Place To Non Place

Svelte

Svelte by Amy De’Ath was originally published as a chapbook, whilst Amy was studying at UEA.

Svelte Cover

I take bits of the city into my wrists,
the tattoo across my jugular - necklace names me Norwich.
The wet pavement of my back is all horses running from routine –
the crisis hooves in the attic of my hypothalamus
make districts of memory.

Get me piercings on place names
permanent ink of lamplight,
keep me clean street sweeper,
all across this country its raining –
shout out history – don’t mutter economy of nanny state recycling
I don’t want to see the news, all mosaic of misery,
for god’s sake give me meat stalls, postcodes, market sweat in
knee cap, sing to me city – love the live way of being.

Oh conglomourates of commercialism –
kneel to the gravestones
press your pity tomato heart
into the eyelid glow of the ground.
No one will look for it and the bins
will be brimming with white socks and fox teeth.

The shops shut up face
with metal brace and till ring
like a lover packing laundry
and the bathos of 5.30 creeps back in to body tissue
wrist and thinking.

Come here a second, I tug
by a tall wall
in front of a gray yard.

We put our faces to the gate,
I’ve seen this spot before -
you’ve not.

This is before parks and walks and food and France -

We squeeze our eyes up to the gate -
someone took time to tattoo

every brick
and window

with words

and after songs and cigarettes and trains and rain

I was told it was called Utopia -
where you said grow up to me
and I told you I’m trying.

Under an orange night at the start of the summer
We wondered why we weren’t to go in.

Utopia Building

Standing on a tree stump
Smoking like a giant
Swinging like a dancer
Burning like a drunkard

Tissue paper purple
Cling film for a band aid
A breach of the horizon
Hazardous to aircraft

Watching from a tree stump
Smoking like a titan
Bathing in the thunder
Breathing in the cordite

Bonfires and remembrance
The mundane and the madness
A sickness for the suburbs
A tonic for the troops

Russell J Turner - November 2009

An impacted tooth of flint and we are away – across borders, through shadows – failing even to acknowledge what stands now, in its place. Take a hand and rub fingertips across the stone stubble surface – forgetful that this is that location where ghosts still pass. Its significance is nothing more than endurance, and yet it still holds a quantitative power - a healing process. The scars of stonemason work, lacking in the uniformity of brickwork. This is something not made to blueprinted plans or even the casual sketch of architect. This is something that stands. This is something that stands- calloused and barnacled by its own abrupt angles. There is the stake of the stonemason in this, the willfulness of action – a sudden cut – and then made to fit in its own harmony. Let the rubble we gather and cement together hold fast. It’s enough that it lasts every passing touch, every casual glance. Its history apparent, stoic – it requires no plaque and demands nothing, other than that it is left to furnish the dark with rumours. The willfulness of action gathered into a stand-fast, shadowed secrecy.

The lake is broad and still. It is covered with thin lines of light. They quiver gently on the water’s surface.

Someway beyond the grass is the cacophony of campus, a clattering and chattering across jutting concrete.

The lake is quiet and ringed by trees.

Below one tree wind chimes softly clank a pitter-patter of melody. Burgundy tinsel is wrapped across a branch - a cartoon frog dangles from a white ribbon. It has something of a makeshift Christmas tree about it.

There is a card stuck to the tree. It is in a plastic cover for protection. It has started to become flecked with mould.

The lake is monumental and still.

The card has a fading picture of sweet peas on the front. Further up the trunk is a large novelty flower. Each petal is a bright colour and flickers with glitter. It looks like something bought at the seaside. An oversized ladybird is perched in the middle.

Above this a white horseshoe hangs from a white ribbon.

The sky is broad and white

The card flaps slightly in the breeze.

The lake is monumental and still.

curiosahamiltona

The bells now ring in white they ring
a rhyme they chime a ringing bell a
chiming bell the rhyme it rings the
ringing bell it chimes a bell it sings
from churches chimes the brain a bell
in church towers chiming calling
church towers calling.