DM
153
Mercedes Webb-Pullman
Fünf Gedichte
​
Ghosts and roses
My house is haunted, I hear sighs
like whimpers through the darkest hours
then silence; they say a woman waits,
powerless to undo fate that was tied
by waves crashing down in rows,
like the frantic fingers she wrings.
The lovers had chosen rings
with matching stones, only the size
differed; a square-set diamond rose
in a gold band inscribed ‘ours
here and now’. Setting a net one high tide
his ring caught a hook holding the weights.
The tide has come and gone but still she waits
and clutches at returning dinghies, wrings
answers from crews of fishing boats tied
along the wharf, describing him, his size.
No one’s seen him since this morning, hours
ago. His is the only boat missing from the rows.
All summer she searches, until even the rose
hangs heavy, as if autumn brings weights
to lonely hearts, and happiness can be ours
only briefly before the final bell rings,
the curtain closes. Waves whisper her sighs
as she checks the shore after each new tide
all in vain. She mourns helplessly, tied
to the place she last saw him; the rows
of breakers show how the tiny size
of a boat is dwarfed by the sea. She waits
until the harshest storm of winter wrings
screams from the riggings, then in the hours
of darkness, from this window of ours
she cast herself into the tide.
When they found her she wore both rings
and she clutched a sea-cabbage rose
as if he’d come to greet her. Weights
of heartbreak echo in her lonely sighs
as for hours his ghost rows
against the tide while she waits here
wrings her hands and sighs
Leaving for the lighthouse
Geography puzzles, its view of
the earth a shrinking island surrounded
by dreams, gardens with golden poisons,
monsters and dangerous nonsense, miles
of yesterdays locked under marmalade
cupboards in the house of faceless cards.
You’re thinking of the lighthouse.
Before eyes can savor new horizons
memory sends narrow flashes like bullets;
this is how it’s done. You can escape
Mrs Kibblewhite, greaseproof breakfasts,
the cat and mouse grammar of neighbourhoods,
relationships of inanity. The known world.
You’re imagining the lighthouse.
Rubble and glass have covered the rug in half-dark,
boards replaced windows, dust eddies and settles.
Whole cities overturned. Outside the zone
traffic in gridlock. If you leave now you can steer
by the stars, get there before all the fountains
run dry. For a curious moment you’re brave.
You’re leaving for the lighthouse.
Lockdown diaries #18
This artist’s impression renders them transparent,
tinged red, projectiles of some kind,
a Fibonacci progression of spikes
like witch hats delivering their toil and bubble
to infiltrate through every room
of Aotearoa united in isolation.
Self-indoctrination begins in isolation;
black bird yellow beak only words transparent
to carry the plague safe into each locked room
where meters chart more reasons to be kind,
where we survive alone or extended in a bubble
watching as swells and curves climb into spikes,
a heartbeat as a chart of rests and spikes
no proof of life from here in isolation.
Each time my heart beat/rests inside my bubble
three people get my virus, guilt transparent
for this cyclic rhythm and others of its kind
I carry unaware within my room.
My mind creates the world, this book, this room,
the old pond home to fish with teeth and spikes.
Nature is capricious and only sometimes kind,
many who thrive in flocks may die in isolation,
the final veil dividing worlds transparent
eruptions from the centre of the bubble.
My head does give me trouble inside my bubble.
I can change my attitude but not my room;
colours heard as sounds, becoming transparent
in freezing sweats that strike as fever spikes,
alienated sorrow, mourning in isolation
denied the right to comfort, ease, be kind.
I wallow in our gutted world, my kind
the fatal parasite, each greasy bubble
toxic. No thing proceeds in isolation.
We christen the elephant in the living room
mutual destruction, a migraine of thorn spikes
the survivor’s brow, his profit line transparent.
Isolation as a kind of punishment,
transparent hubris, a champagne bubble
in a room seeping spikes.
No fun lately
Rain drapes its dingy curtains down the hill
while on the inside, windows run with sweat.
Light mist drifts down the western valley still,
and laundry on my line flops sopping wet.
A train goes by invisibly, and yet
its horn sounds haunting klaxons through the air
just like a drunk who can’t play clarinet.
My playing isn’t fun when you’re not there.
I lost you, lost my appetite, my will,
still craving for you like a cigarette.
I’m trying to recapture that first thrill,
enjoying chat inside the blue laundrette
while checking out the talent – tall, brunette,
we’re laughing at the sequins in your hair,
there’s trumpets playing from the small cassette
but playing is no fun when you’re not there.
I thought our brimming catch could never spill
then love became a payback, like a debt
I had to repay daily, caught, until
I struggled in the meshes of this net.
You left me just a shadow silhouette;
you’re hiding like a spider in its lair
where predators play games without regret;
I miss you. Nothing’s fun when you’re not there.
In all the world’s productions, scenes are set,
the lines long written; encore, exit where
the stage door stops the sound of our duet
and nothing’s any fun ‘cos you’re not there.
Surely I'm not a suspect?
Sunday was the last time I saw Jim,
under a sun umbrella with the liberated
penguins from the dawn parade. Fellow
escapees from captivity, we shared
reminiscences, tears, and sardines, as
clever disguises were handed around
and we helped them to change, become
lions, elephants, anything at all except
insects, because of the number of legs.
Far too many peacocks, I thought.
Really, they needed a peahen or two for
authenticity. Their strident challenges
grated. Soon a fight started, and Jim
insisted on being named referee and
legislator. He knew nothing about
icebound courtship rituals, or who
sat the longest on eggs. The peacocks,
talking among themselves, knew it was
insane to go from one form of human
control straight into another. Refusing
emphatically to listen, they formed
X Penguins Rool OK, or XPRO,
pronounced ‘Shaypro’, and soon made
illegal any trade in feathers. Jim,
almost speechless, fingered the plume
lengthening his Robin Hood cap.
‘I will never give this up’ he blustered.
Down swooped a flock of peacocks,
obscuring Jim and his hat. All quite
chaotic for a while. When the dust settled,
instead of Jim sitting where he’d been,
opposite me, he’d totally vanished.
Under the table, only his broken spectacles
showed he’d ever even really existed.
{An acrostic with Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious}