TWO POEMS
ANGELA ARNOLD
POEM I
PROMISE
Look at me closely: four sides, neither
back nor front. Still space,
that's my name: what I can give you.
Forget about stuff to throw in, stack and
squeeze and deliberate over – hide?
Just prize the place
for it, the opportunity.
The future, the might-be, fall-back,
insurance – peace of mind, then, in the
shape of a cardboard box:
at your service. Study this rich, vacant well
(profound sigh of relief?)
that will absorb, trust me,
enough. See me – emptied,
appraised, open-mouthed, about
(yes?) to be saved. More than keen
to hold your future,
already.
POEM II
SENSE
1.
Stairwell, step by nosed step.
The overwhelm of repetition uncanny, decades later.
Hottest stabs of darkest tangs that pose
on a ladder of scramble-remembered sub-scents.
On a bright scale of 100 unnameables sung con moto
in that part of the brain in it/not of it.
In an upstairs of the mind that's stepping,
stepping, no reason.
Those sweet shuffly side notes.
The thump of spice underfoot.
A woven thing with no colour.
Most likely it was the carpeting, though I never did kneel
to find out – why tear a good secret from its shell.
2.
Hot-faced reminder: the limply long stemmed things
labelled untouchable, much fingered only by eye.
Sickly straggles that drooped in tune
with leaves fountaining bold and striped and each tip
cut: snippety snip of infant malice
mixed with hopeful experiment.
(Where did the scissors spring from?)
No shouting; no tears.
A poor triumph then.
And look, I'd left the aimlessly arching flowers reaching out
to properly nowhere.
Sprays of pale rainbows to this day reprise, accuse.
That child's pure mystery of connection: the endless bridge
from-to, across; forever trying.
Senseless.
3.
Twice it went. Distinctly. Or was it the cuckoo inside the mighty
wave of sound that takes tinnitus and bends it,
takes neighbours' slurred expletives (that maybe never were),
repurposes their shouts?
Sounds. Sounds
from somewhere down the street meld into plain moos
on faraway fields and/or my strident imagination, keen liar.
Nothing can be witnessed?
Truly?
How can what I say to myself, audibly in my self's inner ears, be,
ultimately, true if my phone can ring without having rung
even the once? To say I am, in truth, a bat
would be just as
4.
Creeping from pubis to navel to breast and on
to throat, this necklace of bubbles takes me – but
Mumyourwastingwater! urgently at the door.
I know. Climate. Sinner. OK, you know (through the closed door)
the last time I felt so hotly embraced
was the day I gave birth, yes, to you – that first rush
of water, a held-fast rush: warmly supported
I thought.
Wrapped in his favourite coat. –
Illusion bursting soon after.
All the comings, goings, years,
no more than a dillydally life, never
leaving much room for (well, that). And here, suddenly,
is the full weight of it, heat of it. And soap bubbles
as if. Meaning?
5.
Just half of a half
of a large square and that's me to a T: most
most minimal chocolate binger...still busily
sucking the last slivery micro-
filaments of joy from my teeth, all melt and mouthfeel.
This dark (75%) space a place set aside
for a different ethic. Beyond
the whole fairtrade label. A world
where (how to say this out loud)
happiness?
happiness
might even be a kosher aim in life.
In che senso? you ask with that infectious shrug of yours,
devilish. Don't, please. No words.
PROMISE
Look at me closely: four sides, neither
back nor front. Still space,
that's my name: what I can give you.
Forget about stuff to throw in, stack and
squeeze and deliberate over – hide?
Just prize the place
for it, the opportunity.
The future, the might-be, fall-back,
insurance – peace of mind, then, in the
shape of a cardboard box:
at your service. Study this rich, vacant well
(profound sigh of relief?)
that will absorb, trust me,
enough. See me – emptied,
appraised, open-mouthed, about
(yes?) to be saved. More than keen
to hold your future,
already.
POEM II
SENSE
1.
Stairwell, step by nosed step.
The overwhelm of repetition uncanny, decades later.
Hottest stabs of darkest tangs that pose
on a ladder of scramble-remembered sub-scents.
On a bright scale of 100 unnameables sung con moto
in that part of the brain in it/not of it.
In an upstairs of the mind that's stepping,
stepping, no reason.
Those sweet shuffly side notes.
The thump of spice underfoot.
A woven thing with no colour.
Most likely it was the carpeting, though I never did kneel
to find out – why tear a good secret from its shell.
2.
Hot-faced reminder: the limply long stemmed things
labelled untouchable, much fingered only by eye.
Sickly straggles that drooped in tune
with leaves fountaining bold and striped and each tip
cut: snippety snip of infant malice
mixed with hopeful experiment.
(Where did the scissors spring from?)
No shouting; no tears.
A poor triumph then.
And look, I'd left the aimlessly arching flowers reaching out
to properly nowhere.
Sprays of pale rainbows to this day reprise, accuse.
That child's pure mystery of connection: the endless bridge
from-to, across; forever trying.
Senseless.
3.
Twice it went. Distinctly. Or was it the cuckoo inside the mighty
wave of sound that takes tinnitus and bends it,
takes neighbours' slurred expletives (that maybe never were),
repurposes their shouts?
Sounds. Sounds
from somewhere down the street meld into plain moos
on faraway fields and/or my strident imagination, keen liar.
Nothing can be witnessed?
Truly?
How can what I say to myself, audibly in my self's inner ears, be,
ultimately, true if my phone can ring without having rung
even the once? To say I am, in truth, a bat
would be just as
4.
Creeping from pubis to navel to breast and on
to throat, this necklace of bubbles takes me – but
Mumyourwastingwater! urgently at the door.
I know. Climate. Sinner. OK, you know (through the closed door)
the last time I felt so hotly embraced
was the day I gave birth, yes, to you – that first rush
of water, a held-fast rush: warmly supported
I thought.
Wrapped in his favourite coat. –
Illusion bursting soon after.
All the comings, goings, years,
no more than a dillydally life, never
leaving much room for (well, that). And here, suddenly,
is the full weight of it, heat of it. And soap bubbles
as if. Meaning?
5.
Just half of a half
of a large square and that's me to a T: most
most minimal chocolate binger...still busily
sucking the last slivery micro-
filaments of joy from my teeth, all melt and mouthfeel.
This dark (75%) space a place set aside
for a different ethic. Beyond
the whole fairtrade label. A world
where (how to say this out loud)
happiness?
happiness
might even be a kosher aim in life.
In che senso? you ask with that infectious shrug of yours,
devilish. Don't, please. No words.
ABOUT
Angela Arnold lives in North Wales and is also an artist, a creative gardener and an environmental campaigner. Her poems have appeared in print magazines, anthologies and online, in the UK and elsewhere. Her collection In|Between looks at ‘inner landscapes’ and relationships (Stairwell Books, 2023). She enjoys her synaesthesia and language/s and is currently learning Welsh.