The 2012 Aldeburgh Poetry Festival runs for the 2nd-4th November, and for the next week, Ink Sweat & Tears will be featuring poems on the theme ‘Poetry as a Lifeline’ which is the subject of the IS&T-supported Discussions and Short Takes this year. Find out more about the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival here
Blackstone Edge
This then: to photograph a rock, have it look
like a rock, but be more than a rock.
Edward Weston
Waiting for the light
to lift a rutted cobble
from the Roman road.
For the sun to make gold
from this spine of lead,
opening the door
on a black passage down
to halls under heather
and teetering rock.
For a wind farm
to rewind the sky,
film and tapes of cloud
flung from its spools
on a silver horizon.
For the fell runner
who chases his legs
down the old pack road
to leak a long shadow.
For hackles and swords
to rise from Saddleworth,
roaring its traffic,
culverts, milestones,
scars. For the white lies
told by light and the eye.
For a pinch of wool
to fetch a salmon.
Mick Wood lives in Strasbourg where he works as a theatre practitioner. His poetry has been published in many magazines and has won a number of awards, including online-health-pharm.com first prize in the 2009 Ledbury Poetry Festival competition.
The Place of Stones
from Aghaclogher, an Irish village name
The ether has emptied and seasons have gone, but winds bless winds within themselves and stones are freed with honing song. I am your ancestor, hewer of rocks, these are my signals of home. I warm to the force of this altered earth, how it prisms light from lough and sky, configuring the land for indisciplined eyes. This is the monument where memories reside, where, to mark our worth, we barter with gods, for excarnated serf or corbelled king. It’s where men cluster from scattered farms, sharing their stories to the point of trust. Pouring in from the cursus, their gatherings assert: see us; know us; accept us. Exist and remember – how beautiful we’ve learned how we came to be; how beautiful the unknown, beyond quag and scree.
Tim O’Leary is a photographer relatively new to poetry. In the last eighteen months his work has been listed at Strokestown, Munster Lit Fest, Poetry on the Lake, Grist and Live Canon and has appeared in anthologies, e-zines and journals.