Author: gabrielsmy

My Name Is

Hugh
Blue,
president. Jesse
Lesse,
Boston. Merry
Berry,
Chicago. Max
Wax,
Chicago. Della
Stella
Serritella,
Chicago. Hollie
Jolley,
San Bernardino.

Jane
Cane,
Wheaton.
Newton
Hooton,
Cambridge. Dick
Vick
and his son Dick
Junior, San Diego.
Kenny
Tenny
and his daughter Penny,
San Francisco.

Some of the members of the My-Name-Is-A-Poem Club, founded by journalist EV Durling in the 1940s. Found on Futility Closet. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

Ullapool


Here
I am on the seafront in Brighton, in 1994.
I have just told my best friend that
we shouldn’t go out with each other.
‘We were meant to be just friends,’
I am saying.
I have read about love in novels and am sure
I know all about it. This is one of the cleverest things
I have ever done.
I am 18.
I exhale my cigarette, like a grown-up. Here
I am four years later, on the same stretch of seafront
with the same friend.
We are on a bench. My head is in his lap.
We are talking about what to call
our baby in my belly. My wedding dress is in a bag at
our feet.
We get married in three days. Since
we were last here,
I have learnt that
I knew nothing at the age of 18.
I know now that love can be a quiet, sure thing
– like the first April sun on
your arms – and not the pyroclastic blast
I was waiting for. In 19 hours,
we will find out that the baby
is dead. The grief that is coming for
us has five blades on each hand: it will fall on
us like a blizzard, and leave
us on the floor.
We will weep on
our honeymoon in Ullapool – so lost
I could not tell you if it did rain at all,
that time. At the time,
I thought the deep-sea pressure of sorrow was
so great, it would crush
my heart smaller, for ever.
I was sure I knew everything about it.



Taken from Caitlin Moran‘s column for the Saturday Times on 20th August, 2011. Submitted by Marika Rose.

If this is love


Back when I was five, I used to stick yellow Hula
Hoops on my fingers and pretend to be engaged. Tiny
hands all salty, our big maroon-grey rescue Mastiff
– a girl, like me – licked them clean. Bundled in duffel
coats and balaclavas we’d meet Dad at Seal Sands
after work, watch the black-footed Little Stints wade
in the froth by the pipeline.

Dad had a stroke in the year that Lady had her first
litter. The nurse taught me to inject Lovenox (“if this is
love,” we’d grimace) straight into his stomach. He
was so angry, that’s what kept him with us so long.

But last year, we threw Dad’s ashes on the Estuary,
and skimmed stones after him.

I love walking by water, talking to him.

In pink jeans, walking Lady’s daughter (all grey now)
by the chilly inlet off Scotts Road, I catch a sapphire
sparkle – steel hoops and a furled wire net – “Planet’s
Biggest Public Art Project”, the Gazette said. Far
across the water, in silhouette, one giant loop is a
half-inch circlet. My ring finger fits right inside it.



Gallery texts written to accompany an exhibition by Annie O’Donnell, taken from a conversation with Becky Hunter. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Of godly life and sound learning


Totter legged and pilled priest; stinking
knave priest; scurvy, stinking, shitten boy;
Polled, scurvy, forward, wrangling priest;
Runagately rogue; prick-eared rogue;
Drunken-faced knave; copper-nose priest;
Wrangler and prattler; Scottish jack;
Jack sauce and Welsh rogue; black-coat knave.



Insults suffered by members of the clergy in 16th and 17th century Britain, taken from a review of The Plain Man’s Pathways to Heaven: Kinds of Christianity in Post-Reformation England, 1570-1640 by Christopher Haigh. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Don’t cry for me Vancouver

This is not us
Born and bred in Vancouver
Remember this, the morning after

Why did you trash my downtown backyard?
Such a beautiful city
Destroyed by such a few

Shame shame, double shame
Where does this anger and hate come from?
A riot in the city of love

We are so much more than this
These are not the fans we need or deserve
I wish we could have been better

When you talk about destruction
You know you can count me out
You will pay, somewhere, somehow

The city belongs to us
The people whose words are on the walls
I am proud to walk around the morning after

And see everybody clean
What a few people destroyed
Love can save us, only love

Vancouver sigue de pie
Te amo hermosa cuidad
Better luck next year boys

A compilation of phrases written spontaneously on window boarding by Vancouverites who were cleaning up after the Stanley cup riot on 15 June 2011. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

The Sample

I want a specimen of your urine.
I have my own syringe.

I had a suckling brother,
who died at the most tender age.
The beast had a human body,
the feet of a buck, and
a horn on its head.
The corpse will be taken to Tonga.

Because I was out buying a pair of wooden shoes,
I had yams and fish for two days,
and then I ate fern roots.
At what time were these branches
eaten by the rhinoceros?

I don’t play the violin, but I love cheese.

‘Useless phrases drawn from actual phrasebooks by Swedish linguist Mikael Parkvall, from Limits of Language, 2006,’ from Futility Closet. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.