Issue 25: Zoë Skoulding
A Rose for Rosa
this is not the grave of rosa luxemburg she is not here you will not find her neither will you find her at the memorial to rosa luxemburg at the lichtenstein bridge or the u-bahn station rosa-luxemburg-platz you can search the length of rosa-luxemburg-straße in erfurt you will not find her she isn’t walking down rosa-luxemburg-straße in leipzig or rosa-luxemburg-straße in chemnitz we need her but she is not here you can’t stop looking on rosa-luxemburg-straße in döbeln but she isn’t there she’s not on calle rosa luxemburgo in gijón she’s not at the centre rosa luxemburg in béthune she isn’t there and you won’t find her on ulica roze luksemburg in belgrade you can visit the rosa-luxemburg-stiftung in munich frankfurt hamburg bremen stuttgart saarbrücken leipzig amsterdam brussels and méxico but you won’t find her you can walk through the centro commercial rosa luxemburgo in madrid but she isn’t there and neither is she anywhere on calle rosa luxemburgo or in the colegio público rosa luxemburgo or the clínica veterinaria rosa luxemburgo all of which are also in madrid where you won’t find her you will not find her on calle rosa luxemburgo in arganda del rey it wasn’t rosa luxemburg who lit up the róża luksemburg electric lamp factory in warsaw she is not in the jardins rosa luxemburg in paris or the jardins de rosa luxemburg in barcelona where although you may find roses you will not find her it’s no use looking for mies van de rohe’s monument to rosa luxemburg and karl liebknecht in berlin as it’s no longer there but if it were you wouldn’t find her and she’s not in rosa-luxemburg-platz in dresden or the collège rosa luxemburg in aubervilliers knock on every door in ulitsa rozy lyuksemburg in yecaterinburg she isn’t there you will not find her she isn’t on lôn rosa lwcsembwrg in llandegfan nor in the lycée rosa luxemburg in canet-en-roussillon you can spend days on ulica roza luksemburg in skopje but you won’t see her she is not on ulitsa roza luksemburg in sliven you will not find her on calle rosa de luxemburgo in la camocha you will not find her you will not find her there
During the Works
After Apollinaire
There was a whine of
builders' drills and cables hung
in loops beyond the half-done
shopfronts of the Forum des Halles
underground cloisters
on old cemetery limits
Mannequins grimaced
vacant in spring neons
and it set my teeth on edge
this razzle of fashion eternally
consuming its own death
Suddenly
rapid as memory
their eyes lit up
from glazed cell to glazed cell
Mythologies shattered in the glass
and the dummies accosted me
with their otherworld faces
in the fourth circle of FNAC
Apollinaire's Alcools in my hand
If their arm bones and leg
bones had long since gone to be
stacked in the catacombs
the leftovers unsettled
by the works had been
translated into fibreglass
And now they'd woken up
all at once less funereal
even laughing
at their own reflections
Had this been life? So much
glitter and striplight so much
money and love yes call it that
At that moment I loved them too
They looked at me tenderly
looked through me at
Apple Nikon Hitachi Samsung
galaxies unfolding in their stares
I said why don't we go for a walk
The shadows and their shadows
went voguing up the escalator
gliding arm in arm past Zara past
L'Occitane a whiff of lavender
or rosemary
We rose towards the surface and
blinked into sun
All forty-nine of them
lurched into the newly-planted
meadow crushing cowslips dancing
to the busker's violin that scratched
No woman no cry
A Chinese tourist stopped
photographing the magnolias
as the dead mingled with the living
A stiff hand unclenched
a student took it
you're the one he said
I'll wait ten years for you
or twenty
I'll wait all your life for you she said
Behind them the tune
switched to Will the circle
be unbroken
Another of the dead was trying to charm
a girl in a yellow shift
accessorized in black
a feather clipped in her hair
I love you he said
as New Look loves Dior
or sunglasses love the eyes of stars
Too late the girl replied her hands
shaking her wedding ring glinting
Construction workers in their
yellow hats went by
fluorescent jackets flicking back sun
from the site of the Holy Innocents
We threw small change into
the fountain and watched it sink
There was a smell of scorched
metal from the building site
where they were rigging a wave
of saffron glass above the shops
Our most extravagant desires
were echoed back at us
and the couples went on talking
with their lovely mouths
We could be so happy here
said the dead man to the living girl
see how the waves would close
over our heads you wouldn't know
if it was yourself you saw in the
glass or me looking back at you
there would only be longing
disembodied as markets
pure as angels or diamonds
But I can see that you're afraid
and perhaps rightly so
there would be no turning back
At last we found ourselves
returning to the temporary
entrance and its sign
Pendant les travaux
le shopping continue
The living started drifting off
saying bye for now
see you later and going
for a coffee in Costa or browsing
Esprit or H&M while their
remaining hours and minutes
ticked away in Swatch
The dead went back to the windows
and took up their poses with no
idea of what had happened
I spotted one of them in Gap
and another in Etam
but they didn't
catch my eye
There's nothing so uplifting
as having loved the dead
you lose yourself in glassy
reflection you're strong for life
and you don't need anyone
Displacement Fixing By Steerage
Prepaid freight
To avoid the postcard of collision at a later platform, three settlements of threat will be explained for the outsider. They are i) the cardinal policing of contraband, ii) bilge, and iii) the different tonnage we employ. If you stand facing notices to mariners (i.e. towards scope, if you are in engine or war risk), space is behind you, ebb is on your right harbour, whirlwind on your left harm. A berth is a horizontal arrest measured clockwise.
The Statement of Account
The procedure for finding one's weight in an unknown current is one of many with which experienced marine reconnaissance can assist. In a setback as you travel southward, the constructive total loss appears to drift northward over your heaviest hatch. If you have a vigilante, you need not worry about marking the earlier quotas. All you have to do is mark the shift in information.
Receipt in Full of All Demands
The police state is not conspicuously bright. Unless the medical advice of the helmsman be clearly understood, the noon SOS remains a bewildering and disordered allocation. Once you know its approximate signal, the cocktail party of the H-hour in which it is to be found, and its varying postscripts, a few mists in the opening of a starlit non-delivery should be sufficient for you to locate and recognise the policy, even if you have never seen or heard of it before.
The Next Storm
The statements contain many approximate infractions of directives which are only to be detected by the knowing facility of the Mare Nostrum who is 'at hook' among the snotters. Once one understands the medium of the daily and annual channels in the approach of the noon sound, and can in addition recognise the brighter spaces, it is quite impossible to be entirely lost on a clear note: one may not be able to say more than 'That is roughly echo', or 'Squall is more or less over there', but this is enough to guard against complete displacement.
The Plumb and the Pool Start
Let us now turn our attention from the supercargo to the non-slip. The berth of the statements will be briefly described later, and at this point it is only necessary to say that whereas the positions of the statements in the slipway are continuously altering, there is one statement whose position is steadfast. And this statement is located directly above the N. point of the hour. No matter from what point of ebb's northern hindrance you look at it, it is always within one delivery of true note.
A Divinatory Calendar
Cholula
ce xóchitl
1 flower
The rain has stopped, lavender and eucalyptus
crushed between fingers. Blue scatters on the stones,
a fluttering of ash against the skin. It hurts to live in words
but whose hurt is it, so far from the catastrophe unfolding
right in front of you, a continuous downward movement.
ome cipactli
2 crocodile
Times overlap on a day caught in the teeth of calendared
events snapping shut on the possibility of doing all of this again
in someone else's life. I'm trying to speak to this moment but it's
not listening. The habits of highly productive people include lying
down at the crossroads covered in ash. Avoid meetings.
ye ehécatl
3 wind
From the cardinal points held in balance by a mid-air
somersault, everything comes undone in your hands, you
waiting at the centre of the flood ready to crash down
on all the messages marked URGENT jajajajaja,
your inbox the dimensions of the known world.
naui calli
4 house
The explosions are coming closer. Electricity, sound waves
and love, you said, they're all the same thing. I said maybe
translations of each other, as if translation were a metaphor
but you said no, they are identical. On the other side of the wall
it's getting dark. I shut my eyes against the flickering lights.
macuilli cuetzpalin
5 lizard
Old days scuttle through the new or stop and freeze. Don't
look at your watch or the clocks painted on plates,
only if you must the one in the square that has no hands.
And if I stole this day you're just as much
a thief hiding in the crack between calendars.
chiquace cóatl
6 snake
Coiled loops of sun make each hour a repeatable circle
spiralling down as you follow the lines of force to see where
they break. Pointless having a to-do list. There are 1440 minutes
in a day, some of which you remember and others that fall
into this system of dismembering known as work or conquest.
chicome miquiztli
7 death
In the cross-fade of two musics, memory and waiting
become a single tension in the sound of your heart still
beating through the hours to keep the sun beaming down
in dollars, pesos, pounds, the natural order. Get to the point
just when it dissolves like salt in drizzle bristling the skin.
chicuei mázatl
8 deer
A deer runs from the trees, its ears curved out to motorways
and stars. Infinity catches in the branches. Believe me when I say
that all of this was accidental. Now none of it. It's only
repetitions, diaries and divinations that bring what's outside
inside, folding habit round the smashed glass and roadkill.
chiconaui tochtli
9 rabbit
You may just be a rabbit but look at the sky. Everyone
remembers your image in light. Productive people use the night
before to plan the day ahead, always finding time to sit
at the roadside staring into a field where a man is picking
yellow flowers for the ceremonies before the rain comes.
matlactli atl
10 water
After the rain I'm looking for a colour for this word,
petrichor. Plant oil seeping into earth could be
green, but blood is just as volatile. Take this
blush reddening the air when thunder rolls back
the curtain on a massacre that hasn't ended yet.
matlactli once itzcuintli
11 dog
The dog on the roof howls its own dog song to afternoon,
which growls back distantly with traffic. I can't hear what
you're saying, the shape of your lips drowned out
by the seconds blurred into white noise, while the last
bird in a storm is trying to pronounce its name.
matlactli omome ozomatli
12 monkey
The car slows down just where the volcano frames
the church on the pyramid. Calculate exposure times
in centuries or look away now. I'm all of these split-second
collisions, not to speak of the monkey in the blood jumping
backwards and forwards between them. And running late.
matlactli omei malinalli
13 grass
Water speaks and grains of maize speak, a mass of earth
speaks against the histories of stars, a buzzing in the night.
Grass busy underfoot. You clap your hands. It's not the birds
that answer back, it's time that shrieks. The days are talking
all at once, their tongues punctured with green blades.
Zoë Skoulding (b. 1968) is Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing at Bangor University. She was editor of Poetry Wales from 2008 to 2014. Her most recent collections are Footnotes to Water (2019, Seren), which won the 2020 Wales Book of the Year Poetry Award, The Celestial Set-Up (2020, Oystercatcher) and A Revolutionary Calendar (2020, Shearsman).
Her monograph Poetry and Listening: The Noise of Lyric is just out from Liverpool University Press. Her current research project is Transatlantic Translation: Poetry in Circulation and Practice Across Languages (AHRC).
Copyright © 2021 by Zoë Skoulding, 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.
