poetography

Canine Laws

© Claire Palmer, 2019 ‘International Times’

A dog believes people are dogs as well.
To people, this is of no consequence.  Humans
are immune to associations, particularly to
associations with Evil; specially if the root of
their actions is Evil itself.

If a dog keeps running away from home, let
him free. He needs to find where the noise
comes from.

In canine terms, silence is an instrument for
torturing dogs who are no longer useful to
their masters. If asked, people would deny
knowledge of this.

Despite clocks, dogs measure time in
intervals passed between the end of
punishment and the beginning of wound
healing. Once the skin seals up, people
rewind the clocks.

It takes a lifetime to a dog to become
human, and three weeks to a human to
become beast.

© Maria Stadnicka, 2019. Published in International Times, 14/09/19.

 

Restitutio

A new poem published this morning in ‘Stride’ magazine:

Photograph: @John Stadnicki – MMXVIII

I covered my face with black ink
rounded all my possessions up
and set fire to everything
at the top of a hill.

click here to read the full text.

 

 

Takeaway

Photography: ©International Times, 2018

(to Aidan Semmens)

Hello. I am a feature
on a CCTV camera, with
private resonance. At
the top floor, I
can barely sleep for the sound of gunfire.
I hear the poetry when I order a pizza.

Still there, are you?
…‘yeah, […published in ‘International Times’ to read click] here

Gloria Mundi

II – MMXVIII

I – MMXVIII

 

 

 

 

 

 

III – MMXVIII

IV – MMXVIII

V – MMXVIII

 

 

 

 

 

 

VI – MMXVIII

VII – MMXVII

IX – MMXVIII

 

 

 

 

 

 

X – MMXVIII

 

XI – MMXVIII

XII – MMXVIII

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photography: ©John Stadnicki 2018

 

Panis Angelicus

 

Photograph: ©John Stadnicki, ‘Corpus I’ – MMXVII

 

(for Katie McCue)

 

The soldier, asleep by his polished sword,

was somehow surprised.

Such a big storm!

 

The colours, all of them, disappeared.

The city collapsed in a big crevasse.

 

When she cried,

everybody cried.

 

The roads, the windows had to be shut

when she needed silence.

 

The words had to be wrapped in silvery knots

just before

they became people.

 

The stories stopped being written,

the earth stopped,

the war stopped.

And simply because she had

a fear of butterflies.

 

The butterflies were not scared of her.

 

Photograph: ©John Stadnicki, ‘Corpus II’ – MMXVII

White Breakfast

It was, after all, a beautiful day.

Your hands, resting on the white tablecloth,

the lost sheep in a perfect desert with no compass.

You passed me the tea, I took the newspaper and

arranged my dress in a neat knot on my lap,

smiled and looked the sun in the eye.

 

The fresh air suffocated us.

The summer, gone.

 

‘Too much beauty’ I thought to say before I slowly placed the cup in front of me,

‘too much of you’

but I kept a symmetrical distance between my toes and yours.

I stood up and went to the other side of the room

to watch you watching the sea.

 

On the floor, the breakfast crumbs.

Memory of my passing.

Photograph: @Maria Stadnicka, Lines’, Stroud

Uranium Bullets

I always arrive late for everything.

Stuck in a traffic jam by the docks,

missed Noah’s boat but

survived under water

accidentally trapped between stolen books,

trapped by a word heavier than a stone,

lighter than a feather.

 

Hidden in the overcrowded wooden train carriage,

radicalised by the anonymity of my blue name-tag,

with a heart growing outside my body.

Each beat painfully visible to the guards

around the Monopoly table.

 

On the waiting list for ballet lessons,

radicalised by the price of uranium bullets on Mother’s Day

handwriting an apologetic note.

My deep eye silenced.

The familiar solemnity of a world without a face.

Photograph: @John Stadnicki, Bristol MMXVI

Video

A City Preview – London on Thursdays

Poetry reading: Maria Stadnicka reading the poem City from the collection Imperfect published by Yew Tree Press, 2017. Poem published in International Times, January 2017.

Music: Katie McCue

Video footage: World War One Archive