Sarajevo Roses E-Book

Rory Waterman

• Herausgeber: Carcanet Poetry
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 35

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Shortlisted for the 2019 Ledbury Forte Poetry Prize for Second Collections. Sarajevo Roses is Rory Waterman's second collection of poems. From the start we are in the company of a poet on the move . On sleeper trains, in cars and on foot, Waterman takes us into Mediterranean Europe, to Palma's Bellver Castle, to Venice, to Krujë, to the Italian ghost-town Craco, and to St Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, where 'selfie-sticks dance before us at the altar'. Sarajevo's 'neatened muddle of terracotta and concrete' is twinned with the 'church spires and rain-bright roofs' of the poet's former hometown, Lincoln. The Sarajevo rose of the book's title – a mortar crater filled with red resin, in remembrance – is less an overarching symbol here than one example of the past inscribed upon the present – culturally in our architecture, individually on our bodies – and of the instinct to preserve wounds as a mark of respect, or warning. Surrounded by the war-shaped, memorial landscapes of Europe, the poet is faced by those smaller wars and memorials one carries within, marks left by lovers, friends, relations, and past selves.

Leseprobe

SARAJEVO ROSES

RORY WATERMAN

CONTENTS

Title PageFollow the Waymarked Trail out of the VillageThe AvenueDriving through the Pit TownJune Morning, Erewash CanalAnderby CreekFamily34, Above CwmystwythSea Kayaker on the PointDouble VisionIt WasParable with Ageing ParentComing of AgeGranattrichter mit Blumen (1924)Sarajevo RosesKrujëReunionAve MariaThe Brides of Castell De BelverScaling the VolcanoGhost Town, BasilicataSt Peter’s BasilicaWrit in WaterSt Denis Appartements, Rue De MontreuilBúðirGetawayPulling over to Inspect a Pillbox with a North American TouristBrexit Day on the Balmoral EstateSpurnWinter FixtureSleeperSots Hole11 O’clock ShadowBetween VillagesSome Time after Last OrdersEpicentresSt Thomas’sFlensby Hall Day SpaThe Ones That GiveThe Walled GardenThe Heritage CentreLove in a LifeBeached StarsBedd ArthurTuesday AcknowledgementsAlso by Rory WatermanCopyright

SARAJEVO ROSES

FOLLOW THE WAYMARKED TRAIL OUT OF THE VILLAGE

Mapless – but anyway I sought the Iron Age fort

as air flung pompoms of mistletoe

in the apple trees up from the church; then

a kestrel was picking the thrust and stall of wind

above a lifeless field of waterlogged clods

(starlings had poured to a tuft in the mesh of hedge);

and next a copse, instant and dense,

hid a gap-toothed plough then behind it, dotting a clearing,

earth-caked pheasant feeders, by a downed once-electric fence

where KEEP OUT PRIVATE was nailed in high on a trunk;

tall beech saplings juddered, irate at each top,

and burnished leaves rotted in unflustered piles.

And here was the buck, gut loose as a bowl of cherries,

a tiny tumult rearranging in his eye.

THE AVENUE

They found a man in the shrub that shields our lane –

one fat white hand not tucked in the pit –

and cordoned off a patch. We had nothing to explain it

but The Post. And now the ground’s re-strewn with tins

and crisp bags; sleet jiggles the ivy; the blackbirds

bob from floor to bole as each dull dusk settles in.

And coming back at night we get on too,

quickening to the safety lights, through

shadows of gates that thrust across the grit.

DRIVING THROUGH THE PIT TOWN

There’s not much round here now, you say,

just huddled brick or pebbledash terraces,

and tiny new-builds where the pitheads were.

Bare hills fly up beyond the town you left,

with clasps of scree, caps of sodden green,

pitched above the neat slate pitches

but your eyes stay on the road. The side streets jut

left and right, so many of them, like ribs.

You jab a finger: We lived up top of that one.

Then – surprise – a pale sun picks at a slit

in the paper sky. Yellow slaps down

momently and slides along the valley,

and the half-a-pit-wheel trenched in the roundabout

shimmers, red as flesh. We won’t stop here

and most of the shops – Kebabland, USA Nail’s,

Milan Fashions – are shut or boarded anyway.

The four lads pincering fags outside the Co-op,

gobbing and shoving, repulse for what they are.

It’s no use knowing better, more, you say.

And in blue spray paint, the back of the village sign

cries DING DONG!! like we’re waiting at a door.

· 2013 ·

JUNE MORNING, EREWASH CANAL

The colliery’s a country park:

    his old man shunted coal.

This young dad teaches his lad to fish

    at a bug-flecked winding hole

while opposite a brace of fish

    repeats between the reeds.

‘Like this,’ he bellows, hands on shoulders

    pulling the kid around,

who grimaces and squares his shoulders,

    wanting the world to know

he knows. May petals file across

    in fuddles of sun-dried snow

ANDERBY CREEK

for Ian

I went east by south-east