Advice To One Who Is Single
A Golden Shovel
‘True love. Is it normal? Is it serious? Is it practical? What does the world get, Warrior?
Two people who exist in a world of their own.’ From The Celtic Book of Days
The last night in November – it’s true
the dead were dancing with the fairies. The dead – and the fairies – love
music and wine, not the chill cold earth which is
where they must return in the Black Month; rain, it
may seep up your legs and creep into your liver. Normal,
but not pleasant. Place an oatmeal poultice on your feet – there is
no need to wash. Is that a weasel rattling behind your bed? Coax it
with a dish of fresh suet. It’s easily tamed. They are a more serious
threat after heavy rain. At Christmas it will turn dark yellow – it is
their ritual. Any wish you make will be granted in the magic hour. When is it?
No-one can tell. Meanwhile, golden butter, for practical
reasons, should be given in a new-made dish – say what
you like in the spell – to actually win your love it does
need to be offered in the presence of a mill, a stream, and the
tree on which you have already carved his or her name. The world
is wilder this season – such a dirty stormy night. Get
the ducks out of the nettles. Bitter is the wind like a fierce warrior
it tosses the ocean’s white hair. Be faithful like the two
eagles guarding the old king’s grave. People
speak of demons walking out of the sea, demons who
brandish fiery clubs and drop fire into the water. They exist
because we have been frightened all year. We shrink down in
our houses, avoid the rough, sharp wind. A woman or a
man must bed down on a pallet in a stall with their cattle. The world
is wilder but there are the unstung ducks and weasels with their miracle of
yellow. The Devil may steer the plough, and toads may pull it in their
harnesses but they are months behind while you are ahead, gladly on your own.
Pam Thompson is a writer, educator and reviewer based in Leicester. Her works include include The Japan Quiz (Redbeck Press, 2009) and Show Date and Time, (Smith|Doorstop, 2006). Pam’s collection, Strange Fashion, was published by Pindrop Press in 2017. She is a Hawthornden Fellow.
Mother Bear
I unwrap the tissue, smell the mustiness.
They were like gauntlets, reaching her elbows.
Unlike me, she was slight. I touch the velvet,
mottled from dust mites. At once I’m back
in the craved seat beside her at Midnight Mass,
with its holy water, candlelight and incense,
the priest rambling on about family love.
The organ fires up, and I join in Silent Night,
proud of my ability to read difficult words.
All the while she sits miming a drumbeat,
like an arrhythmic heart, patting one paw
over the other. I lean towards her, stroke her
brown fur, glance at her face, hope she’ll smile
back, but her eyes have only that faraway look.
Mary Mulholland is widely published and frequently mentioned in competitions. She co-edits The Alchemy Spoon and founded Red Door Poets. Her pamphlet is What the sheep taught me (Live Canon) 2022.www.marymulholland.co.uk twitter @marymulhol facebook
Yuletide Snapshot
Back in the north we walked in a field
with a frozen hawthorn hedge beside us
where you constructed the photograph
you later said you knew would go viral.
That far into a year, those four red haws
were fluke survivors, protected by knots
of twig and thorn covered in furry ice,
a shadow of wood still visible beneath.
The berries had somehow managed
to avoid, or lose, any hint of hoary coat —
their burnished crimson skins reacting
differently to a trace of winter sunshine.
You zoomed in, used your lens to render
a small world big enough to fill a screen,
then breathed to add a cryptic loop of mist
which made your picture almost perfect.
Oliver Comins’ poetry is collected in pamphlets by The Mandeville Press and Templar Poetry, in Anvil Press New Poets Two (ed. Carol Ann Duffy) and in a full collection (Oak Fish Island) also from Templar.