viewPenzance
by Tris Kerslake
I knew this town by pubs,
where I would sip on tinted cider by the stairs
and where my parents talked of all the
mundane things. Sylvia’s cancer,
whose breast betrayed her,
old Sid’s accident and newly plated skull.
Pub talk.
The Star was at the top
opposite the cafe where a mother ran
to save her child from sightless cars.
Just up the road from Parker’s
where seeds and straw and pets
got sold. A fire, and all the puppies
died.
And further down, where tourists
played pretend, there was The Turk’s Head.
They made the best crab sandwiches
in all the world and told us we should drink
in gardens. They even gave us
flowers in a pot and tables
with umbrellas.
Of course there was The Pirate’s Hotel
where William sketched his doggerel and Arthur
sang, joined at the hip
in comic opera. It was too grand for me
not knowing how to drink
the proper class
of cider.
And down upon the docks there was
a grimmer place whose name I never knew.
Old sailors lived there,
tottering between the rum and public parks.
Aggie Weston used a crucifix
to mark the spot
of ancient mariners.
viewLong-Distance Literature
(on remembering high school)
by Tris Kerslake
How far away I am from Shakespeare
who haunts me with melodic lines and voices off.
His kings and wars, his whores and drunks
were closer then. They sent me greetings.
Though I could not appreciate him properly
having letters only in my name, my thoughts were slow,
but still he sang to me and smiled
at my applause. He liked to move me.
And while his language was a trifle rich
with hinted politics that I did not begin to understand,
he let me pull his words apart to find
the juicy centres. I am addicted.
The letters that he writes, my perfumed lyrics
delivered by the book and by his actors in the round,
have set me flying through the lesser days
upon his gift. Avon is calling.
viewUndergraduate Blues
by Tris Kerslake
Drugs are always tempting at a time like this,
and when you see the bleakly dancing cursor, let alone
the pristine page, you understand at last that hell
is not a question of belief.
When you had weeks, you also had ability,
but skill diminishes as do the days until you have
a massive thirty hours before the email
stamps you urgent.
You also wish that you had quit your job,
who needs money when you have a brain that will not
work? Disaster lurks behind each question,
little maps of panic.
So, you endure. Lacking any form of absolution
you guess your way to credit, waiting for the kingdoms
that will not come. Off-campus students
need not attempt.
But then you think. Slow fabrication of a phrase
becomes a subtle doubt. You wouldn’t bet your pay,
but you start to write, and with each syllable you
try for wisdom.
And suddenly you have three thousand sounds
that speak of Homer, Whitman stained for the establishment,
or little poets. Spelling checked, you shun
your other obligations.
Submission page at last. The upload and receipt.
Caught and crushed between the proper rules of study
and the knowledge of a deadline made,
you graduate to life.
viewTrinity – Three Trees
by Tris Kerslake
Earthly, rootbound
without a hope of isolation
the mundane cheek-scratch bark
makes room for worms
Fragile, secret
withered by a touch of frost
a centre shy of light
keeps silent voice
Reaching, stretching
within my wooden rings erect
ambitious thoughts and see
three trees in me
viewWhite Nights
(on midsummer nights in Cornwall)
by Tris Kerslake
I love the long white nights
when clocks disclose their foolish discipline,
and owls are mindless.
With days that do not pass
to other days by dark and hide the waiting moon
from open curtains.
When talk does not dissolve
upon the stroke of ten and children will not sleep
before their stories.
When breathless pubs bring out
their chairs to let the locals sit the quiet hours
outside with empty glasses.
And blossoms never fold
their petals still and catch the coming dew
on brilliant open faces.
When peace of endless evening
walks with me along the edge of rustling waves
and paints me lullabies.
And I am all alone
beside the shore and by the restless clifftop gorse
with nights of light and wonder.
viewValentine
by Tris Kerslake
Let me share your breath.
Give me your heat and heartbeat too, and
let me live in you.
Open your mind.
Slide me deep inside to paint soft images
upon your eyes.
Divide yourself for me.
Hold me wakeful in the smaller part,
allow my touch.
Take the passion.
Bind my flame into the hearth of you, and
smoulder endlessly.
Be sometimes weak.
Permit my bones to be your bones,
accept the gift of me.
viewRain
by Tris Kerslake
I did not see these colours before
nor catch their subtleties or shaded tones,
I only saw the dry, the dusty bake of endless sun
before the rain.
My feelings were not stirred before
set hard among the clay of foreign walls,
I only knew the itching of a strange desire
for absent things.
Glorious gladflowers shuffling daisily
sinuous grass by a tumbling lazy of
brilliant glossies
the fabulous fractions
of colour of colour
of lightfully diligent colour.
I knew the fallow ivory of many books
which spoke in careful words of tint and hue,
but seeing only words, I let them sleep
within my eyes.
And then the clouds came at me
largely grey, they offered nothing new,
except their contents were more magical
than alphabets.
Drowning in spirals closing on sunlight
ripping me up with the sharpest of brightness’s
boisterous angels
smothering naturals
colour the colour
of breathing and sunrise.
The art is not that I can see
but that my sight is keener now, I speak
the secret words dormant in this dusty place
before the rain.
viewFeeling Gravity
by Tris Kerslake
When nothing works, when efforts fails
and you are all alone between the words you write
which flow like rock.
When money halts, when bills appear
to cover the entire fridge with bolded type
that never fades.
When talking stops, when lovers leave
because your words are hoarded for the precious page
and know their place.
This is the time, when gravity
pulls lines around your eyes and makes the heart beat slow
and hard to yield.
And with its weight, it makes you think
each breath you draw, each move, each yanking word you write
a mockery.
viewThe Chapel Path
by Tris Kerslake
Hack out the softness of the dissipated South, it lacks
all value and advantage.
Leave off the yielding contours when you walk the chapel path,
and feel instead each stone, each worthy pinch of praise for one
who never lets the doubt permit a single foot to stray. The flock,
the sheep are all inside and cannot see the sky and foreigner,
you comprehend that harshness is the only way to Christ.
The chapel path is clear.
Sing loud. Unmake the common roof with hymns of barter
sure of heaven’s claim.
Beat your life into a shape that fits, erode in rigid shreddings
all your sorry form, scraped knees are nothing to the hassocks
in the pew. Pray the epithet of Southerner does never spoil your welcome
here, the evening English in the cautious pubs, the quiet laugh
that makes you less than them. Listen, as the rugby
comes second only to the bitter beer.
Avoid all chance of weighing life with life, you cannot win,
that battle is a holy one.
Brethren, fiercer by the hill, anointing cuts with stinging oil
might judge no scars are yours, your flatland soul effete. Do not relax
in accent or in deed, for they will joke and drink and think
the wicked lie. Forget the years you knelt on blue-cold flags
with hands too numb to turn the gilt-edge page, unseens are in this place.
Leave them to the chapel path.
viewTensing the Verb
by Tris Kerslake
When leaving becomes left, a last look back
that takes things from the present to the past.
When going becomes gone and there are no more seconds
in this instant of your life.
Just one more glimpse, one breath, one blink
before the moment now becomes remember.
When close friends become Christmas cards
and shuffle to the back of your addresses.
When airports become your end rather than annoyances
that only rule your duty-free.
Just one last hug, a smile, a bid
to keep the final blossom of familiar sky.
When family becomes a list of complex digits
requiring calculations of their time and place.
When favoured walks become a precious leaf of sycamore
and keeps your page in books.
Just one more kiss, one last caress
to close your eyes beneath their farewell touch.
When parting becomes the thing you must outlast
and all the happy faces start to crumble down.
When passports and your foreign coins become what’s real
as you hear that boarding call.
Just one more night at home, you ask,
that lets you leave tomorrow