Real dreams
The saxophone blows golden loops
of grief into the golden air…
Amongst the crowd, I am alone –
my life is cracked beyond repair.
The saxophone, the sinking sun
release a web of golden streams…
Not even memories are mine
but only memories of dreams.
The bus arrives and carries me
away from unrhymed elegies.
Not even real dreams are mine
but only dreams of memories.
Christina Egan © 2014
The plant on the window-sill
It is shining, it is glowing,
while the sun is rising high!
It is stretching, it is growing,
so am I, oh, so am I!
It is breathing, it is throbbing,
full of blossom, full of birth!
It is floating, it is bobbing
on the bubble of the earth!
Christina Egan © 2015
Die Macht der Königin der Nacht
In der Mittsommermitternacht
ist ein schneeweißer Stern mir erwacht,
eine bebende Blütenblattüte:
Mit heimlicher Königsmacht
hat ein Kaktus den Funken entfacht,
eine klare Trompetenblüte!
Christina Egan © 2013
The Tree at the Corner
I gather air and light,
I filter drop on drop,
till there is liquid life:
my waving hands’ green blood.
I give you air and shade
with my bright canopy,
till there is solid gold
through age-old alchemy!
Christina Egan © 2015
Was der Baum im Winter tut
Mit tausend nackten Zweigen hält der Baum
gleich einem gläsernen gewölbten Kelch
die Gänserufe und den Amselsang,
das gleißend hingegossne letzte Gold
und dann das Pfauenblau der frühen Nacht…
Und jene Stille wie ein Geigenklang.
Christina Egan © 2013
Photographs: Christina Egan © 2013/2014/2016
These lines portray plants as living creatures and active participants in this universe.
The non-descript pot-plant stays in its place, yet it gives and takes, grows and procreates — and presumably enjoys life, particularly in spring.
Around summer solstice, the humble cactus suddenly pushes out an unlikely flower, shaped like a trumpet and dazzling like a star: it has revealed itself as a Queen of the Night!
The everyday tree turns the inanimate elements into living matter; and it brings forth beauty even while that life turns towards death again in autumn.
Around winter solstice, the bare tree perceives the beauty of this earth — sunset and dusk, birdsong and silence — or at least, it forms part of this array for us.
Gingerbread Man
God made you of some gingerbread
which over time intensifies:
so that with every year, your breath
will taste of hotter, sweeter spice!
Christina Egan © 2014
—
We Married on the Ferris-Wheel
Vienna quivered in the heat
for our furtive feast:
we married on the ferris-wheel
(we kissed on it, at least).
The palaces shone yellow-white
like lemon cakes with glaze:
we married in the royal grounds
(we kissed within a maze).
That summer rolled into a ball
and down the hill of time –
Vienna basks in splendour still,
my bridegroom still is mine!
Christina Egan © 2014
—
String of Pearls
Your presence makes this globe that whirls
the best of all existing worlds —
your kisses make this blob a pearl
from which a string of worlds unfurls!
Christina Egan © 2015
—
Asteroid
He inhabits his own tiny planet,
a fragment of rock, you might say;
his orbit seems steep and erratic
and often immensely away.
Yet, what you can’t see from your garret
nor find in your smart telescopes:
it’s two of them snug on that comet
that’s studded with roses and oaks.
Christina Egan © 2010
Enamel
Dreams
made of enamel,
panels in peacock plumage,
in crimson and ivory patches,
in frames of gold.
Dreams
poured into pictures,
of wide-eyed faces,
of white-winged boats,
of bursting baskets.
Dreams
fished out of night,
luminous, solid,
age-old, valid,
with veins of gold.
Christina Egan © 2014
Image: Casket from court of Aquitaine (around 1180). With kind permission of the British Museum. http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_mla/e/enamel_casket.aspx
Harvest moon
A crystal ball suspended
above the park, black, blurred:
as if a god descended
onto this worn-out world.
The branches stretch their fingers,
the flowers crane their necks
towards the orb that shimmers
into the deepest cracks.
Tonight we see the largest
and brightest star that blooms:
this is the moon of harvest,
this is the moon of moons.
Christina Egan © 2015
Poems about Roses, Life & Death
Sonnengelb
Im sonnengelben Tüllgewand
mit rosarotem Rüschenrand
schwankt sie im satten Bühnenlicht
von Gleichgewicht zu Gleichgewicht:
die königliche Tänzerin,
die Rose namens Harlekin!
Sunny Yellow
Dressed in sunny yellow gauze
hemmed with ruffs like rosy haze,
perfect poise in every pose,
in the lime-light there she sways,
dancing-girl of regal grace:
Harlequin, the motley rose!
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2013 – Texts: Christina Egan © 2015
—
The Giant Rose
The giant rose, pale yellow, slightly flushed,
still opens and expands and grows more lush
with every breath.
Yet its intoxicating scent deceives:
for through her delicate and ample leaves
runs silent death.
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2009 – Text: Christina Egan © 2013
—
Crimson silk
A cushion of crimson silk
and swelling still,
a mouth of countless lips,
of soundless words,
the red rose
stands
releasing its heavy scent
like crimson streamers, crimson streams,
until I feel it on my tongue
like ivory-coloured marzipan!
Christina Egan © 2015
—
Gelbe Rose
In Sonnengelb und Aprikose
reckt sich die prallgefüllte Rose
in ihrem reifsten Augenblick,
als eine Frau – in gelb gekleidet,
mit goldnem Haar – vorüberschreitet
mit schwebendem und festem Schritt.
Die Rose weiß noch nichts vom Welken,
entfaltet sich im hohen gelben,
vermeintlich abendlosen Licht…
Die Frau schaut lange, hält den Atem
in jenem festtagsbunten Garten,
wo ihre Jugend jetzt zerbricht.
Christina Egan © 2011
—
Sonnengelb and Sunny Yellow are parallel creations. The flower in the vase and the flower in the painting looked exactly the same — in their striking shapes and colours as well as in size and maturity…
Gelbe Rose (Yellow rose) compares a rose in shades of apricot and sunflower and a woman with similar clothes and blond hair. The flower, at the height of her life, does not know that age and death are about to strike; but the woman does.
You will find more roses in the sonnet Der letzte Tag des Sommers ist gekommen.
Anaconda, Anaconda
Slowly slides the anaconda,
through the thicket, through the grass,
undulating, scintillating,
like a rope of murky glass,
ochre and opaque and glinting,
like a river without name,
or a mountain-range in motion,
powered by a hidden flame.
Such a swerving, sparkling serpent
is the history of man,
each millennium of suffering
but a patch or pattern’s span
and each life of toil and longing
but a gold-rimmed muddy scale,
heaving, weaving through the jungle,
seeing neither head nor tail.
Christina Egan © 2015
The Tower of Jericho, around 9,000 years old. Photograph:
Reinhard Dietrich (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons.
Midsummernight Far North
(Darss)
This is the edge of the land.
The number of signals is seven:
The shimmering sand,
the green in the sea,
the red in the sky,
the crescent and star,
the bonfire’s glint,
the lighthouse’s fan,
the flashing afar —
The number of wonders is seven.
This is the midsummernight,
this is the height of the light,
this is the hem of the heavens.
We are alive.
We are together.
This is all here.
This is forever.
Christina Egan © 2015
—
The Darß (Darss) is a tranquil strip of land between some lakes and the Baltic Sea.
Around summer solstice, dusk is only between ten and eleven (summertime).
A German poem about dusk on the Darss is ostseeschlaflied (Baltic Sea Lullaby).
The Man is Not in his Seat
The coffee is still on the table,
the table is still in the street,
the seat is still in the corner:
but the man is not in his seat.
Perhaps he has gone to his office,
perhaps he has gone to the park;
perhaps he’ll be back in a minute,
perhaps he’ll be back before dark.
I think he is due in the morning,
I think he is due every day;
I think we have all of us seen him
whenever the bus passed this way.
The coffee dries out on the table,
the table is still in the street,
the seat is still in the corner:
but the man is not in his seat.
A friend may have called at the café
and lead him away with a smile;
or a man in a car brought a message,
so he said: I might be a while.
Or else he will never return here
to raise his glass to the street:
The stranger who passed was an angel
to take him away from his seat.
Christina Egan © 2015
—
In memoriam Erdogan Güzel
Murdered in the street in Wood Green,
London, England, on 10.7.2015
Requiescat in pace
Outrage
Every day now, someone
amongst the suits and ties
gets up and
says something.
Something
simple,
sensible,
and inconceivable.
Something
obvious,
overdue,
and improbable.
Someone sensible,
someone overdue,
someone outrageously
decent.
People lift up their heads and
listen as if
life
were meant to grow and thrive.
Christina Egan © 2015
—
For Jeremy Corbyn MP
—
“Jeremy Corbyn does not need to be theatrical because he is charismatic.
He makes a few simple statements and a thousand people jump off their sofas. It is not his policies that got him to the top but his personality!”
Christina Egan
Letter to the Editor, Evening Standard (London), 22. September 2015
(Please note I had written: “not his policies alone”!)
Christina Egan 