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The official site of author Steph Swainston

poem

Happy Hallowe'en everyone.

Submitted by steph on 31 October 2007 - 8:11am.


When the banshees wail
And the werewolves howl
And the dead in the churchyard sigh
When the witches scream
And their daemons hiss
When you hear the song of the Lorelei
When the goblins shout
And the boggarts yell
And the shades call out
From the depths of Hell!
When the phantom drummer
Drums his drum
And the midnight wraith
Whispers 'Come... oh, come...'
Then who will go?

...Not I.



This is a poem we used to recite when trick-or-treating - with yells and screams which left us quite hoarse, but rich in the way of sweets and filthy lucre. I don't know who wrote it, but if anyone does, I'd be grateful to know.

Motorway poems II

Submitted by steph on 22 July 2007 - 4:00pm.


Time for a poem. This one is the second in my 'Motorway Poems' sequence:

II: DISTANCE DRIVER

stars
fast cars
a lass too far
at the coming of night
and the dawn of day
a roofless flight
along the motorway
amber strobe light
and white street lines
to the vanishing point
in parallel times
the flat horizon
can’t check our speed
or slow our haste
an oil slicked greed
a lust for waste
a taste of grace
and chromed-up steel
do you feel alarmed?
charmed
by fast cars
and stars

Days of a Life


1: CAMBRIDGE ON A FRIDAY


Beating feet in fantasy,

I turn; he slips away

My body and my bike both conspire against me:

What shall I do today?

The sleet fell loud in Market Square

Insidious, the Fenland air.

I lay in my bed at three

And glanced at my watch seven times

In as many seconds.



2: BRADFORD ON A THURSDAY


‘Fluid prose,’ he told me once

But I forgot

Whether that was a good thing

Or not.

A lime-sugar sweet taste

Feet on the stair

I lean back to the mirror

Admire my hair

The soap opera theme tune

Swarms up from below

In the floor-boarded front room

He laughs, and I go

Back to the window

(Dry fingers on the sill)

And gaze down the valley

Which had never seemed so still.



3: CARDIFF ON A MONDAY


The yawning milkman separates

The morning from the night;

Across the rain-stirred reservoir

A flock of geese take flight.

And I have been watching

From my window, from first light.


I shall leave now, quietly

Through the back door

Through the veils of rain

Into the solace of my solitude again.

Lovesong


Approach, my love, and walk with me
On the shadowy beach by the starry sea;
The soapy sea, which carelessly
Throws flatfish to the sky.

Wander where I wander, dear
The cherry-cake land so sweet and near,
By the sea so clear, with its waves that rear
And drench the soupy sky.

We’ll listen to the fishes’ song
The rainy cadenza, deep and long
Loud and strong, not a sound set wrong
That falls from the sepia sky.

And the lobsters that dwell upon the sand
Where the dunes become a sea-soaked strand
Shall agree, solemnly, hand in hand
That love is in the sky!



(c) Poetry Now 1992

Touch the Dead Fox


Glassily gazing out to the reservoir
On the windowsill in the wood beam brass décor bar
There is a stuffed fox
Poised in a pink plastic snarl of faded canines
Its feet painted green with the polystyrene base.

A couple sat down next to us, smiling at each other.
She placed a half of lager on the beer mat,
He ruffled the fox’s back as had hands
A hundred times before.
‘Touch the stuffed fox, Sandra,’ he said;
‘Go on, stroke it.’
She reached out behind me, leaning
On the leather seat,
Overcoming a flush of fear,
And stopped just short of its mothy tail.
‘I can’t,’ she said, high-pitched. ‘It’s horrible.’
With a manicured finger she touched his nose instead.

He laughed with condescension
Which was the more derisive for being kindly:
She was his woman and she must be protected
From such things as dead foxes.