Beverley A'Court

ONLY BECAUSE WE HAVE SKIN

do we imagine we are separate,
Only because we have skin
do we pervade each other with our touch.

Her dream
of the courtesan
returned nightly;
the pure gold
leaf of her skin…
Across the days, baroque
memories intrude –
‘the earth of love is death’.
What beautiful feet
you have, lover, soft as
a deer
your footprint
on my heart as if
blue fire had blazed
through the night and
after seven years
nothing remains
but the rainbow
skin
and our sorrow
when skin is gone –
our tender casket
and perfect lens
of skin.

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OUR LADY OF THE NORTH EAST

after George Mackay Brown

Homage to Our Lady of Honey,
In the light between the silks of the honey-bee’s back.

Homage to Our Lady of Secret Knowledge,
Between the plum’s flesh and its skin.

Homage to Our Lady of Understanding,
In the thistle’s kiss, the whale’s eye.

Homage to Our Lady of Involvement,
In the punctured rain-drop,
In the baptism of rain-on-skin,
In the drenching.

Homage to Our Lady of Irrevocable Poetry,
In the planes shot down by ‘friendly fire’,
In how we always love our enemies.
In reflections.

Homage to Our Lady of the Loyal Heart,
In the upstream salmon,
In the father who hits the bottle not the child.
Angels who fall and never cease from bearing all our weight.

Homage to Our Lady of Music and Constellations,
In the song of the deep-sea jellyfish,
In the rays of the harbour sun-star,
In Cassiopeia dispersed among the waves.

Homage to Our Lady of Caring for the Land,
In the earthworm,
In the furrow’s sun-cracked, rain-glazed sides.

Homage,
In the waist-high barley, her festival of feathers.

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THE ELEMENTS:
MOTHERHOOD YEAR ONE IN THE SIEGE OF SARAJEVO

To the great traditional quartet
of;
Earth Air Fire Water, add;
Blood, Metal, Milk – the elements
of Separation, in the old religious
colours of
Red,
Black
White...
for the birthing of Selves & the
Weapons we use to scare away
Truth.

The radio psychologist says
‘there is only one pain...
separation from god’
as we listen to the people of the war
running to greet one another,
like the far-flung warring parts
of ourselves,
stretching out their arms to touch
& be united.

Everywhere
we are running towards each other
spilling blood
and milk.

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THE MAGNETICS OF WATERFALLS

for Lesley Quilty, performance artist

It isn’t just the sheetfall of water
white as an angel’s wing
but the way it carries us, again and again
over the edge towards the drowning
undercurrents,
the running-backwards-film of it –
up and over the precipice like
being in love
and sucked back in a dream to repeat
the falling,
that dazzling freedom from all safety;
swept off clay feet by an angel wing
of water.

It isn’t the greenglass eye, the blackening
cataract
like winter nightfall,
nor it’s polished bowl of dark oils,
its magnetic mirror
of silence
but liquid at breaking point, that calls out
to a hot body to be a spear, to
dive in and waken deep waters, to
tickle the
amniotic goddess with your tiny, piano toes.

It isn’t your fine self from where I stand,
your constant laughter
and motion
but a liquid heart at breaking point
that calls out to me to dive in, play piano
with my toes.

Let’s begin with all the old tunes till we’re
falling, riding
backwards and upwards, towards those under-
currents
again and again, to the sound of angels’ wings
through water.

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WHY SIT/WHY WRITE...

after Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman:
‘I sit because I’m a paranoid speed freak.
I sit to be in exile from ego’s land.’
A.W.

I write to sink, to dive into deep waters.
I write because I am a detective and there’s mystery
I write because scientists can make a lemon smell like a tomato and a baby
with dog’s eyes.
I write because I am that dog.
I write because we’re yowling.
I write because I want to run, she-wolf in a pack.
I write because if I run I’ll catch my skirt, bump into old lovers, starve in the ice, die in chains.
I write because Tara rides in on the white oxygenated surf of every breath.
I write because I can smell the olives in Gethsemane garden.
I write because of frankincense.
I write to become sister to the eagle, mother to the worm.
I write because in a dream I met a green god who gave me a wedding dress of icicles,
heavy as armour, white as the moon.
I write because I fear drowning in things, in the house, in my Barbie doll emotions,
in your drama, in the depths of no-self.
I write to find a new story.

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