poetry pf header

 

 

Victoria Pugh      about Victoria      back to Victoria's page

events listing

 

home button poets button features button

links button shop button about ppf button email ppf button

 


last update:      

The Mole-God               Love God

         You Are What You Keep           Face

 

The Mole-God

 

I rushed in, dropped everything, read your note:

It said, “I’ve gone to find out about the mole God.”

Then the phone went.  When I’d finished talking,

I thought of you, setting off in your safari hat,

crawling through all those tunnelsthen stopping,

wondering if you were looking in the right place,

if the ground above was mole-equivalent to sky.

Instead of clouds you’d gaze at trees or traffic lights.

 

I read the note again, this time turned the page:

It said, “I’ve gone to find out about the mole God

put on my back!  We’ll need to talk about it later.”

I think you already know where the mole-god lives.

You’re staring in its face.  I wish you could’ve found

something brown and velvety, crowned with glory.

 

Victoria Pugh

in collection, Mrs Marvellous, 2008,

Two Rivers Press, ISBN 978-1-901677-57-7

top

 

 

Love God

 

The man with the backpack of green things

walks down the path that crosses the earth.

He throws clover and grass on the track,

it grows up lush and sucks at his shoes

as he pushes them through the grass’s spit.

 

He strokes the silver ripple on the wheat,

bends and enters the arch of white thorn

as the flowers endlessly tighten their grip;

throws stars from his pack, and they stick

in the branches and make heaven for us.

 

He sprinkles bitter fields from his bag

some Wild Garlic or Old Man’s Beard,

burnt earth and stubble, many are fallow.

Then he’s gone, somewhere, down the road.

He’s emptied his backpack of green things.

 

Victoria Pugh

published in Scintilla, No. 11, 2007,

ISBN 978-0-9555232-0-5

top

 

 

 

You Are What You Keep

 

“They’re weird, these people,

look in the box, it’s full of teeth.”

 

And he emptied the box of teeth

all over the bed.

 

He pulled out a drawer

and tipped the contents on the floor.

 

He found:

 

A pendant made of plastic

with a crab trapped inside it.

 

A small seal

made of real seal skin.

 

A badge that played a song

and lit up when he turned it on.

 

A postcard of dolphins at Knossos.

A photo of dolphins at the zoo.

 

Something that was very gooey

in a coin bag from the bank.

 

Caked make-up by Mary Quant.

A candle, a pencil, a thimble, a buckle.

 

An extremely small copy of Macbeth.

A card saying Happy Bithday, Mum.

 

He ripped open a bag and found

a plaster cast of someone’s teeth.

 

“They’ve got nothing, just nothing.”

He threw the teeth at the wall.

 

They left by the back door

he threw my rubber gloves on the floor.

 

Victoria Pugh

published in New Welsh Review, 1999,

ISSN 09542116

top

 

 

 

Face

 

pbody4We are sitting, trying to touch, but not touching.

 

I want to say to you,

that your head seems perched on your neck.

Your chin looks strange

your face looks like it could slip right off.

 

That you could wear your face like a badge,

on your jacket. You could work it with strings

and make it say you were happy.

 

All the time the real you would sit behind,

saying nothing, while your mouthpiece talked.

 

And the difference between the real you,

and your mouthpiece, would be the distance

exactly equal to the distance between you and me.

 

When the world speaks to you or I speak to you,

you take no notice.  I will take off your badge

and turn it around, so it is facing you.  

And this time, you will hear it. 

 

Victoria Pugh

published in Night Balancing, 2006,

Blinking Eye, ISBN 0-9549036-4-1

top


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