Tepid Tides
Amongst the jungle on the isle’s edge
the tepid tides have carved a golden heart
of salt
and rock –
Just so, your voice’s limpid surf has etched
into my soul a secret golden mark
so – drop –
by drop –
Christina Egan ©2023
***
A poem for
Valentine’s Day!
It sounds like a very long relationship…
Inspired by a postcard of a heart-shaped island.
dream laundry
fast cars smart cars
fast food slow food
fast luck long luck
you can buy anything
the smiling people
the gliding people
the glossy people
on the posters prove it
you can buy their sofa
you can buy their surfboard
you can buy their smartphone
and relax indefinitely
you can buy their dreams
you can buy their memories
and your own memories
like tinned meat
boots on the beach
music on the pillow
pills for your babies
subscribe to well-being
everything is for sale
everything is on sale
every offer must end
but there is no end of offers
look here click here
see more do more
book now pay later
life is a cake
grab a coffee
grab a seat
snatch a date
download a dream
Christina Egan ©2019
This poem is also published in a local paper today, in print and online: Haringey Community Press, February 2024 (circulation 15,000).
The title is taken from Ingeborg Bachmann’s poem Reklame (1956), where she coins the word “Traumwäscherei” (dream laundry, laundry of dreams or through dreams?). The omnipresent publicity and cheerful music soothe your worries and questions – until they stop and leave you in “Totenstille” (deadly silence, or silence of the dead?).
The idea of downloading memories and dreams comes from science-fiction such as Ridley Scott’s movie Blade Runner (1982), M. T. Anderson’s novel Feed (2002), and Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Klara and the Sun (2021). All three are superb and thoroughly disquieting.
The line “boots on the beach” comes from a particularly stupid – and sexist – video advertising hard drink by showing a young woman in a very scanty dress and very heavy boots. It played on a loop on several screens in a railway station so that there was no escape from it.
The line “music on the pillow” is inspired by Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953), where he predicts ceaseless entertainment broadcast onto our walls, even inviting participation, and into our ears, continuing into our sleep. The result is isolation and despair.
A Speck in the Dark
Grey buildings, grey branches,
black streets in the rain…
Dark coats and pale faces,
white sky yet again.
Drained off is the rainbow:
there’s shade and there’s rust.
Smudged world in the window,
and noon feels like dusk.
There: sunrise is flashing,
an orange-red spark,
with sky-blue unfolding –
a speck in the dark!
The bluebird’s alighting
on quivering twigs;
the buds were awaiting
a signal like this!
The bluebird is glowing,
alive and alert,
and colours are brewing
in heaven and earth.
Christina Egan ©2018
A January poem from a northern part of Europe… The bluebird does not live here, but it got into the poem because its feathers are of a luminous orange and blue like the sun and the sky!
Still Here
Still here:
still striding into the drizzle
across the buzzing roads
and straight across the green
with my hair getting frizzy
and my eyes getting dazzled
by the purple orbs
on the tale pale thistles
Still off-screen:
mounting the white cliff
of the sky-scraper
with my own eyes
still off-air
echoing the whistle
of the lime-green parrot
with my own voice
still off-map
facing the buffets
of the wilful winds
with my own face
Still no gloss
on top of the gloss
still no sheen
on top of the cream
upon the click of a button
the command of a machine
Still here:
still pounding
the moistened pavement
with my own feet
still brushing
the sparkling bush
with my own hands
still whispering
some half-rhymed lines
with my own lips
Christina Egan ©2023
For my birthday, I am posting some recent verse, which came to me during an enjoyable walk on a dull summer’s day.
I still live largely without social media, and I have still never had a smartphone, nor a motorised vehicle.
I still try to live an authentic life: walking for miles and travelling overland, reading plenty of print and writing letters by hand, growing my herbs and cooking from scratch…
Northern Marsh
Beyond the Roman highway lay
the marshes, lush and veiled and vast,
on gravel and on sun-baked clay,
a northern, watery mirage.
The never-ending summer’s day
had lured me to a gentle ridge;
the brushwood seemed without a way,
the pools and brooks without a bridge.
And yet I knew that people dwelt
amidst the shimmering, shifting maze…
My flung-out road was but a belt
around an untamed country’s waist.
Christina Egan © 2020
cartwheels
cartwheels of stars
sparkling spilling
turning rolling
sinking back
into the black
and then comets
shooting up –
comets up-
side down!
goldfish in the sky
shooting swerving
flapping lurching
dropping back
into the black
drops of molten gold
like prayers
for the new year
to the Unknown God
Christina Egan © 2017
Snow, Slow
(Christmas Haiku)
Snow, slow, abundant,
covering the sleek black soil
like icing-sugar.
*
Flames of real candles
in the darkened room, like stars
visiting the earth.
*
Tinsel billowing
on the fir-twigs, as if stirred
by an angel’s wing.
***
Schnee, langsam
(Weihnachtshaiku)
Schnee, langsam, reichlich,
fällt auf blanke schwarze Erde…
wie Zuckerstaub.
*
Wachskerzenflammen
im Dämmer… wie Sterne,
herniedergestiegen.
*
Lametta flattert
an Zweigen… wie angerührt
von Engelsflügeln.
Christina Egan © 2017
Real candles, even made of beeswax, are still common on Christmas trees in Germany, and lametta is used more sparingly and usually silver, reminiscent of snow.
Thick snow is nowadays a rare phenomenon in England… Note the tiny Christmas tree taken out after the festive days (and later planted into the soil!). – Photograph: Christina Egan © 2018.
A Lonely Star
A lonely star surveys the streets.
The dark is brownish, blurred by lamps.
The cold is damp and slowly creeps
through draughty windows, long-locked doors.
Bats flit about like ghostly hands.
A blinking helicopter roars;
the city stirs and sighs and sleeps.
The star looks down and frowns and stands.
Christina Egan © 2017
Decorative paper. Image provided
by British Library through Flickr.
The Purple Grape
The purple grape,
soaked with a whole summer,
bears more than sweetness in it:
secret sparks
which will burst on your tongue,
which will rise like fire
to your temples, your wrists.
The purple grape’s flesh,
crushed, filtered, fermented,
harbours a truth,
a dark and dense
and undiscovered truth,
a relentless ruler.
Find dreams flipping over
into life, find sun
running through your veins,
find the more
you were made for.
Christina Egan © 2006
Thirst
I.
I’m drawn to you by magnets,
I’m driven, drained with thirst –
yet later I’ll be grateful
that nothing happened first,
that I have always loved you
because you are yourself,
and not because you know me
or kissed me once in stealth.
II.
It is as if these vessels,
these smooth and sparkling words,
whose hollow space entices,
reflects, rejects and hurts,
got filled with blood-red spirit
of strong reality:
Desire. Joy. Surrender.
Embrace. Eternity.
Christina Egan © 2004
Christina Egan 