oomph

Meadow Saxifrage, Bulbous Buttercup, Ribwort Plantain, Daisy. Cley Hill (Wiltshire), 10th May 2020.

Meadow Saxifrage (Saxifraga granulata, Sw: Mandelblomma). This is on the northern brow of the hill; the next four pictures are from southern slopes.


Quotidian poetry glances in this post. Giramondo Publishing are great with newsletters, they've just emailed us a sample poem from Laurie Duggan's forthcoming collection Homer Street. It's a new Afterimage of the indigenous Australian artist Dorothy Napangardi, and I hope it's OK to paste here.


It’s the double negative,
the not not there that holds you:
tracks where there seem to be none,
contours of sand, salt lines
converging in a dip.

Wavering colours behind the nets
regroup when you alter focus.
Does the dark recede or advance?

A square of linen may measure space
when the space we know is destroyed.
On a white wall, somewhere else maps itself out
and the daylight streets are not the same.





Some of the previous poems in Laurie's revelatory series were published in Afterimages (Polar Bear Press, 2018).

Mouse-ear Hawkweed. Cley Hill (Wiltshire), 10th May 2020.

Mouse-ear Hawkweed (Pilosella officinarum, Sw: Gråfibbla).


From the free Shearsman sampler of Second Tongue (2020), Keith Payne's translation of Galician poems by Yolanda Castaño:


RECICLAXE

E o azougue gastado no espello do toucador.
Dende a man que procura o pálpito
aproveito folios xa usados;
a tinta negra da outra cara advírtese por tras
e penso
que tamén se escribe así,
anotando palabras novas mentres outras
anteriores
se transparentan.


RECYCLING

And the quicksilver gone from the mirror.
From the hand feeling for the trace
I make the best of jaded pages;
the black ink from the flip side shows
and I think
this could also be writing;
scribbling new words while other
earlier words
seep through the page.

Common Rock-rose. Cley Hill (Wiltshire), 10th May 2020.

Common Rock-rose (Helianthemum nummularium, Sw: Solvända).

Chalk Milkwort. Cley Hill (Wiltshire), 10th May 2020.

Chalk Milkwort (Polygala calcarea). This species doesn't occur in Sweden. (There's a possibility it might be Common Milkwort (P. vulgaris), I'll have to go back and check.)

Poem found online by Lisa Samuels, from Foreign Native (Black Radish Books, 2018):


The city inside you


Nearby space as painting and the walls

quiet in the long car so one is bound

with one’s head and mouth    held in head

the shapely eyes and round eyeballs

curling at you minxing for a set of reasons like

when two persons spread meat kissing

from the love performance    fly the parcel




Near the station a lateral man scores his mind

en masse    a group in plastic planting

very near each other’s holders suture suture

blue light intervals keep my footage

steady like the Steady Hands of Experience

breathe for allegory    push but how can allegory

frame dear life    push out the floor

Common Twayblade. Cley Hill (Wiltshire), 10th May 2020.

Common Twayblade (Listera ovata, Sw: Tvåblad).




It began with snow
There was snow
I was not snow
I was in the snow

The snow was white
Cold
And wet
The snow was silent

The snow was white
Cold
And wet
The snow was silent

It was I
And it was the snow
I was not white
I was not cold
I was not wet

It was I
And it was the snow






(From Words (oomphpress, 2019), Paul Cunningham's translation of one of the two long poems in Helena Österlund's Ordet och färgerna (2010).)

Barren Brome. Cley Hill (Wiltshire), 10th May 2020.

Barren Brome (Anisantha sterilis aka Bromus sterilis, Sw: Sandlosta). (A rare coastal grass in Sweden.) This was in the farm lane leading to the hill, not on the chalk itself.