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- © JStadnicki, 2020 / Stroud / UK
Photography: © John Stadnicki, May 2020
poetry
Rite of Lockdown / Week #7 / Midlands / United Kingdom
Rite
Sunday lingers on scent of paint,
tobacco and spring. Our kitchen-war
sprouts from a conversation on books
about people we both know. I say
I’d met doctor Zhivago queuing
at Nero’s, heard him asking a barista
about the fate of taiga-trees
at the height of a mining season.
You think they are cut short then stop
growing. I lock my paperbacks
in a cupboard; they remind us
of all the ink twisted in verse, seeded
in layers of gravel. Our verbs reach
the pit of a quarry, and seal over.
Snow forests shoot up in tears,
we trip over extension cables in our flat.
© Maria Stadnicka, May 2020
Photography: © John Stadnicki 2020
Geometry
Nietzsche insists that a person must
find at least one truth before a good
night sleep. A terrible prospect
considering how facts come about,
with their own sets of variables.
wind force,
speed in metres per second,
momentum at impact with a surface,
temperature
and friction between molecules
Ninety-degree angles do not exist
in real life. Until now we have been tricked
by scientists into believing in verticality.
Meanwhile they build a simplified version
of the world, a dummy manual, if you like,
for funding purposes.
© Maria Stadnicka 2020
Published in ‘International Times’ on 29 Feb 2020.
Rite
Sunday lingers on scent of paint,
tobacco and spring. Our kitchen-war
sprouts from a conversation on books
about people we both know. I say
I’d met doctor Zhivago queuing
at Nero’s, heard him asking a barista
about the fate of taiga-trees
at the height of a mining season.
You think they are cut short then stop
growing. I lock my paperbacks
in a cupboard; they remind us
of all the ink twisted in verse, seeded
in layers of gravel. Our verbs reach
the pit of a quarry and seal over.
Snow forests shoot up in tears,
we trip over cables in our flat.
© Maria Stadnicka 2020
Published in ‘Stride Magazine’on 26 Feb 2020.
Short Summary of Strategic Combat
Illustration © Claire Palmer 2020
after Kasparov vs Karpov, 1986
The playground is open, with white to move.
D4 F6. A few pawn boys make a safety zone
out by the swings, waiting for Father to fall for the ruse.
C4 G6. Everyone calls the queen Sis’ Loretta
when she jumps over the Treatment Room’s steps
to the battlefield. The fifth move: Q to B3.
By the eleventh round, the game enters
a phase of hand-to-hand combat. Father attacks,
we defend on each side. Sister gets hurt,
two pawn boys, sacrificed, but nobody castles.
Our fight, bishop to rook. Checked on the playground
as the last knight falls at the match point.
Most pieces are gone on both front lines. Thirty-one
moves. Checkmate. From the opposing team,
Father says we are playing a game bigger than us.
© Maria Stadnicka 2020
Published in ‘International Times’ on 8th February 2020.
Shooting Position
We queue at the airport,
pretending to watch
a lunar eclipse.
We fear sharp objects.
Passengers hold boarding passes up,
flags in a moving crusade.
All windows are half-open,
but nobody looks out.
Heat seals glossy layers
of mist over my homeland.
We have outgrown the raincoat
tripping over someone’s thoughts
in the two-minute stop between stations.
At odd times, the planes take off.
Letters drop from above
on neighbouring gardens,
seeds growing tall in silent parks.
We remove luggage tags, barely notice
the music of a mid-air explosion.
Blades of grass stand ready to shoot.
© Maria Stadnicka 2020
‘Shooting Position’ is published in Somnia, out now at Knives, Forks and Spoons Press, UK.
‘Shooting Position’ was initially published in Meniscus, The Journal of Australasian Association of Writing Programmes, Canberra, Australia.
hermit age
When I feel lonely, I visit my local tip. Apart from Wednesdays, I’m guaranteed to find someone about, willing to help me get rid of a load of stuff which, up to that point, had prevented me from moving on in life. One time I discarded so much of my old junk that back home I noticed the front door sign was gone, and the post box which had my name on it. I got in, and a woman I’d never met before was moving about hoovering. She was wearing my shoes.
© Maria Stadnicka 2020
[From ‘Hermit Age’ sequence published in International Times on 25/01/2020.]
Otherhood
Last time my brother and I talked poetry, we ended up
arguing. His five-year old daughter found my book easy
to read, though it had a major flaw. No pictures. It made
everyone rather uncomfortable. Having to explain words
like ‘deluge’, ‘carnal’, ‘empiric’ without visual clues, it is
beyond my fatherly competency, he said. I often thought
that …Plus, he added, each time you write about me, things
get so twisted I’m not sure whether it’s me you refer to or…
I often think it’s the idea of him, or a bucket of old stuff
we picked up together moving about in the world. They are
mostly words he now repeats facing a neurologist, hoping
to pass a memory test. It’s me… the… fourth… of…Tuesday…
The last time him.
© Maria Stadnicka 2020
Human Currency
© Maria Stadnicka 2020
‘Somnia’ launched in Stroud
‘Somnia’ was launched last night at the Museum in the Park, the Pavilion Garden Room. Beautiful photography from Nikoletta Monyok and it has been a joy to share the evening with the gifted writers Caroline Shaw, David Clarke, Adam Horovitz and Philip Rush. Thank you Uta Baldauf for a memorable performance, and to Caroline Rush, Philip Rush and Fred Chance for making the launch possible. Thank you for the generosity of our host, The Museum in the Park, to painter Mark Mawer for his artwork, Alec Newman and The Knives Forks and Spoons Press. It felt so special because there were so many people who attended, despite the bleak and windy weather on a Thursday evening. ‘Somnia’ THANKS YOU!📖
Photography: © Nikoletta Monyok 2019
Cover art: © Mark Mawer 2019
Publisher: Knives, Forks and Spoons Press, UK
Editor: Alec Newman
Further details, on the ‘reviews’ and ‘books’ pages.
