Alan Corkish

Extracts from Book '3' Growing Up,

of the autobiographical poem Glimpses of Notes

For Kathy, who never spoke,

the r~i~v~e~r stood still

and land flowed

by on either side

she

endured life

spoke

only after d e a t h

only to

**********************

My small town floats

in its own

reality and outside{r} in the night

strange creatures walk through

their private dreams outside of the

frame

Mopochatcha Pocket Snatcher

in pork-pie hat; greatcoat

ending one inch

above his polished boots stands

erect in

Pegram’s door way

smoking a woodbine

lit by a gas-street-lamp

Malcolm the allsort-

addict passes carrying his bike OUT

cos it carried him IN

Scrange the Whistler

emerges

tall and slim as a birch rod

floating upwards through the slats

in the grid

whistling onwards fingers jammed

beneath his tongue

sending his private melodies

into the night scented air

Scoops in

woo\

\den clogs

bends to hear

what junior Shoofler with his

inherited

D e f o r m e d feet is whispering

and finds he is singing softly

along with Scrange

a cat scrambles over Irvine’s wall

looking for fishheads

and a lone dog pads

up the narrowlane from

the coal-flecked quayside

home to naked Mrs Trotter

and Geddawook for warm

milk and r a b b i t meat

to curl up after on the patchworked

bed

with the heat of the iron-oven-door

in a teacloth beneath

...in her lone bed

across the landing

mother murmurs to my absent

father

a curlew calls

to three new stars

for that would be

the day {~ay~ay}

that

Ritchie, BB

'n sweet Buddy |

|died

*******************************************************

Rabbit-ing

Firmly barruled

beneath wind-ripped

reflecting light n battery

heavily strapped n dogs silent

n bloody draped carcases heavy/

/lung scorching

heat

from

body

ripped

as downthedown

n thud of heavy boots

with light dancing then

stopped straight

to beam eye direction

n snap

as quickly

move

quickly

and the wind~~~rolling

and the breath like

stick lebacks

Hairpin = van waiting

two hundred guts

tumble ‘n

all at 9d a lb plus pelts

Youcouldyousing

*******************************

Peter the Painter

Ticket 0f Leave

Terrorist

[absconded

snuck in via

Jurby Beach]

taught me and Kenny

to sing

Kevin Barry

in Gerry’s candle-lit flat

above the brook

with the dozens of car-battery-

operated tv’s piled high

silently tuned

Into

everything

When all was

Black and White

[naive perfection]

we drank

Bushmills

with hot-sugared water from

the kettle on the open fire

played chess

til late

and put the

World to Rights

**********************

17 and shut off from reality

heavy with dark rum i guided her

to the house on

the hill where the

grotesquely humorous Dr Hook

waited with his

torn sheets ~ cotton-

wool ~

hot-water and that

fisherman’s knife with the

brass clasp that made her recoil

into my arms

Gagging with the fumes

from the pad ~~~ standing above her

holding tight to one hand stifling

her screams with that

vomit-inducing ether

for close to two hours

until

his eyes dark and fear-filled

told me it was over.

Afterwards i filled the carrier bags

with blooded scraps as she

laced a cotton pad between her

legs; shoulders-rocking... retching...

sobbing...

hand-on-bruised-distended-stomach...

and then i picked up

a globule and wiped it clean

perfectly curled in that

foetal position

three inches long

with sightless balls for eyes

and perfect toes and fingers...

Now; forty years on

i see it still; its eyes now

are blue and can see

the real me, the one who

planned and executed

no point in refusing

to accept

in arguing that i am

not he, feebly urging that he

has gone totally

...every atom and molecule...

for i know that something

intangible is still the same and

so i accept the accusing stare

a reminder of the continuity

of my life

and the finality of its.

*********************************************************************************

Kibbutz Niram when

Vodka and Ice meant

six whole oranges juiced

as a side order and

When Dee and Tom bust

up and i took her swim

ming

in the hot salted

ness

and,

with her thighs on

my shoulders,

in the cool orange grove i

tasted the

hot salted

ness

of her

...she was my world and every

breath i take...

Sun-beat broke backs

towards noon but i

worked on spreading

the brown sticky mortar on the

white heat of those

ungraceful stones which would

never sit straight... and paid...

skin stripped

and that

feeling of helpless nausea

that told you n/ever...

[again]

Laughter of children in our

bunkrooms at sunset

with Jericho teaching

them to sing

or to play

his mandolin

Chords

which would

enter

in their own

time tripping

the fading corridors

of memory

voices

never to be heard

echoes of dreamland

again tumbling over the

speakers insistent

call to prayer

flitting through

a sullied mind thirty

years hence

*****************************************************************************************

...laced with L

i took Anne’s

child

upon my knee

~Monk’s Brilliance

hovering in the Corners

of my senses~

and shook the

Qualtrough’s lemonade

bottle until the bubbles

gushed explosively

and i giggled for

hours

and she did

too

Then i realised that

she

saw

all

that

i saw...

@ Alan Corkish, 2007

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