It Is A Fairing

 

It is a fairing, not a show –
It is the plough – the drum –
That weeds the water from the soil –
An honest thumb.

It is a gift and not the cost –
It is a chair – a hand –
Home the word we deftly sew
Is hard to mend.

It is the sufferance and swerve –
It is the holding merry;
Cream on ice cream cracks – the Birth –
And the Rosemary.

 

© kate marlais 2011

 

Octavio Paz, Three Poems 4, Robert Motherwell (1987)

 

 



Playground

 

An ageless siege. The soldier, he, stands proudly a ‘front his killing house,

Whistles of a horse in pain the ghostly fire does source.

Indian feathers in his hair, coloured blue and green and red;

The yellow but a fallen crest now dangles on a thread.

 

Callous Captain of radiant youth are you a moggy or a mouse?

Darting eyes, he conjures all the primitives of wealth.

‘Good luck, you poor, you bungled choir! May you quarrel on ‘til dawn!’

And summoned birds on clay-clothed beds watch the fire rage on.

 

Civilian blood, once dancing bright, now lathered coal in fossil black.

Each neon finger pointing stiff, each cry a frenzied fugue.

Dissent for man is guilty bait that turns upon these innocent slaves;

A sombre, hollow bell does ring to grieve those to their graves.

 

Beastly boy! The sandy hair, full of his tale of mad disease,

Is muddied wet of wizards’ play and blinding rush of limb.

Over-head his captives three look foully upon their fiery rite -

Vultures haunt and hunt on dust and sing in to the night.

 

As mineral would plead with man to spare the luxury of ruin

The evening sun shines crocheted quilts that chalk the rapt within.

And when the cursed are led away, their souls to navigate a place,

The bell that laughs grows sleepy, hushed; the sun, a swollen face.

 

In pending fate, as sea would breath, this cowboy Satan mourned the passed –

An elegy for battles lost or robbed before the last.

© kate marlais 2011

Sally Mann, Candy Cigarette

There Is No Such Silence

There is no such silence

As sad old-age

There are no forfeiting remedies.

The knee-jerk battles

Tremble through

Corridors, oak-aged aviaries.

Kicks and bangs on lino floors.

Spills and coos and hand-me-downs.

Circled assemblies of

Mismatched friends –

Piano dusty now.

Frugal visits, vague hellos

Family room in minty green.

Broken nerves remain unsung –

Repeating tires the young, it seems.

But when the laughs of escapades

Come sailing down the halls

It is the young who wait around

In sterile corridors.

 

© kate marlais 2011

 

Wage Of Words

The stainless wage of words –

Squatters’ rights, steadfast bliss –

Has ten men trodden,

Watered down, in

Less time than

One could accrue.

 

Brandishing a holy lot,

Spartans did their infants send

Rose-bathed, honeyed,

Gift-wrapped to the

Furthest brink

That men could go.

 

I watch you march in prouder strides,

Yet have no conflict fraying –

Where birds might hum and nest

Before their journey’s won –

Would you make folly of those ten

Through bombast of conception? –

Warriors too, there, mighty, fell

And day was wound undone.

 

For neither is embitterment

Nor is the smiling scorn

A fair depiction of your rank –

High-headedness will none.

 

As silent as a fettered horse

Does reach unto the grass

I fear that you will soon, my dear,

Fall upon your arse.
 

 

© kate marlais 2011

Gone

Trudging through this stannic fog –

The drill of morning towns

Cuts as snowflakes

Through mould -

 

And far off as fame –

The abstract search for

Spine and cold. 

 

Fossilised forever-glances

Over sodden bars, 

Waking winds nudge lapsed memories

And the pavement warmly holds.

 

Wednesday evening,

Ten past nine –

And likely for the 

Final time - 

 

Going,

 

Gone.

© kate marlais 2011

 

Henri Cartier - Bresson

Two Maple Grove

Sheltered in suburban wombs

Thirties red and pebble-dashed

One-television smirk.

Industry, politic hum

Distancing the docile docks

That once sailed for Dunkirk.

Walk to school, walk back for lunch

Milk Bar weekends, cinema

9 pence upstairs, 12 pence down.

Photographs of speckled friends

Bobbed hair, dark and gypsy brown

Blackberry lips home-grown.

She sat in windows, glorious, bold.

Blushing wagers won or lost

Prisoners and hearts.

Coffin-tabled café meetings,

Tillers caps - escutcheons

On good boys drinking fast.

© kate marlais 2011

 

Edward Steichen, Loretta Young (Vanity Fair, c.1932)

The Hanging Air

The hanging air that smokes the house –

Out of the flowered, compacted –

Broadcast flare inflates 

And gasses 

Through the hush.

Cool a-foot, and piercing heat

Inhales a heavy blow –

Letters sent and milky –

Swallowed –

Are sickly, vain.

Sleep now tucks away its shivers,

Folds to liquid dawn,

Nursed by bare arms browning –

Eased –

Loving and alive.

 

Ding-dong bells that name the birds

Drunk as sun upon this hill;

Washing goes around

Again –

The sea purrs.

Wisdom bent by fairy rings,

The buzzing town is cleft;

A cow and moon, the bridge –

Remember –

Blissful, there.

 

© kate marlais 2011

 

 

Man Ray, Lee Miller Solarised (c.1930)

Lines

The world is shapes, angles -

Existing in satisfied order

Where I would suit

And, still, procure. 

Waiting room. 

Platform. 

 

Lines. 

Carriage. 

Living waves that roll off 

Bleeding, passing land - 

Vibrations from this 

Shovelled bass 

Are now, moving, all. 

Middle ground defines the city wall.

© kate marlais 2011

 

23-10-11

"It's your last chance" 

The final squeeze - 

Giving birth to what 

You do not want 

But need.

 

© kate marlais 2011

 

 

Martin Munkacsi, Nude with Parasol (Harper’s Bazaar, July 1935)

Let's prioritise...

Slacker. Sloth. Passive. Laggard. Negligent. Absconder.

Yes, these are all words that you can use to describe me. I have left you, bloggites, for too long, too too tooooo long. How could I? I feel wretched about it. Can we talk?

Let's try now to move on, shall we? I've recently been to a series of group sessions in which I re-evaluate my life priorities (I haven't) and after much opening up and letting go (none) I have landed on the happy conclusion that I need more blog in my life once more. Therefore, for the next ten minutes, you blog, are TOP, tippity-top, of my list! YES!

Quite frankly, we need to work on our relationship. It's not you, it's me. I know I am flaky and have a tendency to let my eyes wander and my mind wonder. I realise now that I've been giving too much attention to stupid, stupid Twitter and her friends and have left you forlorn, alone. I don't even know what I saw in her. After all, who can truly express their thoughts, let alone establish a frankly hilarious witticism fully in 140 meagre characters?! C'est ridicule.

And that is why I've come back to you, my dove. I've missed you. Why, I blabber on, and you just let me! You listen. You really do. You are... God, you're good. You're just so...you.

I'll explain my absence to you in bullet points. It's been a busy few months. When did we speak last? It was May, wasn't it? And I told you all about Kenny and his fish. That was fun.

 

Ergo, here goes; from whence we last spake (in present tense, as if a diary entry so to establish a more intimate relationship with you, the reader):

 

Move to Hoxton. Feel so cool it's frightening. Take up urban-zen activities like yoga, goji berry juice & quoits.

 

Travel a bit... Wales. Nice. Liverpool.

Do some plays. Playing Fairy Godmother in Cinderella at Liverpool Playhouse. Get to fly. Get extra pay. Casually named 'accidental death money'.

 

In Between all of the above I have also been doing any one of the following:

a) Selling my soul to the Underground Society of Closet Corporate Temporary Staff (low IQ & Look Magazine obligatory)

b) Spending and earning money in the ratio of 2:1

c) Writing - plays & poetry; and on those days where one has been bound by 'Writer's Block' (hereby known, in my personal definition, as 'online shopping') I have religiously stuck my hands in ink and smeared it all over my face, donned my finest shredded linen shirt and marched intensely to the local coffee shop where I will sit and look all Writer-y in the hope of a publishing deal infiltrating my soul via osmosis, and perhaps a few shrewd glances from fellow Hoxton sages/ latte-love admirers. Rarely doth anything occur, but By Jove, I love a good latte!

 

*Cue Coldplay/Zero 7/Sigur Ros background music for sudden but effective mood-sobriety. Soft focus close-up on bunch of grapes/ field of horses/ other such natural wonder*

 

Hey, let's get serious. I've been writing a collection of poems. Keep your eyes, ears and egos a-breast of my blog, I'll post the darn things at random. I'm trying to bring poetry back, make it hip, give it some 'spect. A hard, thankless task. Proceed with caution, but if anyone can make pretentiousness en vogue again, it's me. 

At least, that's what I keep telling my furrowed brow. ENJOY!

Next chapter

Hello I'm back. Where oh where have I been? Hmm now let's see. 

 

Athens. Has cool bars. They love crepes. Who knew? 

Madeira. Apparently, I still qualify for parent-child holiday. I crashed my folks' holiday. If you are over 60 & like flowers, this is the place.

And now, back in Blighty, I have been wallowing in self-poverty & dredging up the remains of my bohemia. In other words, I have been forced into CREATIVITY, confined to my tower by lack of dollar on Oyster card.

Writing, writing music, making sweet music, making sweet...no no none of that. 

Maaaan, I feel like Dylan on Lucozade, Cohen with vertigo, Hendrix in Madeira...

NO SERIOUSLY. In a vain attempt to stifle my strong urge to jack it all in & go straight down to the Next sale & purchase a polyester, slightly-too-short-at-the-ankle trouser suit, I have resorted to my roots. Gotten into my time machine & landed back where it all began, all this creative nonsense. Read on, read on...

I hope you are sitting comfortably. Uncomfortably is also ok.

Once upon a time, there was a naughty, tomboyish, puzzling sort of girl who spent all her free time running wild in the heart of suburbia. She liked to think of herself as the rebirth of Joan Baez, the remake of Joni Mitchell, the rekindled Carole King. Secretly, she knew she was none of these, but didn't care to mention it in case anyone noticed. 

With her much-loved guitar sidekick & her quick ear for a double-edged lyric she would make up tunes, as many as time would allow. Tunes about boys, tunes about her, tunes about nothing much. 

Her hair was long, a bit matted, her nails always bitten, her mind always off somewhere, anywhere. She had a sharp wit, a mean one often. But for all her outer bravado, mouth & opinion, inside she was shy & thought the whole thing was a bit foolish. 

Her guitar playing too clumsy, the idea of it all hugely narcissistic, she certainly didn't want to make a fool of herself. So she kept all these tunes, songs, lyrics to herself & never told a soul. 

Eventually they were forgotten. That's what happens when you don't pass things on.

It was only when she had grown up a bit, experienced a bit more & a bit more after that, did she realise that her little head was too full. Too full of tunes, songs, lyrics, boys, herself, nothing much. She should release it all back into the ether where it belongs. 

It had been a while. But she began the long task of writing it all down, using different, better words, playing her hackneyed clumsy guitar so this time it could not be forgotten.

The London Word interview

Oooooooh just a little interview I did for The London Word, a rather cool online magazine, written by the delectable Miss Lottie O'Conor. She has grasped the essence of my often confused, often controversial self splendidly.

 

http://www.thelondonword.com/2010/11/actress-and-singer-kate-marlais/

Hang on. Did I just go and self-promote?

Yup.