English Poems

Loss (Rounded is My Life)

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Loss

Rounded is my life, a jewel
sparkling in the summer rain,
spinning round the hollow axis
of a loss without a gain.

Will you for one moment only
silently pick up my pain,
hold it in your gentle hands and
watch the white and biting flame?

Will you say: I’ve seen you suffer?
Will you say: I’ve felt the same?
If you know me and you tell me,
then I have not lived in vain.

You alone can see the beauty
of this tall and forceful flame,
of this shadow of abundance,
of this ghost of life’s full game…

Shall I pass unknown, unnoticed,
shall I die in pointless pain?
You alone can read my eyes and
call me by my real name.

Christina Egan © 2013

The first half of this poem describes a bereavement or a loss akin to it, like a miscarriage or a divorce. The second half turns this work into a love poem or a religious poem; as often in my work, I keep it open. Some of these lines could therefore be read at a funeral.

It is June again, and in northern Europe, rain is as characteristic of this month as sunshine is, and it can be as pleasant! The season might also relate, as often in my poetry, to the person’s age: someone afflicted by loss in the midst of life, when they should be thriving.

Obsidian Mirror / Orangenzweig

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Obsidian Mirror Mirror made of a deep-black polished stone, on a wooden base.

The moonless night, the iron gate,
between the trees the winding path,
the nameless pond: a polished plate,
obscure and truthful looking-glass –

The moonless night, the nameless pond,
the outline of a cruel fate:
the leaves are shed, the blossom gone –
It is too late – It is too late.

Christina Egan © 2015

 

Orangenzweig

O Traum von Liebe, Traum von Licht
Oranges hanging from branches against blue skyauf einem duftenden Gesicht,
vom kleinen Rosengartenglück
aus einem mächtigen Geschick,
vom Dasein als Orangenzweig,
an Blüte reich und Frucht zugleich,
vom ganz bescheidnen Paradies,
das dir und mir ein Gott verhieß…
O Traum, der niemals untergeht –
Es ist zu spät. Es ist zu spät.

Christina Egan © 2016

 

The two poems contain an echo, and echo each other, in the phrase ‘It is too late’ — ‘Es ist zu spät’, which emphasises the futility of wishes and plans when fate is irrevocably against them.

Obsidian is a very dark and very hard stone. Some ancient civilisations used polished slabs as mirrors. Apparently, they were also employed for fortune-telling!

Photograph: Aztec mirror, Museum of the Americas, Madrid. – Simon Burchell via Wikimedia Commons. – Orange branch: Christina Egan © 2012.

May Haiku (Bruce Castle)

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

May Haiku
(Bruce Castle)

Glowing orange orbs,
cluster of new-born planets:
this year’s first roses!

*

Dusk, delayed, scented:
the earth emerged from the dark,
bedecked like a bride.

*

Below the half-moon
a low-flying aeroplane
slices up the sky.

*

The tower-clock strikes,
bright, as if an angel called:
Be alive! Alive!

Christina Egan © 2013

—

You can see a photo of Bruce Castle, Tottenham, London and read some similar poetry in German at Himmelblaue Uhr.

Himmelblaue Uhr (Tottenham)

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Himmelblaue Uhr
(Schloßpark zu Tottenham)

Die Dämmrung senkt sich auf die Flur.
In Vogelsang
tropft Glockenklang
von einer himmelblauen Uhr
an einem himbeerfarbnen Turm.

Die Rosen schimmern wie Laternen.
Von ringsum her
summt der Verkehr.
Ein Flugzeug funkelt zwischen Sternen
und segelt durch Kornblumenfernen…

Die Wetterfahne blinkt am Mast.
Ein Ruf, Gebell,
der Uhrschlag, hell –
Und alle Sorge, alle Hast
kommt zwischen Tor und Tor zur Rast.

Christina Egan © 2016

Manor house in red brick, turret painted in pink, with a red door, white decorations, and a bright-blue clockface, under a blue sky.

You can read similar poetry about a walk on a tranquil evening at May Haiku (Bruce Castle).

This is London, too — not only the steel and glass office blocks and underground tunnels I describe in höhlenmenschen / cavemen and related posts, or the bitter poverty I touch on in There’s door on door. London is, in fact, a particularly green city, and Tottenham a very green part of it.

Bruce Castle, Tottenham, London.
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2014

There’s Door on Door

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

There’s Door on Door

There’s door on door of painted wood
with potted plants and polished brass,
there’s row on row of gabled roofs,
there’s brick and plaster, hedge and grass.

There’s floor on floor of balconies,
above the din, above the dust,
inclusive of commodities,
there’s stone and concrete, steel and glass.

There’s door on door, there’s floor on floor,
but not for me, but not for me –
there’s brick and brass, there’s steel and glass,
exclusive of humanity.

There’s door on door, there’s floor on floor,
but not for us, but not for us –
one has a sofa in a store,
one has an archway in the dust.

Christina Egan © 2015

London, This Moment of May

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment
London, This Moment of May I. London, this moment of May. High stately building, lower part in deep shade, upper part brightly lit, with red double-decker bus passing.A Grand Canyon in grey, imperceptibly turning to purple, with an orange glow on its battlements – but teeming in all its cracks, with foam of blossom and bird-flight, with currents of people and cars. Not a city, but a county, a country, a proud world in itself, the planet in a valley, an open oblong fruit, rich with glistening seeds, in the giant hand of clay hollowed out by the Thames.

Photograph: Christina Egan © 2016

II. It is not mine, this city: I borrowed it. I borrowed it for a home, for a while, I borrowed its language, for good. Or it borrowed me, it borrowed my eyes to mount this tall bus, it borrowed my mouth to sing this new song. I run through its veins of walls and windows, of trees and lanterns… A Grand Canyon in grey. Or it runs through my veins, a pale-purple stream, murmuring, glittering… London, this moment of May. Christina Egan © 2013
The title alludes to the famous line by Virginia Woolf: “… what she loved; life; London; this moment of June.” I happened to write my poem in May, on a red bus…
P.S.: A year later, the climate across Europe has slid further into resentment towards foreigners or strangers of any description, be they war refugees or your next-door neighbours. There is a lot of blind anger and fear of vague entities like ‘Europe’ or ‘Islam’. This is the road to racism and fascism. My essay about my identity as an immigrant to England stayed on the front page of trade union UNISON‘s website for weeks: I dream in English. I come from one country, live in another, and plan to move to a third; yet my main identity is European at any rate!
>>> These poems were published in the Haringey Community Press (circulation 15,000) in September 2022.

April Rules the Land

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

April Rules the Land
(April haiku)

April rules the land,
leaden and golden in turns,
wayward as we are.

*

Oxford Street, busy,
a splintered rainbow, patterns,
shaken and broken.

*

The white narcissus 
sings with a voice as sweet as
her brother blackbird.

Christina Egan © 2000

—

The last haiku originally referred to ‘the ivory rose’, although in England, outdoor roses do not blossom yet in April. When I changed the wording to ‘the white narcissus’ to link it to the season and month, I did not know that the flower’s official name is Narcissus poeticus, or Poet’s Narcissus!

The ivory rose
sings with a voice as sweet as
her brother blackbird.

Ode to London Wall

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Ode to London Wall

Moss is conquering your broken stones,
weeds are rooting between your bricks;
but you still stand tall, Wall,
facing the winds, the seasons, the years.

The round foundations of your towers
harbour herbs now, neatly labelled;
but your walkways bore watchmen once,
to guard the goods going round and the people.

You lie at my feet now, tall Wall,
I look down from the walkway above you;
but when I step down by two thousand years,
I see you could shelter me still or crush me.

And then I seem to remember –
we have met before, Wall –
you guarded me indeed –
and I guarded you!

On the treacherous clay we erected you,
in the obnoxious fog and sleet:
even and straight and strong as a rock,
forming a line in the marshy meadow,

forming a square along the vague river,
forming a knot in the net of roads,
from London to Chester and York,
from Paris to Sousse and Palmyra.

O Wall of soldiers and explorers,
O Wall of merchants and accountants:
yes, you still stand tall and you talk,
you tell me to tell your story to all.

Christina Egan © 2015

High wall of neatly piled stone and brick in the midst of the city

You can see a section of the Wall of London and learn more about it in the Roman Galleries of the Museum of London. A visit there inspired me to write these lines. I talk to the stones as they talk to me; and I pass their story on.

Photograph: Roman city wall near Tower Hill Tube station,
by Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz).

—

London Wall Had Fallen Down

London Wall had fallen down,
brick by brick and stone by stone;
in the crenellation’s crown,
storks and starlings built their home.

London Wall stood in the mud,
but we fixed it brick by brick,
and we filled the wasteland up
with new lanes across the grid.

London Wall was melting down,
but we used it stone by stone;
and we built a bigger town
on the ground of proud old Rome!

Christina Egan © 2015

—

After the end of the Roman Empire, the Roman City of London was left uninhabited for generations, while a new city sprung up next to it; later, the original precincts became the centre again. This area is now known as ‘The City of London’, although it forms only a small part of the centre of town.

Musical score of 'London Bridge is falling down'

 

This little song alludes to the nursery rhyme London Bridge is falling down.

Proteus / Daedalus

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Proteus

Your beauty is the beauty of the clouds:
as grand and graceful, as remote,
from silver changing into gold,
and changing shape, and changing whereabouts.

Your beauty is the one of Proteus:
I’m bound to watch it swirl and stay,
afraid your heart will likewise sway,
innocuous and gay and treacherous.

Your beauty is the one of Morpheus:
I’m bound to drink it in a dream,
afraid of stumbling on that stream,
with ghostly flowers studded, murderous.

Your beauty is the beauty of the clouds.
your ever-present smile the gleam
behind their soft and tousled seam…
Your soul is what your face reveals and shrouds.

Christina Egan © 2012

—

Daedalus

I watch the condor pass:
lofty and lonely,
steady and strong,
improbable like Daedalus…

I watch the condor pass
and want to follow him
across the barren peaks –
I want to touch the clouds…

Christina Egan © 2012

Ashen Land (For Syria)

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Ashen Land
(For Syria)

The only offspring left calls from the eaves.
Some houses have a hundred hollow wounds,
and hamlets of a dozen centuries
surrender to contending winds their rooms.

The olive-trees stretch out their silver leaves
like angels’ feathers in a cry for peace.
Where is the comfort for a bird that grieves,
the peace for ashen land? Is it beneath?

It is beneath the nettles and the shards,
beneath the venom seeped into the field;
it is above the silver heaps of stars,
a seed of unimaginable yield.

Christina Egan © 2016

Olive grove, trunks and tree-tops silvery grey, like ashes.Photograph: ‘Olivenbäume in Umbrien’ by Adrian Michael.

I found this marvellous illustration on Wikimedia Commons long after I wrote the poem. I had not even thought of the silver bark and leaves resembling ashes…

In the past few years, millions of Syrians have lost their homes and possessions, or their jobs or studies, or their health or their limbs, or their loved ones or their own lives. The national liberation movement has turned into an apparently bottomless civil war, a literally insane religious war, and a vicarious war of outside powers. This conflict will change the face of the Near East and the face of Europe. Meanwhile, the suffering continues.

Let us pray for peace in Syria. All together.