Eleanor Rees
4 poems

Exposure

The wind can only carry iodine
inland when the cloud allows it.
The redness sticks to grasses
in the dunes, like walking through
a sepia photograph of the place -
backwards down stone steps -
and up again into the real colour
of the picture where
an old woman in an apron shells
mussels into a wicker basket
after the pause for the camera.
Her features freed from the sticky
mess of the daguerreotype,
a warm mercury vapour
disturbing chemicals
to give them fresh life -
an image on a sheet of copper.

The light seals colour into place
as the ocean washes in
iodine chemicals on the breeze
leftover from the previous centuries.
A specific moment in time,
particular light, -
the crackling of the basket weave
as empty shells fall into its casing,
the slithering subtle sheen
of a glimpsed naked mussel
in a bowl, salt on the skin,
and the mussel flesh bitten tight
between the teeth that evening, -
all this transferred into the next hour
and in time carried into minutiae
that drips and feeds
winds pulling it back up from the beach
every now and again.

Apparition

There on the other side
standing hand on hip
with a cigarette,
a man in a dark suit
surveying the landscape;
toy town houses
shiny new masonry
steel and glass frame
new developments,
close to the drop
overlooking the valley -
the skeletons of houses
exposed to autumn.

And up here, in the park
by the children’s
playground, the valley,
a tarmac stream,
flowing between hills,
he is with me again,
a familiar figure
who comes when I ask,
smiles when I ask,
watches for end
points, a rain cloud,
a slippage,
as the city inflates
- balloon- like -
larger than the moors.

Extract from a love story

you on your back watching clouds overhead
and a kestrel push down upon the air until it
breaks the illusion and falls. It hasn’t rained for
days and the ground is baked hard by a
persistent sun that seems to glue you to it,
spread-eagled, all limbs, legs and gangly arms. I
see you are taking up more space than usual,
mostly as you are relaxed for once and I can
see your full shape without the shyness, the fake
confidence and gusto which makes you move
so quickly.
Here, now you are as calm as the gorse bush
next to us.
Each angle and dimension of your body given
and expanded.
Not withheld as in the city where buildings
make us move stealthily and in separate spaces,
observing distance.
In silence and with your eyes shut I can see
clearly for once
how your animation is a result of every room
you’ve sat in,
every bus, train and constraining space.
All these dimensions have made you more like
a man.
Now I see the human, breathing slowly, centred
by a warm heart, dark hair and eyes unneeded.
Just form, pure form.

My Horse

1
A weight of snow
on the branches -
lips on teats -
my horse beneath
chandeliers or
daggers
over battlements
onto my skin
and horses dark back -
resisting
forward moves
along the bridle path.

2
Steel lock shuts
for night will come
for my horse
fed and blanketed
like an invalid.
When clouds are close,
the ice crawls
towards his stable
and gnaws
the wooden door
what lopes
into the yard
to set him free
to take revenge?

3
Clouds hang down
along field boundary,
to catch our necks.
A lightening whip
hurries our gallop
teeth on the bit,
head high like a tiller.
He steers us -
low tree branches
yellow buds on gorse
caught in my mouth.

Spout published
Eleanor Rees'
first collection
Feeding Fire
in 2001