The Marsh Road, etc.
by
Simon MacCulloch
The Marsh Road
The old marsh lane was once a highway
in the years before it sank.
Now it’s just a sodden byway,
green with moss, forgotten, dank,
air too still and odours rank.
Things that crawl and worm and slither
animate the seething mush.
Pale blooms open, droop and wither
softly in the dripping hush,
languorously, loosely lush.
In the night the marsh lights travel,
flitting, flirting here and there,
while the windless weeds unravel
shadow stalks like knotty hair
underneath the moon’s slow stare.
Once, they say, two armies fought here.
Once, some think, two lovers fled,
only to be killed when caught here.
Tales the gobbling swamp has bred
lead to nowhere, endings dead.
“You who join that pale procession
down to where the dull words die -
pause with me and make confession.
Sorrow? Anger? Tell me why!”
Tongue a weed, she passes by.
Escape
That rasping is the fire escape, it’s clambering towards my window,
and soon the thing that’s growing from its railings will peer in; though
I’ve pulled the curtains tightly, still its rust-pit eyes will see me.
It’s beckoning, as if to join with it would somehow free me.
The first night that I noticed it there’d been a dreadful storm.
I thought an acrobatic cat, in search of somewhere warm,
had leapt upon the window-ledge. Of course, that screech and scrape
of metal was the wind upon the rattling fire escape.
I saw no cat, and though I wasn’t sure, I’d almost swear
the flaking steps had never quite extended round to there.
Perhaps the storm had pulled them loose and left them dangling, wrecked.
But all was as it should be in the morning when I checked.
Yet sunshine through the window showed some smears and flecks of rust,
which seemed to float upon the air, upon my eyes, like dust.
That very day I noticed traces settling on my skin,
though couldn’t understand how quite so much had floated in.
Some weeks went by. I just ignored the clatter and the grit.
The landlord knew the thing was old and said he’d see to it.
The doctor gave me cream (my sores were dry and never leaky),
and exercises when I said my joints were getting creaky.
I didn’t like to leave my room (I must look quite a mess).
The movements of the fire escape alarmed me less and less,
though still I kept the drapes drawn tight; I didn’t care to see
the shape I’d glimpsed whose fate portended that in store for me.
But now I know it’s spreading like a fungus on a rock,
a creeping parasite that writhes around this tottering block,
as slowly but inexorably, with little fight or fuss,
it sucks it dry of nutrients. Those nutrients are us.
My next-door neighbour’s out there now, a thing of pitted craving.
I hardly recognise his limbs, and yet I’m sure he’s waving.
He thinks I’ll let him in again, but that I strongly doubt;
I’m crawling towards the window, but it’s me who’s going out.
Objective Correlative
“I didn’t want to frighten you,” she said
to smartphone, walking partner, or the night,
and passed me by. The object of her dread
eludes me, sprawling wakeful in my bed;
the window blind withheld her from my sight.
I didn’t want to frighten you? She said
the words like drops of blood that popped and bled
from wounds of fear. And now she’s taken flight
and passed me by. The object of her dread
is clotting dark and shapeless in my head
and growing slowly clearer in a light
I didn’t want. To frighten you, she said
she’d felt the presence of the living dead
behind a blinded window, shunned its blight,
and passed me by. The object of her dread
now rises groping, drooling to be fed,
and follows where her foolish words invite.
I didn’t want to frighten you, she said,
and passed me by, the object of her dread.
Simon MacCulloch has published hundreds of poems in a variety of outlets, including literary, academic, genre, humour and religious publications. He lives in London
by
Simon MacCulloch
The Marsh Road
The old marsh lane was once a highway
in the years before it sank.
Now it’s just a sodden byway,
green with moss, forgotten, dank,
air too still and odours rank.
Things that crawl and worm and slither
animate the seething mush.
Pale blooms open, droop and wither
softly in the dripping hush,
languorously, loosely lush.
In the night the marsh lights travel,
flitting, flirting here and there,
while the windless weeds unravel
shadow stalks like knotty hair
underneath the moon’s slow stare.
Once, they say, two armies fought here.
Once, some think, two lovers fled,
only to be killed when caught here.
Tales the gobbling swamp has bred
lead to nowhere, endings dead.
“You who join that pale procession
down to where the dull words die -
pause with me and make confession.
Sorrow? Anger? Tell me why!”
Tongue a weed, she passes by.
Escape
That rasping is the fire escape, it’s clambering towards my window,
and soon the thing that’s growing from its railings will peer in; though
I’ve pulled the curtains tightly, still its rust-pit eyes will see me.
It’s beckoning, as if to join with it would somehow free me.
The first night that I noticed it there’d been a dreadful storm.
I thought an acrobatic cat, in search of somewhere warm,
had leapt upon the window-ledge. Of course, that screech and scrape
of metal was the wind upon the rattling fire escape.
I saw no cat, and though I wasn’t sure, I’d almost swear
the flaking steps had never quite extended round to there.
Perhaps the storm had pulled them loose and left them dangling, wrecked.
But all was as it should be in the morning when I checked.
Yet sunshine through the window showed some smears and flecks of rust,
which seemed to float upon the air, upon my eyes, like dust.
That very day I noticed traces settling on my skin,
though couldn’t understand how quite so much had floated in.
Some weeks went by. I just ignored the clatter and the grit.
The landlord knew the thing was old and said he’d see to it.
The doctor gave me cream (my sores were dry and never leaky),
and exercises when I said my joints were getting creaky.
I didn’t like to leave my room (I must look quite a mess).
The movements of the fire escape alarmed me less and less,
though still I kept the drapes drawn tight; I didn’t care to see
the shape I’d glimpsed whose fate portended that in store for me.
But now I know it’s spreading like a fungus on a rock,
a creeping parasite that writhes around this tottering block,
as slowly but inexorably, with little fight or fuss,
it sucks it dry of nutrients. Those nutrients are us.
My next-door neighbour’s out there now, a thing of pitted craving.
I hardly recognise his limbs, and yet I’m sure he’s waving.
He thinks I’ll let him in again, but that I strongly doubt;
I’m crawling towards the window, but it’s me who’s going out.
Objective Correlative
“I didn’t want to frighten you,” she said
to smartphone, walking partner, or the night,
and passed me by. The object of her dread
eludes me, sprawling wakeful in my bed;
the window blind withheld her from my sight.
I didn’t want to frighten you? She said
the words like drops of blood that popped and bled
from wounds of fear. And now she’s taken flight
and passed me by. The object of her dread
is clotting dark and shapeless in my head
and growing slowly clearer in a light
I didn’t want. To frighten you, she said
she’d felt the presence of the living dead
behind a blinded window, shunned its blight,
and passed me by. The object of her dread
now rises groping, drooling to be fed,
and follows where her foolish words invite.
I didn’t want to frighten you, she said,
and passed me by, the object of her dread.
Simon MacCulloch has published hundreds of poems in a variety of outlets, including literary, academic, genre, humour and religious publications. He lives in London
