Here We Have Been

     (in memory Ágnes Nemes Nagy, 1922-1991)
 
…from the plains of Bács Kiskun
to the bay of Somme
beauty in the detail
flat-lands stretching on
accented here
like phrases in the wind
underground rhythms
carried overground to the sea…
The train still rattles through to Kecskemét
saluted at every station
climbing down, crossing tracks
(there’s singing).
At the old barracks
they also look ahead
move briskly without breath
to the brim like Balaton
and keeping low
like a market stall on the ground
they escape with hot rolls
and wine from the Baja hills
dug through from some other life…
We walk among people
do they know they are dead?
here we have been (here we have never been)
 

Philip Bennetta

in collection Here We Have Been, 2013, Community of Poets & Artists Press,
ISBN 978-1-902529-21-9

 
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Now Winter’s Here

You arrive by day
and I find you at night
since autumn’s late summer
when I first heard your lines
caught your rhythm
in the air
and later
your passion’s sadness
emptiness, loss. Your
lust for life
the searching
spirit soaring high
unnourished by sleep
a brush with winter
now returning…
Somehow we met and
anniversaries are for ever
spiralling away through the years
and spinning webs
now winter’s here
 

Philip Bennetta

in artbook approaching and…, 2002, Oackwood Press Proof @ KIAD,
ISBN 1-902529-13-8

 
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Tag Ending

     (Thou hast made the earth to tremble
               Psalm 60 v.2)
 
The owls have returned
on the eve of the equinox.
A national strike, banners
the wine of astonishment.
Washpot, lawgivers, shoe
vain is the help of man
turn yourself to us, for
a natural one is forecast
and they cannot agree
if it is true.
Some still play
with pebbles on the shore
and in cosy bunkers
from bulging pockets
fat gushing’s flow.
Thinking what to do
what to fix
preparing
We are out of reality
you say
and as you practice the violin
a chaffinch joins your tag ending…
 

Philip Bennetta

in collection Home By Different Ways, 2016, Community of Poets & Artists Press,
ISBN 978-1-902529-23-3

 
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Calais Beach

     (in memory, Matthew Arnold
     Laleham 1822 - Liverpool 1888)
 
We can barely
make you out
the mist
has made arrival strange
there’s light
shimmering on surf
edge, building, pier
the sea is calm
and the green-topped light
flashes us in
above engines
and foggy men.
Was it you
on Calais beach
writing a poem
and did your soft-fringed lines
stretch as far
as his arrival?
 
(We had searched
fog and mist
then one day
he just turned up
lived in a beach hut, he said
fed on bread
sheltered
by a family
he did not know…)
 

Philip Bennetta

published in The French Literary Review, Issue 33, 2020, ed. Barbara Dordi

 
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