HER KIND

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.


Anne Sexton
1928-1974

‘Her Kind’ is from Sexton’s collection ‘To Bedlam and Part Way Back’. In July 1959, whilst looking for a keynote poem for the first section of the book, Sexton revisited an old, previously unpublished poem “Night Voice on a Broomstick’. One week and 19 pages of drafts later ‘Her Kind’ was born. From this point on, ‘Her Kind’ became her signature poem, the one with which Sexton began all her alcohol-fuelled poetry readings. (From Poem For The Day Two - Chatto and Windus, London 2005)

From ‘The Selected Poems of Anne Sexton’, Virago Press, reprinted 1993

Don’t Give Me The Whole Truth

Don’t give me the whole truth,

don’t give me the sea for my thirst,

don’t give me the sky when I ask for light,

but give me a glint, a dewy wisp, a mote

as the birds bear water-drops from their bathing

and the wind a grain of salt.

Olav H Hauge

1908-1994

lived all his life in Ulvik, a village in the west of Norway on the Hardangerfjord. He translated many English and American writers into Norwegian.

‘Don’t Give Me The Whole Truth’ was translated from the Norwegian by Robin Fulton

from the anthology ‘Being Human’,

the companion anthology to ‘Being Alive’ and ‘Staying Alive’

edited by Neil Astley

Bloodaxe Books

Pre-Breakfast Rant

Andrew Greig

image: scottishartscouncil.org.uk

Dull, dull hungry cloth-head dullard! Each day
I’m dull, even this ache is dull (though fatal). Each night
I climb on my lover and we ride
nowhere we haven’t been before.
Dull the knife, dull the mirror,
dull each pane of glass around us.
Nothing here is sharp, clear or dangerous,
and even you, my blood’s sugar,
have plummeted, disgusted, out of focus.
Let me stand at the window once more and stare
till the world’s no longer out there.

True world, where are you hiding? Whose crime
makes you hide so? Is it the light yet murderous
force of habit, settling like grime on the mirror,
that lets you slip away? Yes,
the world is hid behind itself, smirking slightly,
as though we’re in a murder mystery
where the killer and the clue are right in this room
and we’re looking (for God’s sake, they can be nowhere else!)
and we can see nothing, so well is everything hidden
as itself. The way I looked at you last night on the floor
and could not see what I saw before…

Open up, true world! I’m banging on
your pane that you might part
or shower down daggers to cut me to ribbons.
I can bear anything but this dull that I am,
unburnished, non-reflective, stupefied, numb!
This cloth I’ve somehow spread over the world —
when I turn back from the kettle,
may it be whipped away: reveal again
the morning laid out like a shining breakfast table
with as many places as there are appetites
for this day about to — truly — begin.




Andrew Greig

(born September 23, 1951 in Bannockburn) is a Scottish writer. He studied philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and is a former Glasgow University Writing Fellow and Scottish Arts Council Scottish/Canadian Exchange Fellow. He lives in Orkney and Edinburgh and is married to author Lesley Glaister.


From the anthology Being Alive, 
the sequel to Staying Alive,
edited by Neil Astley
Bloodaxe Books

THE WORLD

I couldn’t tell one song from another,

which bird said what or to whom or for what reason.

The oak tree seemed to be writing something using very few words.

I couldn’t decide which door to open - they looked the same, or what

would happen when I did reach and turn a knob. I thought I was

safe, standing there

but my death remembered its date:

only so many summer nights still stood before me, full moon, waning

moon, October mornings: what to make of them? which door?

I couldn’t tell which stars were which or how far away any of them

was, or which were still burning or not - their light moving through

space like a long

late train - and I’ve lived on the earth so long - 50 winters, 50 springs

and summers,

and all this time stars in the sky - in daylight

when I couldn’t see them, and at night when, most nights I didn’t look.

Marie Howe

1950-

from ‘Being Human’, the companion anthology to

‘Staying Alive’ and ‘Being Alive’, edited by Neil Astley

CHILDHOOD

 Rainer Maria Rilke painted by Paula Modersohn-Becker in 1906

School’s long anxiety and time slips past
with waiting, in endless dreary things.
O solitude, O heavy spending on and on of time . . . 
And then outside: the streets flash and ring
and on the squares the fountains leap
and the world becomes boundless in the gardens.
And to walk through it all in one’s small suit,
so unlike the way others walked and sauntered - ;
O wondrous time, O spending on and on of time,
O solitude.

And to look far off into it all:
men and women, men, more men, women
and then children, who are different and bright;
and here a house and now and then a dog
and fear changing places soundlessly with trust - ;
O sadness without cause, ,O dream, O dread,
O endless depth.

And so to play: ball and hoop and handstands
in a garden that keeps softly fading,
and to collide sometimes against grownups
blindly and wildly in the rush of tag,
but at evening quietly, with small stiff steps
to walk back home, your hand firmly held - ;
O ever more escaping grasp of things,
O weight, O fear.

And for hours at the big gray pond
to kneel entranced with a small sailboat;
to neglect it, because other, identical yet
more beautiful sails glide through the rings,
and to have to think about the small pale face
that sinking gazed back out of the pond - ;
O childhood, O likeness gliding off . . . 
Where? Where?



Rainer Maria Rilke
1875-1926
translated from the German by Edward Snow



from 'Being Human’, the companion anthology to
‘Staying Alive’ and 'Being Alive’ edited by Neil Astley.

TEMPTATION

The Garden Of Eden - Michelangelo

Call yourself alive? Look, I promise you
that for the first time you’ll feel your pores opening
like a fish mouth, and you’ll actually be able to hear
your blood surging through all those lanes,
and you’ll feel light gliding across the cornea
like the train of a dress. For the first time
you’ll be aware of gravity
like a thorn in your heel,
and your shoulder blades will ache for want of wings.
Call yourself alive ? I promise you
you’ll be deafened by the sound of dust falling on furniture,
you’ll feel your eyebrows turning to two gashes,
and every memory you have - will begin
at Genesis.

Nina Cassian
1924 -

translated from the Romanian by Brenda Walker and Andrea Deletant


The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry

WINTER From The Life Of Love

Come close to me, oh companion of my full life;
Come close to me and let not Winter's touch
Enter between us. Sit by me before the hearth,
For fire is the only fruit of Winter.


Speak to me of the glory of your heart, for
That is greater than the shrieking elements
Beyond our door.
Bind the door and seal the transoms, for the
Angry countenance of the heaven depresses my
Spirit, and the face of our snow-laden fields
Makes my soul cry.


Feed the lamp with oil and let it not dim, and
Place it by you, so I can read with tears what
Your life with me has written upon your face.


Bring Autumn's wine. Let us drink and sing the
Song of remembrance to Spring's carefree sowing,
And Summer's watchful tending, and Autumn's
Reward in harvest.


Come close to me, oh beloved of my soul; the
Fire is cooling and fleeing under the ashes.
Embrace me, for I fear loneliness; the lamp is
Dim, and the wine which we pressed is closing
Our eyes. Let us look upon each other before
They are shut.
Find me with your arms and embrace me; let
Slumber then embrace our souls as one.
Kiss me, my beloved, for Winter has stolen
All but our moving lips.


You are close by me, My Forever.
How deep and wide will be the ocean of Slumber,
And how recent was the dawn!



Khalil Gibran
1883-1931