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Snapshots
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It takes Picture a window, small, square, lattice-striped, set high in a slanted stone wall. Picture a child's face caught in the edge of shadow, staring out each night, waiting for day to bring an end to it. She wears offwhite, her gown unchanged; she's not sure how long she's worn it, nor when she heard her mother's voice last. Sometimes she thinks she might still be sleeping. The street is empty, not even a dog passes, nose down. The wind blows smoke; there's a tinge of brown in it and when she sniffs the air, she thinks she can smell the opposite of hunger. Not that she eats. There's a weight against the door she cannot hope to move. So she stares out at oaks silhouetting the Minster. Sometimes she thinks she sees spirits; crowds passing, looking up, curious. But they dissolve as the rain falls and there's nothing but a crumpled leaf sweeping the pavement. A puddle reflects her face, reflects the moon: there's no difference. Nessa O'Mahoney Beaumaris, North Wales 5.15pm goose egg Breakfast, Beaumaris, 24th March 2004 Its weight amazes, bulk filling my palm as I cradle it the treacherous six inches to the countertop. Unwrapped with reverence from the kitchen towel the carboot lady swathed it in. A pencilled date - 15/3/04 - unleashes anxieties but we've sealed our fates. So I crack and crack until a breach appears, fissure-thin, spurring me on until it finally splits. A few gelatinous drops clear the way for a huge smug globe on the base of the pan. The whisk stutters, unused to resistence as I turn up the heat. Desultory bubbles - this bird takes it time. Is it done? I turn the saffron porridge on my plate, take the first mouthful, chew and taste. nothing. Size is everything. Nessa O'Mahony Here, we watch the water for the first yachts, filing a course through the Straits, leaning against the wind, testing sails that haven't been unfurled for months. I follow each boat through the span of my bay window, imagine the rest, the progress past the pier, white cloth reflected in each pane of glass of the seafront terrace as it curves its way towards Penmon and the light. A second has appeared, tied up unseen over night, It circles on its moorings as the wind shifts. Beaumaris, April 7th 2004 Nessa O'Mahony Bloomsday 2004 Not snot-green, today, and sixty miles away though if I close my eyes I can reel a straight line to link this seaside Britishness of strolls and ice-cream cones and white-haired revellers with Martello towers, stiff winds, unpulchritudinous flesh bobbing. Is that where buck-naked was born? But never travelled, thankfully. Nessa O'Mahony Beaumaris, 16 June 2004 Poetryetc is a listserv relating to poetry and poetics which provides a forum for poets to debate their critical and creative work. The list has over the years run a number of projects for its members, of which Snapshots has been the most enduring. Every Wednesday, Poetryetc members were invited to post short poems on any subject or in any form they chose. The idea was to make a poetic collage of instamatic “snaps” of that day that reflected the international membership of the list. The project has generated an astounding number of poems. The first two runs, of six weeks each, and the first ten weeks of the third run, are archived at Wild Honey Press www.wildhoneypress.com under Poetryetc Project. The rest - amounting in all to a run of a year - are archived here. Poetryetc, like its affiliate Salt Publishing (http://www.saltpublishing.com), was founded by Australian poet John Kinsella. Salt is managed by Christopher Hamilton-Emery (cemery@saltpublishing.com), while Poetryetc is owned by Alison Croggon (ajcroggon@bigpond.com). Poetryetc is now archived at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/poetryetc.html. and anyone interested can join from that url. To contact the listowner: Alison Croggon These pages are designed, maintained, and hosted by Rebecca Seiferle, the Editor of The Drunken Boat. To email. 
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