{"id":236,"date":"2011-04-25T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-25T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=236"},"modified":"2020-12-09T16:23:25","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T16:23:25","slug":"spring-poems-from-marcelle-olivier-and-penelope-shuttle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/spring-poems-from-marcelle-olivier-and-penelope-shuttle\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring poems from Marcelle Olivier and Penelope Shuttle"},"content":{"rendered":"

proserpine<\/span>

i eat her lungs, in a dream,<\/span>
while she lies beside me. no,<\/span>
not eat, but inhale out of her <\/span>
body. she says: i am tired.<\/span>

she says: i am tired, and then<\/span>
we lie in a bed and talk, talk<\/span>
nonsense \u2013 as if we knew<\/span>
each other. her hair is colourless.<\/span>

her hair is colourless, like bleached <\/span>
scarab legs kept airless in a jar <\/span>
on the windowsill; like the undreamt,<\/span>
harsh memories of serotonin.<\/span>

memories of serotonin flood<\/span>
the cavity of her. without touching<\/span>
comfort becomes papal \u2013 she<\/span>
sinks into the sheets as if she loves.<\/span>

as if she loves, too, the potential <\/span>
of neural pathways, or the bleak mystery <\/span>
of a spring famine in the horn of africa, <\/span>
where the goats can graze on sand.<\/span>

goats can graze on sand, still cannot <\/span>
die without dreaming. when i look <\/span>
at her, and when she speaks, i see<\/span>
my own lips shiver. i eat her lungs.<\/span>



*marcelle olivier<\/span> is a South African-born writer and archaeologist living in Cambridge, UK. You can read more of her poetry in, amongst others, Oxford Poetry, New Contrast, and Carapace. <\/span>
<\/p>\n



The Year Strikes the Rock<\/span>

The year strikes the rock<\/span>
with one spoilt-child glance, like Athene,<\/span>

the world\u2019s first olive tree<\/span>
springs up, millions will follow,<\/span>

their rough grey bark like lions\u2019 tongues,<\/span>
their little squab branches<\/span>

striving for sky at the year\u2019s command,<\/span>
ankle-deep in poor thin dry soil.<\/span>

The year is sleepless on her mother\u2019s side,<\/span>
wants to live where a lake<\/span>

lies quietly under the spell of its own name,<\/span>
where evening makes a quiet copy of everything,<\/span>

the year wants to live in <\/span>
a leaky green caravan in Cadiz<\/span>

or in an attic some place<\/span>
where the world won\u2019t think of looking for her\u2026<\/span>

The year makes many an arduous journey,<\/span>
one day scaling a mountain range,<\/span>

the next scanning a flat mirage-ridden <\/span>
monotony of sea ice,<\/span>
 <\/span>
now the year wears bird-feather gloves,<\/span>
bluethroat, greenwing teal, swan of the tundra,<\/span>

her sealskin boots are lined with caribou fur,<\/span>
her cape sewn from the pelt of the arctic hare\u2026<\/span>

At night, in the tent,<\/span>
by the faint shine of the lamp,<\/span>
the year carves maps on tablets of walrus ivory\u2026<\/span>

Poor year, her maps are out of date before the dawn\u2026<\/span>
So what?<\/span>

She knows her work is never done,<\/span>
she\u2019s a realist,<\/span>

tucks all her weathers<\/span>
under her humble hairy marvellous armpit,<\/span>
just watch her making sunshine<\/span>
from the gold of Frau Luther\u2019s wedding ring.<\/span>




<\/font>* Penelope Shuttle<\/span>'s
\n last collection Redgrove\u2019s Wife<\/span>
\n (Bloodaxe Books,
\n2006), was shortlisted for both the Forward Prize and T.S. Eliot Prize.
\nHer latest collection is Sandgrain and
\n Hourglass<\/span><\/a> (Bloodaxe Books,
\n2010).
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
<\/strong><\/font><\/div>\n





<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

proserpinei eat her lungs, in a dream,while she lies beside me. no,not eat, but inhale out of her body. she says: i am tired.she says: i am tired, and thenwe lie in a bed and talk, talknonsense \u2013 as if we kneweach other. her hair is colourless.her hair is colourless, like bleached scarab legs kept […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23875,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions\/23875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}