Chromosome 22
For Elizabeth Constance, Peover Churchyard, Cheshire
Same bed and yet they’re poles apart. She’s plagued
by ghosts, to all intents, while he’s moved on.
A voice she feels she knows but can’t quite place:
“What are you doing here, my sweet?” it sighs,
weird stuff that won’t parse out.. While gardening
late afternoon, she reads a shadow in
the sitting room. Dives in, sure Dave’s come home,
but no one’s there. Haunted, riddled with guilt,
she’s on her own,.
She sees the small black dog
inside the scullery, hears muddy boots
clatter worn quarry floor. Alone sometimes,
feels arms steal tenderly about her thighs.
Hates people asking how she’s been. Three years,
no words to justify that tiny grave.
Out of the blue: “Gross abnormalities.
There’s nothing we can do. No quality
of life at best.” A Catholic nurse begs her
to pause and think:. “You’re sure it’s what you want,”
hand on her heart, womb in a vice-like grip.
She’s cursed with visions, frequents holy sites
to stem her barrenness: St Winifred’s Well,
immersion, head to toe; ruined abbey where
new miracles are claimed; mediums; psychics;
plain chant on tap. Pie in the sky? “Don’t ask!”
“Only yourself to blame,” her mother’s voice;.
“Ten years too late.” A child again, she hides
her face; night hikes to tire herself so she
might sleep; anti depressants, counselling.
The hills about are flecked with sheep. Above
the mantel in the oldest part, they’ve fixed
a huge ram’s horn, so apt somehow: she’s hexed
herself where folk once dwelt at one with beasts.
———————–
Whatever’s happened to William?
She reads the signs: an ambulance
arrives to whisk him off, at six-
weeks old, found flaccid in his cot
emitting muted fiddle tones,
the cri du chat. Stays touch and go
for days. A copper, in Crown Court,
he gets away with it – and she
gives him the benefit. You help,
agree to fostering while things
got sorted out. Most afternoons,
all supervised, your sister trawls
cold spite into your home, Still not
quite cold that addled cuckoo’s egg:
you stored soured thoughts inside a box
then scrawled a ‘Do not open’ sign.
Guilt churns them in its mauling grip.
The trust invested pens her fast
till told she’ll not get William back
while he lives in. That’s when she snaps,
fast-forwards things, moves on. Dark stuff
comes out: first wife bludgeoned, off beat;
lost bouts of anger management;
he only shook the kid, he claims,
in panic when it fell into
a fit; green fractures partly healed.
Magicians pull white rabbits out,
staunch tidal bleeds, brain more or less
intact, but fail to conjure back
his eyes. These days, aged eight, rage maps
his father’s direful fingerprint.
He’s hapless as a hobbled horse,
locked in his rocking stall, reined by
deep shadow-lands, perpetual night.
Braille wise beyond his age, he dreams
in tongues, raps time through palsied feet.
————————
Red Shift
‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be.’ (‘Hamlet’)
Before this latest mess they pestered us
to use their cards, take out cute kit-your-home
out loans. Phone call, spam mail or snail, TV,
imprint; end of the day, we fall. Roll up,
ring out same tired theme tune: “It trickles down,
prosperity, so all do well, d’you see.”
Don’t say when they’ve recouped their share, be bare
bones left for you; blind rambling downturn blues.
They bind us to them heart and soul, refine
with clever marketing how we consume.
The bubble burst, black hole, the butterfly
effect, dark stuff; weird quantum alchemy,
base lead from gold. Though Jack’s all right, Next-door’s
redundant, fifty-two, requires CV,
asks you. No gay Antonio to bail
him out, needs money –‘Mortgage, bills to pay.’
Recession don’t change much ‘less you’re in debt
or on the dole. Destabilized, may be
too late; the toy balloon, inflated, grasped
by finger tips, released. No siren’s raised;
no fire engine, police car or ambulance,
that drop in pitch to signify you’ve flipped,
blue chip to sheer insolvency, worn out
your credit-rating stations-of-the-shop.
They’ll goose you while you’re healthy, salmon-pink,
try not to drain you dry; mostly you cope:
‘Consolidate your debts into one place.’
Then it’s red shift. Micawber’s “Something will
turn up” won’t do. You’re irredeemable,
can’t turn the tide. They take the reins: “The deal
was all explained to you before you signed.
See there, small print, the bottom of the page.”
They charge-you-till-you-bleed and when you do,
they seize what they already own: buy now -
pay later stuff, your car, your home. You’re in
a mental Marshalsea. They’re in control.
“I’m being reasonable. Don’t take that tone
with me. It’s here in black and white. What’s that?
You didn’t realise? Why? Can’t you read?
Those tears won’t wash. There’s nothing I can do.”
———————————————————–
© Peter Branson 2010
Peter Branson lives in Rode Heath, a village in South Cheshire. A former English teacher and lecturer, he now organises writing workshops. Until recently he was “Writer-in-residence” for the “All Write” project run by Stoke-on-Trent Central Libraries.
Over the last five years he has had work published, or accepted for publication, by many mainstream poetry journals in Britain, USA, Canada, EIRE, Australia and New Zealand, including Acumen, Ambit, Envoi, Magma, The London Magazine, Iota, 14, Fire, The Frogmore Papers, The Interpreter’s House, Poetry Nottingham, Pulsar, Red Ink, The Recusant, South, Writing Magazine, The New Writer, Crannog, The Raintown Review, The Able Muse and Other Poetry.
His first collection, “The Accidental Tourist”, was published in May 2008. A second collection was published at the beginning of this year by Caparison Press for ‘The Recusant’. More recently a pamphlet has been issued (May 7th) by ‘Silkworms Ink’. A third collection has been accepted for publication by Salmon Press, EIRE.
Review: “The poetry of Peter Branson is an accomplished combination of tone, style and subject one might not normally presume to go together: economy and flourish, restraint and passion, private-mindedness and social conscience. Branson manages to blend these variants into a handsome harmony, making for poetry both emotionally and intellectually affecting. In his clipped aphorismic sentences, still sensitive to the musicality in language, Branson has perhaps most in common with the Movement Poets, particularly Robert Conquest and Philip Larkin; while an after-rub of Martin Bell’s laconic urban lyricism …is also pleasingly detectable. … These poems ruminate on the many-coloured conflicts of today: from the clashes of the banking crisis to the scrub of Afghanistan.” Alan Morrison
Peter Branson lives in Rode Heath, a village in South Cheshire. A former English teacher and lecturer, he now organises writing workshops. Until recently he was “Writer-in-residence” for the “All Write” project run by Stoke-on-Trent Central Libraries.
Over the last five years he has had work published, or accepted for publication, by many mainstream poetry journals in Britain, USA, Canada, EIRE, Australia and New Zealand, including Acumen, Ambit, Envoi, Magma, The London Magazine, Iota, 14, Fire, The Frogmore Papers, The Interpreter’s House, Poetry Nottingham, Pulsar, Red Ink, The Recusant, South, Writing Magazine, The New Writer, Crannog, The Raintown Review, The Able Muse and Other Poetry.
His first collection, “The Accidental Tourist”, was published in May 2008. A second collection was published at the beginning of this year by Caparison Press for ‘The Recusant’. More recently a pamphlet has been issued (May 7th) by ‘Silkworms Ink’. A third collection has been accepted for publication by Salmon Press, EIRE.
Review: “The poetry of Peter Branson is an accomplished combination of tone, style and subject one might not normally presume to go together: economy and flourish, restraint and passion, private-mindedness and social conscience. Branson manages to blend these variants into a handsome harmony, making for poetry both emotionally and intellectually affecting. In his clipped aphorismic sentences, still sensitive to the musicality in language, Branson has perhaps most in common with the Movement Poets, particularly Robert Conquest and Philip Larkin; while an after-rub of Martin Bell’s laconic urban lyricism …is also pleasingly detectable. … These poems ruminate on the many-coloured conflicts of today: from the clashes of the banking crisis to the scrub of Afghanistan.” Alan Morrison
POETRY
published by Retort Magazine, on May 20th, 2010
May 20th, 2010 | Tags: 
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