The Bone Library E-Book

Jenni Fagan

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

Seitenzahl: 49

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

These poems are alive with electricity, pulsating with a frequency that vibrates throughout. In a journey from there to here, The Bone Library examines and interprets all of human life. Throughout the collection Jenni Fagan responds to broader themes of identity, of place, of love and the unloved. Written in the old Dick Vet Bone Library during the author's time as writer-in-residence there, this is a vivid exploration that is honest and searching and cuts to the very core of what it is to be alive.

Leseprobe

THE BONE LIBRARY

THE BONE LIBRARY

Jenni Fagan

First published in paperback in Great Britain in 2022 by

Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd.

Birlinn Ltd

West Newington House

10 Newington Road

Edinburgh

EH9 1QS

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

www.polygonbooks.co.uk

Copyright © Jenni Fagan, 2022

The right of Jenni Fagan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN 978 1 84697 592 9

eBook ISBN 978 1 78885 521 1

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges investment from

Creative Scotland towards the publication of this book.

Typeset in Verdigris mvb by Polygon, Edinburgh

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.

CONTENTS

I’m Not a Fossil, You Are a Curio

The Nineteen Thirties House

Who Are You?

On the Files

The Bone Library

The Truth is Old and It Wants to Go Home

Summerhall Almanac

The Good Stuff

I Know Who I Am

Dear Beetle of Our Lady

Workshop, Day One

St Mary’s Street

9A

Digital Bones

Fir Tom Leonard

House With a Porch of Four Seasons

Even When You Don’t Think You Are

Who Did Duchamp?

It Was an Ex-Council House onthe Sea Wall, Graffiti All Over It

I Told Her

I Was Talking to Will

Mary Dick

Monkey Love Experiment

Morning Rituals

One Day We Notice the Way Our PartnerEats and Are Irritated Beyond All Belief

Good Art

Your Sexts Are Shit

Pale Blue Eyes

The Daily Death

Penrose Stairs

It’s After All of Us

Social Ouija

When the Reptiles Came

The Australian

The Death of Compliments

The Devil

The Expectations of Others

The Pivot

Tim Hecker

Tattooed Man

So

A note on the author

I’M NOT A FOSSIL, YOU ARE A CURIO

My darling ossein, I have known your organic extracellular matrix

since the first seconds it began to form, still . . .

Your bones did not come from my bones,

they coalesced in ether

where all osteoblasts dawn,

tell me . . . how many carcasses are walking this earth?

The utter idiocy of vessels!

Some poor skeletons have such twisted minds to carry.

Ones who must think this – is all there is?

Delusions tell them they shan’t be judged on their actions,

in a place that will make this one look

pallid on the petrochemical

motions of Minerva,

such inciters of insanity and loss . . .

My dear sweet toxic male gene,

what’s your fucking issue with humanity?

I raise one of yours and he is fuck all

like so very many of you,

this generation are better than those

before and their bones did not come from our bones,

they arose from the dust of dinosaurs

imbued with glacier hearts,

blazed their way into existence,

in the unlikeliest of flesh forms,

what a confine! Thing is,

you were the only one who ever taught me

the meaning of love,

you are the firn in all its truth.

I am genuinely sorry my life has been so strange as this,

it’s a burden, I know it . . .

But the joy, the absolute utter brilliance

in just knowing – you, good day/bad, mercurial/sad,

raging/peaceful . . . trying,

in all of it, your bones taught my bones how to walk.

Your bones . . . taught . . . my bones, how to walk!

I am so grateful and this world . . .

It owes you and so do I,

so much more

than this, so I will lay my bones

down on the road –

just one more time, for you,

I’d do it ten more, ten thousand,

I’ll do whatever I can, so you, can one day,

for a second,

be safe awhile in your home,

sit on an old porch

and maybe sometimes

take a moment to remember

the woman you came from . . .

who was humble enough and smart enough to know,

your bones belong to no one,

you came into this life owned

by no false gods,

it’s a strange story that tells us otherwise . . .

I’ll defend whatever I can –

of your autonomy,

my child, I love every single bone in you,

bow to nobody, be free.

THE NINETEEN THIRTIES HOUSE

I keep putting slugs

out the cat flap

at night,

and nobody loves me

and children

are dying.

Slug trails silver tiles

tiny moons

hang from boughs

an iridescent tree,

across my kitchen floor

each morning,

and one person

does actually

love me

but nobody

holds me

and each day I die,

I do it

so much better

than that old wanker –

his burned retinas

haloed in twelve

worlds –

I’m a prick

really and my dying

is sadly ineffective

my loneliness no

more pathetic

than yours, Poncho

and yes, the children

need me to be

marching

and there are so many people

who must hear us

scream – no?

Instead, they pour gold

into their auricles –

excision

of empathy

is required

to dine

on the souls

of those without . . .

and there are so

many slugs

on my kitchen

floor,

and I keep

picking them up on a spoon,

placing them carefully

out the cat flap

and the world . . .

she wants her rivers back

sent helix & virus

to claim them

and it’s only the start

of her human invasion,

can’t tame her

whilst all I dumbly want,

is the right kind of someone

to hold me,

but it seems as likely

as this world

held hostage by fucking mentalists

sorting out its shit.