Geraldine Monk
I am not a poet who carries a notebook. To go out equipped with writing materials appears to act as a deterrent to the written word. I simply rely on the vagaries of chance to supply me with torn off stubs from newspapers, unwaxed cartons, beer mats, paper bags or any other matter on which I can preserve curious collocations of words or nascent thoughts. This tendency to scribble on scraps is also in evidence at my writing desk where scrawny fragments of paper are scattered like confetti. A neat pile of handsome notebooks sit patient but neglected. So it was no surprise when a miniscule shard of paper fluttered into my lap with the single and distinctive word ‘Deliquium’ on it. I vaguely remembered writing it down on a recent visit to Crete as I thought it a highly attractive sounding word but I had no idea what it meant. I decided it was time to investigate and was even more delighted by each of its definitions. At the time of its rediscovery I had been choosing a programme of poems to read at the University of Kent and the whole concept of this four part poem presented itself to me fully formed. Using each definition of the word to start each section it became an intervolving of memories from Crete with the anticipated visit to Canterbury. With a minimum amount of editing the poem flowed out virtually intact. It was a poem waiting to happen.
Deliquium
– Four Definitions Between Crete and Canterbury
(chemistry)
Liquefaction
through absorption of
moisture from the air.
Un-northern will have to do
as nothing compares to your
division of blue so
clenched
it hurts this
Libyan sea’s
invasive depth
so far flung from all
accumulated waters I have
seen
horizons tooth-spooked
heavy breathing waves
molest my
exposed back
against the sun
long pork
over salted
scratching melanoma
bother
other plots and
growths
maligning
iron oxide forms
a bed for Becket’s
hallowed
brim o’ lice.
(pathology)
An abrupt loss of
consciousness usually
caused by an insufficient
blood flow to the brain:
fainting.
Excommunication of the self.
Sunstruck. Heatstroke. Upshot.
His blood
white with brain his
brain no less red with blood
a dying a cathedral a floored
mosaic forever and a lasting
age her arms raised aloft
two birds
balance her Cretan crown
with wit her decorated
breasts sit where
breasts sit being geometric
and loudly unapologetic.
We sit out on our temporary
balcony avoiding a battalion of
testy spikes while trying to cram
down emergency room service
club sandwiches too massive
for our bemused mouths.
How on earth do you
eat a butty these
days as fat as a ram’s
bottom and
who will rid us of
this turbulent
feast a requiem
dangling
blue as uncooked
steak in
Canterbury.
(Literary)
A languid, maudlin mood.
Duck-egg.
Moon-fool.
Rubble of love
shattered across the
vaulted heaven help
us my posing painted
hot-goddess –
oh god she’s not amused –
gisuz a-kiss my stern
lovely miss
worse things happen at
sea surf-riders
drunk with vertigoing
riptides hanging on for
dear irresistible
death-drag.
Show me the days to go home.
There are more seabirds in landlocked
Sheffield than on the coast of Crete.
More waterspouts in Canterbury
honed by our stonemasons
bestowing our nowadays
with lucrative
heritage.
Souls of gurning gargoyles circle.
Ingest.
Gizuz-a-hug luv for
crying out loud
steeped in stone
shredding half a
head in a right bit of
bad butchery
beneath the
cankered
cantering
stars.
(rare)
An abrupt absence of sunlight
e.g. caused by an eclipse.
Malfeasance in office.
Occulted vision.
Put out the light and
then put out the
extraordinary
fight against
sudden dips into
where the hell am I
birds cease their
territorial
bicker-bicker
so-called songs.
Getting back to
malfeasance
occulted vision –
intolerance is all the
rage now everyone
owns fury within
three steps to heaven
hexes tossed
in the manner of
confetti flutter of
heart stopover.
Temperature drop.
‘The night has a thousand eyes and the day but one’
Hot yogurt
tart. Stone cold
pudding.
Walnuts on ice.