Passport E-Book

Richie McCaffery

• Herausgeber: Nine Arches Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 32

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Exploring place and displacement, boundaries and borders, Passport is the second collection by Richie McCaffery, and follows his acclaimed debut Cairn (Nine Arches Press, 2014). In moving to the Belgian city of Ghent, McCaffery finds "What I see and what happens / are two different countries." In a place of dualities and unrealities, the poems find the usual definitions themselves becoming unstable; the old currency that is no longer valid, the postcards home unsent and the present tense ill at ease. Written in crisp detail, these fluent poems weigh up whether leaving is a form of running from or coming back to home, wherever that may be. At the heart of this tender and compelling collection, McCaffery writes directly of anxiety, loss and dislocation, asking us to consider what belonging is, and how we find our place in life, in love, and in language.

Leseprobe

Passport

Passport

Richie McCaffery

ISBN: 978-1-911027-43-0eISBN: 978-1-911027-67-6

Copyright © Richie McCaffery

Cover artwork: Léon Spilliaert: ‘La digue’ (inv. 10224) – bestaande digitale illustratie © Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels / photo: J. Geleyns – Art Photography

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, recorded or mechanical, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Richie McCaffery has asserted his right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

First published July 2018 by:

Nine Arches Press

Unit 14,

Sir Frank Whittle Business Centre,

Great Central Way, Rugby.

CV21 3XH

United Kingdom

www.ninearchespress.com

Printed in the United Kingdom by:

Imprint Digital

Nine Arches Press is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

for Stef

CONTENTS

They were worried about me

Breakdown

Postcard from Ostend

Looking for Léon Spilliaert

Double Dutch

Brick

Delft tile

Kongostraat

Ish

Beeldenstorm

University

Ballylar, Fanad

Spoor

Marrakech

Currency

Desert rose

Career change

Ghent statues

Moles

Roots

Auspex

Little farm

Light

Stones

Obituaries

Robin Hood’s Bay

Echo

Apple

Proof-reader

Spanish guitar

Janus

Present tense

The gifts

Calling

Ghent

Typical me

Baudelopark

The paper cut

Iconography

Oil and blood

Nowhere

Postcard

Bottle show

Resolution

Eye test

Day in the life

Balancing the books

The dippers

Spring-cleaning

Ballast

Left hand drive

Corner

An endangered bird made its nest

Acknowledgements and thanks

About the author & this book

They were worried about me

so they got together

to say how much I’m loved.

There are medieval churches

out there that still manage

to fend off the rain.

It sometimes seems like

their future depends on the sale

of a few mouldering paperbacks.

What I see and what happens

are two different countries.

I must try to remember this.

Breakdown

In bonding with my father and grandfather

we always seemed to break things.

With one I chopped down trees

and the other I tinkered with machines

so they never worked again.

The foundation of our love was destruction,

although all three of us had been created.

I’ve no kids of my own and no intention,

so I pull myself apart without knowing

how I can be put back together.

Postcard from Ostend

Even after the planes flew over,

levelling the city,

pre-War postcards were sold

of happy children and flowerbeds.

Like people, postcard photographs

came in generations.

Copies copied from copies,

an ebbing of definition.

Bombs and developers still couldn’t

change its name. But I worry if

you visit me here you might find

someone else answering to mine.

Looking for Léon Spilliaert

We’re here to find the grave

of Spilliaert, the symbolist artist,

and his wife Rachel. A hard ask

since all the ten-thousand granite

tombs look exactly the same.

You go your way, I go mine

until we’re lost to each other

and I give up the search for them

and start looking for you, your

red hair bobbing against the grey.

You too are nowhere to be seen

and must be looking for me.

Double Dutch

i.

In Catholic Belgium, the norm

is to have a crucifix hanging

in every classroom. Ours

is broken and lies in bits.

It looks like a gun someone

has been ordered to surrender.

No one mentions it.

I’m the one person in my class

not fleeing war or tyranny.

They accept me, even when I say

I’m only here for love. We bond

over coffees we buy each other

and the language we’re slowly

making our own.

ii.

There’s a cobbled path that leads

down to my Dutch language school,

its stones a Babel of coloured granites.

In class I watch a man who’s just

registered for lessons try to get