poetry pf header

 

 
home>poets>Hylda Sims>more poems

Hylda Sims - about Hylda      back to Hylda's Page

events listing

 

home button poets button features button

links button shop button about ppf button email ppf button

 


last update:      

Measuring Up               Cliff Hangers

         Sayling the Babel           Seascape with Train

 

Measuring Up

 

The thing we’re shifting doesn’t fit

in the space that waits for it

it won’t go through the door

or round the corners

checking beforehand ought to warn us

but it isn’t out by more

than an eighth of an inch

I always think that, at a pinch

 

things’ll squeeze in.

It’s an original sin

to believe that deal and chipboard

are similar to wool,

malleable

they’re not, and I’ve ignored

your words, you’ve got all the weight

we’re struggling, trying to keep it straight.

 

Now there’s a spare chest of drawers

on the landing, stranded, mine of course.

We lie there back to back

most of the night

you sulking, me contrite

leaving a draughty crack

not quite an eighth of an inch,

we touch and part, trying to flinch.

 

 

Hylda Sims

first published in Smiths Knoll,  No. 17

top

 

Cliff Hangers

 

In the pub, old boys, moved in from the south

perch, grey parrots, boasting, roosting,

opposite, the smoke hoose (as they say up here)

unwinds a scarf of kipper-scented grey

into a black, travelling sky

 

We walk along the coastal path, past

Bungalows, allotments, soon fields of cows

slope to a cliff, sheer, curving round a shore

of black whinstone and scoops of beach

across the face hundreds of birds

 

kittiwakes, sit breast on breast

cuddled on rock ledges, their guano,

marking time, thickened to white lace,

audience to the lift and lull of tides

curtainfalls of cloud

 

April snow flurries the high hedges

of whitethorn, merges with blossom, melts

in our plastic cups of tea, falls

on our sandwiches, forms crystals

on his red hair then blows over

 

He scrambles through a patch of heather

finds a spur of whin where breakers turn

whirlpooling spouts of foam on him

in his navy scarf and anorak

he watches the kittiwakes fish

 

and I watch him – he capers near the edge

leans over, flaps his wings, pretends

to be a gull, a jagged cross beneath

the old smooth wheel of birds, inapt as Cnut

before the riff and buff of waves

 

Kittiwakes, wide-armed, screaming, drop

in the sea’s open throat, held on a feather

I climb over, pull him back, back to the pub

where there are parrot stories, smoke and kippers

people playing darts

 

 

Hylda Sims

Second Prize winner (and consequent publication),

London Writers' Competition, 1995

top

 

 

Sayling the Babel

  (Drinte Mog, 1499)

 

We somme foglant an the starfoot

clammt und sveltstrickt

ins gnocchi nicht

 

Stilldeckt, fearboden

velblakket all

nem wan kans nils persicht

 

Oren bin oren drammet we

slepfe nem wan kannot

pensamme oft we nilgen usland sicht

 

Wendon, Lodblinken! Sonne rimmet

felts ab clair

bov blaugen sofar okean

 

Bretplumers flaum an doppled waterscuffs

skimflighters brostle, ayn gint notheran

strange flishen, como gigants, glimt and plaumet

 

Sen kepitin Fortuno

(Lodreft bogfutch!)

smileeven

 

Fargript, mundklept, lagenflotted

we somme gamboltongues

befor the wander of itt.

 

 

Note: Sailors on an early voyage of discovery to the new world speaking in a European patois

Inspired by a workshop given by the late Ken Smith

 

Hylda Sims

first published in Stand ,  Vol 6 (1), 2005

top

 

 

Seascape with Train

 

The tide is going out

on salt pastures sand has covered,

the train a long brush-stroke removing itself.

 

He sits opposite another passenger

a woman unwrapping sandwiches

a faint flexing of lips reveals

her English taste for lonely journeys

 

his thumbs fondle each other, retreat

inside the cave of his palms

he gazes out of the window, grey eyes

reflecting exteriors:

 

what a coast! Absolutely flat,

stick-limbed birds picking about

could you understand why they strut

float on waves, suddenly fly…

 

and the train, obvious old metaphor

shunting, rattling to the terminus,

had we not invented it ourselves

wouldn’t God construct it for us?

 

She’s finishing her sandwiches

putting the wrapper, scraps of crust

tidily in her bag, brushing at crumbs

if you could fathom a woman’s thoughts…

 

he needs to float words, find currents,

So strange , the birds, he rasps, she smiles

brows knotting, but polite, Birds?   Ah, yes, the birds…

aren’t they … It tells him nothing.

 

Both of them stare out – the sand is wet

shines a moment as the sea recedes

perhaps the tide is turning

beginning to come in.

 

The train sings to itself, seems

suspended in empty land running back;

underneath, time gossips, chatters

across the points.

 

 

Hylda Sims

published in Goldsmiths mag Hallmark III ,

and Plant Care, a Festshcrift for Mimi Khalvati,

ed. E A Markham pub. Linda Lee Books, 2004

top


© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
site feedback welcome