CITIES

Purple Dusk (Bankside, London)

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Nocturne in Purple and Grey
(Bankside, London)

Hemmed with the sequins of lamps
the silver carpet of the river,
the lilac scarves of the bridges, the buildings.

People are blown about like brown leaves.
A few boats float, dozing,
awaiting brighter days.

The hues of lily and lavender
rise, for a moment, and blend,
with a pale memory of their scents.

Great and grey, the river strides past,
great and grey, the moment slides past,
like a graceful line of wild geese.

Christina Egan © 2005

River scene in dreamy bluish hues: gigantic bridge pillar, man on small boat, city on shore.

 

An early-spring impression in pale lilac and silvery grey. Bankside is the southern shore of the Thames in London.

Many years after I wrote those lines, I noticed the similarity with Turner’s mesmerising Nocturnes and renamed the text!

For a German poem depicting purple dusk see ostseeschlaflied (Darß).

 

Nocturne in Blue and Gold. Oil painting by J. A. M. Whistler, showing Battersea Bridge in London, ca. 1872-1875. Tate Gallery, London.

The Hallowed City

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

The Hallowed City

I.

Aliusque et idem nasceris

When last I looked upon that golden hill,
the only coal-grey clouds along its crest
were pine-trees of Mediterranean zest,
clear-cut against the blue, timeless and still.
When I surveyed the city from the west,
beyond the river and the seventh hill,
my thirsty eyes rejoiced and drank their fill…
A pilgrimage it was and pagan quest.
Behind me passed the Sun on wheels of fire,
accompanied by Mnemosyne’s lyre.
Was this my long-lost and recovered home?
Born here and buried, had I now returned,
the same and not the same? My eye-lids burned.
This is the hallowed city. This is Rome.

Christina Egan © 2018

Drawing of curving Roman aqueducts crossing over

II.

Pulchrae loca vertor ad urbis

My eyes have seen the marble halls of Rome,
resplendent like the mighty mistress Moon
and multi-coloured like a field in bloom;
I’ve watched the buildings grow in brick and stone.
I’ve stood beneath the proud and perfect dome
which emulates the heavens’ sparkling room
and holds our destiny from dawn to doom.
I’ve roamed those hills and called a roof my home.
I’ve heard the chanting children, sighing harps,
the darting chariots and creaking carts,
the swish of virgin water, purple wine,
I’ve seen the aqueducts descend and curve,
the roads roll into Rome, unite, disperse —
I’ve tasted all that splendour. It was mine.

Christina Egan © 2018

The first blogpost of the year deals, as always, with Roman roads!

The impression of aqueducts, which illustrated one of my parents’ books about ancient civilisations, informed my entire life. Unfortunately, I do not know the artist, but there does not seem to be a copyright on it.

The quotes are from two Roman poems about Rome, Horace’s Carmen saeculare and Ovid’s Tristia.

I apply Horace’s idea that the sun is daily reborn, another and yet the same, to a person who feels he or she was reborn into this world many centuries later, another and yet the same; and I reinterpret Ovid’s lament about remembering his home from exile as a modern person’s longing for antiquity. Mnemosyne is the Greco-Roman divinity of memory, and the Sun and Moon, of course, are mighty gods, or at least representations of gods.

Kerzenbekrönt

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Kerzenbekrönt

Senkt sich die Dämmrung an frostigen Tagen
– früher denn jemals, doch zauberhaft blau –
hängt über stolzen gewölbten Mansarden,
hält über giebelgeschmückten Fassaden,
bannt aus dem Geiste das leidige Grau.

Stürzen Gestirne herab in Kaskaden
– feucht ist das Pflaster, doch goldengetönt –
spannen sich Perlen an Faden um Faden
blinkend und bebend von Laden zu Laden
bis an die Kirchtürme, kerzenbekrönt.

Christina Egan © 2016

This poem was inspired by a front page photograph of the superb newspaper Agora  in Fulda, Germany, which I had folded over. Then I noticed that beneath the idyllic historical street lit up for Christmas, an industrial container had been inserted through photo montage: as a makeshift home for a refugee family. I felt I had to write a second poem, which you can find at Farbechte Hoffnung.

The street shown is Friedrichstraße, which gives you quite a good impression of past centuries, despite severe damage during the Second World War and ensuing changes. Fulda is quite good for midwinter holidays because of the Christmas Market, the nativity scenes in the churches, numerous festive events… and the snow in the mountains.

When the Snow Falls

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

When the Snow Falls

Tiny fir tree and orange nasturtium covered with thick melting snow.

When the snow falls,
when the snow calls
with its crystal-clear voice,
when the streets hum,
when the streets drum
with their boisterous noise,
when the fog shifts,
when the fog lifts
and the sun gilds the stone –
let your smile grow,
for a while know
you are never alone

Christina Egan © 2019

Photograph: Christina Egan © 2017.

This poem was commissioned for a Christmas card by a university library.
Feel free to write or print it in your cards, as long as acknowledge me as the author somewhere.

Notnormal

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Notnormal

Lightningwhite
vast rib vaults
suspended
in brilliantblue
and a rainbow frame
dazzling and doubling and
tripling
around Broadwater Farm.

Large deep-yellow flower shaped like a star with five points.Four feet tracing
pavements pathways
the brooks underground
the trains underground
with the windinyourhair
and the sunonyourskin.

Fivefoldflame flowers
dancing for joy
rolling up into fruit
while ivory butterflies
and bumblebees feed
on lavender forests.

Time to cook
food and eat
food
Time to talk
into a telephone
time to talk
Orange soup in blue bowl on placemat striped orange and blue.talkandlisten
Timetogether.

All this is not normal.

All this is mental
detrimental
to your output
to your outfit
on all platforms
detrimental
to your attitudes
to your platitudes
diametrical
to the narrative.

This is the new
Notnormal.
This must stop
fullstop.

Kestrel egg, quite round, buff and dappled.Otherwise
more stained statues will fall
and heads of heads will roll
and skyscrapers skygraters
surveying the Thames
will be kestrels’ apartments
their amenities reclaimed
by the reeds and the weeds
by the swans and the swifts
by the songs in the dusk
and the
silence
under the crystal crescent.

Christina Egan © 2020

Hoping for a revolution in the suspended time of the C-19 pandemic…

Under the lockdown, the air had become so clear that on May 1st, 2020, I did see a triple rainbow around the apartment blocks of Broadwater Farm.

For more thoughts from the first phase of the pandemic in London in spring 2020, see Hidden Rivers / Verborgne Flüsse.

Courgette flower / Carrot soup. Photographs: Christina Egan © 2020. — Kestrel egg at the Muséum de Toulouse. Photograph by Didier Descouens via Wikimedia. Copyright: CC BY-SA 3.0.

Children of the sun and moon

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Children of the sun and moon

When we drift through ink-blue dusk
under the twigs of moon-white blossom,
under the crystal orbs of street-lamps,
under the shadeless signals of neon,

when we slide across concrete squares
and sail around sharp and rounded corners,
restless and vigorous, at home in the dark,
at home in the city, nocturnal birds,

we know deep down that we are still
children of the sun and moon:
the sun must rise in our eyes,
the moon must rise in our brain;

we must admit that we are still
children of the earth and sky:
the spring must rise in our bones,
the stars must rise in our veins.

Christina Egan © 2016

Window Seat

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Window Seat

You beat me to the window seat,
Silhouette of man against tall window with curtains.the secret poets’ nest;
you watched the broad and busy street,
a highway on your quest.

You beat me to the poets’ prize,
without a rhyme or form:
you saw the faces floating by
in the approaching storm,

you caught the litter and the leaves,
the puddles and the birds
and strung them as bizarre bright beads
on your vibrating verse.

Christina Egan © 2019

The poem has its origin in a coffee bar in a busy high street in London. It was published in the Tottenham Community Press (print issue of December 2018).

The elusive poet in a window seat. Photograph: Christina Egan © 2017.

The Eagle’s Outpost

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

The Eagle’s Outpost

Gently, I lay my hand upon a stone:
it snuggles up to my pulsating palm.
The last time it enjoyed the sun god’s balm,
he gilded nimble chariots of Rome,
and legionnaires patrolled the city walls
above the river of a thousand miles,
while olives, dates and spices glowed in piles
and glittering fabrics flowed from shaded stalls.
The halls were fashioned of a thousand stones;
so were the roads rolled out to many lands;
and all were laid by many thousand hands…
This eagle’s outpost held ten thousand souls –
A dream of dreams, lifted into the light:
I was in Dura Europos last night.

Christina Egan © 2018

Runis of fortress on hilltop in arid land, above wide river with green fields.

The ruins of Dura Europos above the Euphrates, today in Syria, in 2016.
Photograph by Marina Milella [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

 

After 500 poems, the usual poem about a Roman Road to start the year!

 

This is the End (Yet all will be well)

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

This is the End

Most days are too harsh, and most days are too dark,
and most hours are trundling along through a void,
while the moons fade away, barely leaving a ray,
and proud cities, piled up to the clouds, are destroyed.

Yet all will be well, yes, it yet will be well,
and all manner of things will be well in the end,
when in fathomless bliss like a fathomless kiss
all the stars, all the spirits will brighten and blend.

Christina Egan © 2004

Lines five and six are a quote from Sister Julian of Norwich,
an English hermit and mystic who lived six hundred years ago.

In Advent, which this year starts today, Christians also think of
the inevitable and terrifying end of the world.

Massive stone walls piled upon each other

The Tower of Jericho, around 9,000 years old. Photograph:
Reinhard Dietrich (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons.

Tranquil Dragon

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Tranquil Dragon

Embroidered with orange lights
are the fanned steel wings of the bridge

suspended in the summer night,
a tranquil dragon bringing luck. 

Wide is the night and warm,
like the dark wine of old and ardent love.

The sky reads the low, slow river
as my eye reads yours in a dream.

Sparkling with lights is the city,
sparkling with lights is my soul.

Christina Egan © 2003

Dragons, of course, are noble and bring luck in Chinese mythology.

I must have been thinking of Hammersmith Bridge in London.

You can read more poems about suspension bridges at On the Orange Bridge (San Francisco) and Rosenquarzkammern (Malmö).