Delighted again to have a new edition of the Land of Pometos with some terrific combinations. (Thank you all!). Enjoy.
Lord Pometo
The Cure
Weighted by pregnancy
I lie on the narrow couch
and hear the doctor laugh
– huge, loud, explosive.
We stare at the Devil’s claw
marks that rake my celtic-pale
belly. A red trail flares up
and round my bump.
No, it’s the new kitten,
not my man. Honest.
Every night my velvet moggie purrs,
sweeps and swipes midnight paws
razor sharp under the duvet. Marking
territory not diving for pearls.
Smiling I leave the surgery
anticipating a quiet night.
The prescription?
A water pistol.
By Finola Scott
A Trullo Speaks
My chalky-grey stones, coned with snow,
murmur melodies of folk songs
within my walls, soaked into my pores.
Each row leans in, balanced like cake layers,
whispers village gossip, Puglian spies.
From dawn ants march in sun-sizzle.
Green shoots creak through scorched earth.
Cool gravel crunches under trips of drunken feet,
star-sparks fire laser pulses. Wrought-iron gates whine
with the weight of stagger-swagger.
Blurred love-calls push against the breeze.
Car engines boom over chocolate fields,
disturb snoring farmers and livestock.
Dogs snap mean across shadowy groves,
leaf-drop echoes through shutters.
Bedded in black velvet, the hum of cosmic dust
seduces. Souls of the beloved wait for you,
just beyond sleep. Crickets offer prayers
for them all night, insect monks,
offering steady, patient presence.
The families of the fishermen
their names on stones
circle the kirk
troubled waves roll
with curiosity
over a cove
of roofless houses
Girl at a Sewing Machine
(after Edward Hopper)
She’s a machine part, slick, oiled and polished;
lulled by the rhythm of treadle and clatter,
married in motion, to push, prick and thread.
From hip to breast bone the rocking comes easy,
like soothing a baby or a mad woman’s prayer.
This world enfolds her. Sole, ankle and shin work
to tense and release her, timeless and quiet
wrapped in the rhythm of treadle and clatter,
consumed by the pattern; pricking and threading
small holes in white satin. Joined threads,
once knotted, split when they’re rotten,
and unpicking stitches, leaves fabric with holes.
By Janet Philo
Home Turf
Viewed in tenement shadow
through a window
grey with winter grime,
it’s not so much a garden,
more a dreary, mired back-court
that’s never felt a lick of sun.
No lawn, there’s little grass
mostly angry nettles,
spongy moss and flattened weeds,
with a clutch of optimistic ivy
that climbs the sandstone wall
with glacial patience.
But it’s a lucky man that hears
a Blackie’s yellow flute chirp spring
or sees a foxy silhouette
brush through the rusty palings
and has, when summer fades,
a rowan who will share her rubies.
We take the rub of green we’re given
and make of it, the best we can.
By David Moffat
The Fat Damsel 