Anthropophony
I’m tuning in to territories
like we’d tune in to stations on the radiogram.
The shortwave chiff-chaff
with the dial stuck, the maudlin willow warbler,
the blackcap trying and failing to be a nightingale.
And this is work.
In the airwaves of Africa
the switch turns on
and it’s 3,000 miles from Senegal.
Swallows, martins and swifts
are charged particles inside storms
that bloom like static over the Med.
Somewhere west of Hilversum
the migrants enter our reception
and this is work and fortitude.
And it’s all noise; the time-lapse of
trees engineering chlorophyll.
The way the light gets in the way life gets in.
The Lune’s analogue hauls itself towards the hills
with curlews and oystercatchers
broadcasting from shingle and field.
And this is work and fortitude and fortune.
And right on cue, hoverflies
and all the other insect gizmos
begin transmissions.
For one night only, the mayfly dancehall of desire
is in full swing above the river’s glitterball.
And this is work and this is food.
I’m trying hard to unscramble the signals
but our human frequencies make so much din.
Take away the machines
and this is all that’s left.
Pull up a chair.
Lean close listen to the view.
Karen Lloyd is writer in residence with Lancaster University’s Future Places Centre. She is the author of Wainwright longlisted Abundance: Nature in Recovery (Bloomsbury, 2021). Her poetry pamphlet Self Portrait as Ornithologist is published by Wayleave Press. www.karenlloyd.co.uk
Note: Anthropophony is the term used to describe all human-made sounds from language to music and machines.
light held close to the sun for punishment
there’s a cyclone in the cupboard
a rose is allowed two wives
fifty swans skid downriver
is the earth on fire
death masks bound in lionskin
were you brought up kindly
or was the whip of the tongue your mum
is the earth on fire
various backbones
various gloves
various Novembers
is the earth on fire
brimstone and buttercup keep schtoom
moon has the quality of mercy
goosegrass can’t come to the rescue
is the earth on fire
giraffstrich and zebril blink their golden eyes
the church door’s made of paper
the sharks’ll have my body and the devil my soul
is the earth on fire
Penelope Shuttle was born in Staines in 1947 and lives in Cornwall. Her eighth collection, Redgrove’s Wife (Bloodaxe Books), 2006, was shortlisted for The Forward Prize and for The T S Eliot Award. With Peter Redgrove, she is co-author of The Wise Wound. Here most recent Bloodaxe collection is Lyonesse. This is her website: http://www.penelopeshuttle.co.uk/
Notes: the giraffstrich and the zebril are imaginary animals drawn by Gerard Scarfe for the animated film Hercules, 1997. This poem was first published in Footprints: an anthology of new eco-poems, Broken Sleep, June 2022
September 20th 2019 ~ Global Climate Strike
In the boughed September- slow morning
a pair of skylarks giddy above the rusty fell – spin
and soar to specks of dust. A buzzard hovers,
swallows feed their last over thistle-cast fields,
butterflies paint gorse through rowan and blackberry air.
A squirrel skitters the snow-line wall towards
a thicket of hazels, stops, backtracks, stones
holding past and future. Dogs at my feet
don’t want to run or say goodbye to the sun’s gentle hands.
Rain is forecast but not in Botswana
where now horses, hippos and buffalo
are heaving their bones thin as hope
through parched plains, following dry lines
sinking to their necks in paths of mud to find
no water. Today wherever there is light in the world
streets are flooded with strikers, saviours
who don’t want the earth to die.
Kerry Darbishire lives with her husband in Cumbria where most of her poetry is rooted. Her two full collections were published by Indigo Dreams: A Lift of Wings( 2014) and Distance Sweet on my Tongue (2018). She has been placed in competitions, and recently gained 2nd prize in Folklore and was commended in Grey Hen and Ware Poets competitions 2021; some of her work will be performed by The Cumbria Opera Group’s Lakeland Cycle in September 2021. She was joint winner of the Hedgehog Press Full Fat Collection prize in 2021.
Note: First published published in Jardinière – Hedgehog Press 2022, and in Different Days – Grey Hen Press 2022