Issue 29: Gavin Selerie
Strata
for Geraldine Monk
1
Steers is the stage you land beneath the ridge
and between two nabs one cut like a knife
scar-wake words in a cleft or ledge
to pull and scramble
tightly wound shells a ribbed curl
or something vanished with astro-claws
blue-hearted rock beneath yellow
it is not easy it is not
the yield for folk who know fire and ice traces
lead to light like an outlaw prism
a beck in the glen sides downthrowing
a memory pulse
2
Scetune at Domesday in mizzle
where mermaids were gaoled and fled with a curse
cottages squeezed South facing wind-arrows
from the North
red tiles shake over bonnets and granzies
herring, cod and turbot (when did you last . . . ?)
fished from sharp bows or square stern
if the catch over months is bad
kill a pigeon, remove its heart stick it full of pins
and burn over a charcoal fire
3
Cook, the boy, handles cloth but the yarn he wants
is all of whales sliding beneath the ocean’s skin
clicks, buzzes, squeaks a song in deep sleepscape
his course to sound and mark straits, islands, strands
through shrill cries heavy squalls
a cask lashed with stuff to keep health
by telescope and plumb to answer mindcraves
then warping nearer shore
in skirts of a wood to find the naked native
who is the wiser and placed elemental
rank reversed as you turn a grocer’s list
bread fruit cocoa-nuts salt mud creatures
4
a call unexpected
at high tide the bowsprit of a coble
sprung through the window
of the Cob and Lobster
something more than a pint
or a pipe of tobacco
fierce in the flood
5
a fish skin purse
packed with silver coin
run or rolled for
by a man or boy in a sack
festival sports in a war year
when you might be pressed
6
jet earrings on the dinosaur coast glistening night
a small sign that ties a world to a body
suspended
as gulls screech ah-wa-a-ah
do they say owt by step, fret and key
over ruby dulse a taste of anchovy or Marmite
—range it with sailors from floor-head to main mast
a jig line sea-bed to rugged peak
7
no need to scribble a formula up high
as a chained task unless it’s a spell to summon spirits
or ward off bone-break or soul-peck
town lass by a circle of tawny grisettes
and a rotting log
then at head level a cowl clinging to a trunk
phosphorescent orange
you tread back like the lost crew
through peaty runnels and salt-bitten grass
to doorway and hearth
where the pages come thrawn and (com)pounded
or lightly drawn a whole tone
the roots chant
soundseared through the scratch of a needle
tick-tick waves in onion layers
to spark pictures
O second self O gate koeeo-aadi getting
a stone from the moon
to pass from brig of dread either is other
history has it to do letters & press
spores able to spin a question you question
lifetalk in deathtalk when each can see
a face picked out by a candle
yesterday or sevens also
the name is never insistence
but a phrase or stanza between shows
unfolds the cell
——
Note: I did not encounter Geraldine Monk until the early 1980s when I was seeking material for an anthology of contemporary British poetry. At that time she was still living in Staithes, which I had visited several times during the five-year period, documented in Azimuth, when I lived in North Yorkshire. Unknowingly, our paths may have crossed. ‘Steers’ is a local pronunciation of the place name.
[Gavin Selerie’s books include Azimuth (1984), Roxy (1996), Le Fanu’s Ghost (2006) and Hariot Double (2016)—all long sequences with linked units. Music’s Duel: New and Selected Poems 1972-2008 was published in 2009 and Collected Sonnets in 2019 (both from Shearsman). Landscape, with its historical layers, is a frequent point of focus in his work. Letters from Geraldine Monk are included in the correspondence section of his archive at Lincoln College, Oxford.]
Copyright © 2022 by Gavin Selerie, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
