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.
When the Snow Falls
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.
Curling Up
I’m curling up
against the cold
against the world
its random roar
its lazy contempt
its glacial loneliness
I’m curling up
with the sky in my mind
and the sun in my heart
around a seed
already unfurling
and then: uncurling
Christina Egan © 2014
I am at Home in the Darkness
I.
I am at home in the darkness.
At least, dreams shine more brightly here,
lanterns among phantoms,
gold grains in the drifting sand.
Only my dreams
are real,
are true.
II.
All those who wish to die
crave for life, life, lost
in this cavern of wandering shades,
crazed by the thirst for a garden.
Only those who wish to die
are aware,
are alive.
Christina Egan © 2014
Photographs: Christina Egan © 2014 / 2016.
I assume that very, very often when someone feels they want to die or are about to die, they are simply physically unwell — or simply overtired — or simply literally in the dark. If this insight informed our science and our society, we could manage our lives so much better.
The date these three poems were written is significant: it was mid-February, which is when I (like everyone in the northern hemisphere) feels the dark and cold most bitterly, because halfway between winter solstice and spring equinox, the various reserves of our bodies are dangerously low. From late February on, things get better, and this is not a mental phenomenon (little flowers can, after all, not cure leaden fatigue) but a physical fact.
I.
looking through the lofty glass door
I feel the faint sun on my forehead
I press my hands against the glaze of ice
I grasp the slender handle to crack it
I must lean out of it
I must step out of it
into the sparkling garden below me
into the buzzing street beyond it
I must follow the clouds to the edge of the land
I must follow the winds to the edge of the earth
II.
tomorrow I will open my eyes
as if I saw the sun for the first time
tomorrow I will get up and go
as if my steps were guided and guarded
I will step out of my mind
into someone else’s mind
I will step out of my eyes
into someone else’s eyes
then I shall touch beauty
then I shall taste life
III.
the summer was short
and long was the winter
I witnessed neither
I looked upon bricks
that was when I realised
how glaring lamps are and how bland
how pages are made of paper
and screens stay stubbornly flat
that was when I faded
from a flag to a shadow
I chewed on the bare bread of hope
turning sweet on my tongue
Christina Egan © 2012
Photographs: Christina Egan © 2018 / 2014.
August Night
The night is short and moist and sweet,
with secret sprouting life replete…
and stark and bitter all the same.
There is no peace on golden wings,
there is no peace from silver limbs…
only a tiny steady flame.
Christina Egan © 2012
In the midst of abundant midsummer,
the narrator has not found peace — neither
through prayer or meditation nor through
the presence of a beloved person.
The following poem laments the unborn dead,
whose graves are nameless and forgotten and
who never saw the light of the sun — although
angels may have taken them elsewhere…
Nur Asche zu essen
Nur Asche zu essen,
nur Lehm statt Brot,
nur Erde zu wissen:
der bitterste Tod.
Den Leib ohne Atem,
das Aug ohne Licht,
das Grab ohne Namen:
das schärfste Gericht.
Die niemals Gebornen,
fast ohne Gewicht,
von Engeln Verborgnen:
Vergesset sie nicht.
Christina Egan © 2018
By the River I was sitting
By the River I was sitting
Watching barges floating by
Like the clouds so full of promise
In the blue and burning sky
Bearing jewels, bearing silver
From the mountains crowned with snow
Bearing spices, sweet and fiery
From the jungles down below
By the River I was waiting
For a boat to pick me up
Till the oars were folded inward
And the city-gates were shut
On my roof-top I was watching
Night like lapis-lazuli
While the stars were slowly rolling
Round the tiny lonely me
By Two Rivers I was dwelling
In a house of golden bricks
In my dress of snow and silver
Waving to intrepid ships
When the stars had come full circle
Strangers broke my city-gate
And my boat lay by the palm-trees
Finest date-wine was its freight
And it flew against the current
And it floated with the storm
Till I climbed the purple mountains
Where the River Twins are born
Christina Egan © 2011
This song of the woman by the river is taken
from my stage play The Bricks of Ur (© 2011).
Place: City of Ur, Mesopotamia — Time: 2000 B.C.
Photograph: Assyrian jar (9th to 7th c. BC).
© The Trustees of the British Museum.
Obituary
I think I died last night,
but none of you noticed.
You talk to me as if
you were talking to me!
The clocks are ticking,
the coffee is dripping…
Even the sun is smiling
while I pretend to carry on.
I was a fount of life,
never looked at, never listened to.
I was an orphan on earth.
I have to write my own obituary.
Christina Egan © 2012
Tottenham Cemetery, London.
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2017.
gesichter
I.
fotografie
dein angesicht fängt wie ein schrein
den flammenglanz des himmels ein
und stellt ihn zart und zauberbunt
in meines herzens mittelpunkt…
ich bin allein und nicht allein.
II.
teetasse
ich schau in einem schwarzen teich
flüchtig und deutlich ein gesicht
vor einsamkeit und kummer bleich
wie ein gespenst bei mondenlicht…
ich bin es und ich bin es nicht.
III.
verabredung
zwei stimmen stimmen überein
und fremde züge spiegeln sich
zuweilen blütenblätterfein:
auf deines reimt sich mein gesicht!
du weißt es und du weißt es nicht.
Christina Egan © 2012
Two voices which echo each other, two faces which mirror each other, two people who rhyme… Everyone’s dream — and sometimes it comes true.
If Only It Could Happen
If only it could happen
More real than before
If only it could happen
Once more, oh, just once more
More than a memory
There never to return
More than a fantasy
There never to be born
If only it could happen
More real than before
If only it could happen
Once more, oh, just once more
More than an accident
From sadness or despair
More than an overspend
Of pity or of care
More than a fairground ride
Of wild delight, distress
More than a mounting tide
Of wandering tenderness
If only it could happen
More real than before
If only it could happen
Once more, oh, just once more
If only it could happen
And swallow up the past
If only it could happen
As lasting as it’s fast
If only it could happen
As lasting as it’s fast
More than a flower, gay,
Unfurling just to die
More than a night, a day,
A lonesome lullaby
If only it could happen
More happy than before
I think I’ll let it happen
Once more, oh, just once more
I think I’ll let it happen
Once more, oh, just once more
Christina Egan © 2006
Photograph: Montpellier, France, in midwinter. Christina Egan © 2010.
Ex tenebris
The day is like a daffodil. Yet
the green garland of the garden,
the golden garland of the sunset
cannot dispel the dark of the depth.
On the crests of the hills,
tiny blue brushstrokes,
you can watch them wander,
the deceased and the unborn.
My heart is a fist in my chest.
My tears are grapes of glass.
No one sees them: no one sees me.
I am alone with the angels.
Christina Egan © 2017
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2013.
Christina Egan 