her of stealing

a Gameboy cartridge,

and my daughter repeated

an awful thing

I say about the English,

that they’re the rudest people

on the planet.

But as for my neighbour:

I smile through tears

when she and her daughter

are over the wall

playing together

and I’m watching

from a location

akin to

a box seat.

She might have a box seat too –

my other neighbour

definitely does

because she knows

everything I do.

All the world’s a stage

and all the neighbours

merely players

with their exits,