Angels by Steve Rudd

People claim they can see Angels: so what?
Angels are just a problem of scale - you look
At clouds for long enough, they will sprout wings;

Angels, sylphs, undines, gnomes and salamanders,
Why should we count any of them holy?
Their iron wings stretched out to gather the traffic,

They are the lightning when two spheres collide
And the electric air tintinabulates, sparks,
Arcing with choirs of cherubim and seraphim
As two worlds swing and sway, their portals open,
pealing like the bells of angelus.

Like Blake, I've started seeing them everywhere:
Angels hovering over power stations -
(The stations of the cross)

They watch for me: and the hitcher who vanished
From my backseat on that dark and rainy night
Has probably left a single downy feather:

"So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame
Angels affect us oft, and worshipped be"
Does this include that tall dark stranger
By the black canal, who waits
Wings folded patiently, for the lonely midnight drunk,
(Who is also me) to see him safely home?

Does this include the gardeners, now dead
Who left their nurseries for other trenches
But come back on summer evenings
When early moths float under earth-scented leaves?
I do not know about these messengers, enigmatic hearsay,
Tales told by old women to their daughters
Told by old men of Mons to cub reporters.

I only know that, now I speak to angels,
All angels have become one angel,
Whose voice I will hear from now on in my mind:
All angel voices are now one voice, and it's yours.

Garrulus Glandarius by Steve Rudd

Mister Popinjay, up on his branch

Considers all the angles

Before committing;

Head on one side,

Matching the slant of light through branches

Jaunty but wary

Like a young lad, out upon the town,

Entering an unfamiliar bar.

Mister Popinjay

Brought me the summer

- a gift for which I’m grateful -

By decking his house with green

And wearing gaudy feathers.

Fluttering down from somewhere near at hand

He lets me pay him peanuts for his trouble.

Mister Popinjay

Is nothing special

In the greater scheme of things –

He gets a bad press, like cuckoos and magpies

And yet his gaudy feathers’re numbered

Like the hairs on my head

As are those of his colourful siblings

- Or so I’m told.

Mister Popinjay,

Millions of years

Turned you from dinosaur to bird

And brought you to my feeding-table

This Sunday teatime, to what purpose

God alone knows;

Now the moment’s gone again –

You’ve flown far from me, like a lover –

-  “they flee from me, that sometime did me seek”

- But you have seared my mind with coloured feathers and

Infected me with your sheeny jauntiness, now my head too

Is held sideways, looking for the sunlight, jaunty but wary,

Even if you never return, though I hope you will, often,

That, at least, I have to thank you for.

Deborah Tyler-Bennett interviewed by Strange Alliances

http://strangealliances.wordpress.com/2013/04/13/deborah-tyler-bennett-on-lacing-words-together/

Storm Damage by Steve Rudd

Counting the cost, the morning after;

Not as bad as I’d first thought

The roof is still in place, and all the chimneys

Still lean as crazy as yesterday

One plastic greenhouse lurches over, all

Seed trays in a jumble, its strained sides

Still ruffled by each diminished blast,

And the fence of willow screen lies flattened

Twigs and branches strewn around

As though God had cast the I Ching,

Sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind

With a power that swayed even cathedral spires

Dislodging bats and rooks, unwilling into the night.

I have lived through many storms,

And each has left its mark on me

Each scar, rebuffed by the vast blast,

Despite the wind’s moan, I remain a survivor

Who has spent many nights lying awake

Listening to the tiles fall off my life,

Too scared to go outside

Or get up there and stop it.

But, today, it’s not too bad,

Like many things in life, it could have been much worse,

And so today we make a list

Of all the things needing fixing,

Sigh, and stoop to build again.

Things that need fixing; a long, long list,

Starting with me, although I fear

There, I might have to manage my expectations;

This sunshine’s only temporary –

Enjoy it while you can;

For there will be other nights

Listening to mysterious crashes in the dark,

The howling winds of despair,

The sound of breaking glass.

Deborah Tyler-Bennett at Warwick Arts Centre

King's England poet and short-story writer Deborah Tyler-Bennett will be reading at Warwick Arts Centre on May 20th at 7.45pm

Ambulances by Steve Rudd

Touch my head,
Touch my toes,
Never go
In one of those;

My warding-off rhyme, as a snotnosed kid
Fear tightenng my chest
Whenever I saw their white shape weaving
Through traffic; or heard their urgent bells on the main road.
Always, it meant trouble - someone gasping on a carpet:
“Meat wagons”, my dad would call them, dredging up
Words from his war, when they hosed them out,
Their floors red with shedding.

Women down our street would stop their gossip
And nod, knowingly, at these omens on wheels;
Wishing them on their way elsewhere, the clang
Diminishing to distance; a slight pause
Then everyone pretended nowt had happened,
While those who summoned the pale carriage, elsewhere,
By paradox, were willing its approaching siren stronger.

These days, I’ve been in so many ambulances.
They’ve grown to be part of my life.
Bigger, yellow, and friendlier now somehow, these days;
But they still barge along the road wailing
Like widows, their blue lights strobing distress
In all directions.

I can handle it better now, though; now I’ve been in one -
Been to the terminus, been that sick white face
Above the orange blanket on the trolley.
Slam the doors, accelerate away, woo-wooing.
Been there, done that, and now,

I no longer dread all ambulances;
Just the last one.

Deborah Tyler Bennett at Nottingham Festival of Words

Deborah Tyler-Bennett is writer in residence at the Nottingham Festival of Words.
She will also be reading at Debbie Bryan's shop, Lace Market, 18 St Mary's Gate, Nottingham event 5-7pm, Friday 15th February 2013