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Laura spent most of her life
in Manchester before doing an arts degree in Cardiff. She now lives in south
London and has been writing for over 10 years and co-running Magnetic North
Writers based in Greenwich She has two small-press publications and
work in two anthologies. "Her raw-edged verse swallowed me down in one gulp." (Jacqueline Harte, City Life Magazine). Moor Poems are unpublished works. If you enjoy the poetry, why not send a note to the author by email to hello@scribblingrivalry.com, who will forward your comments.
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The Horse Drawn Rose Queen of Waterfoot.
The Horse Drawn Rose Queen of Waterfoot.
We trod the streets of Waterfoot One leading, one driving Queen shivering on a chair We’d strapped to the cart With gaffer tape Her hair, lank in the drizzle Her roses, losing their petals Her eyes, two petrified beads.
It was probably summer It was definitely raining On arrival the manager Had allowed us to shelter In a greenhouse It was quite big Even so, the horse Looked out of place.
We did our best To decorate the cart Shoved ribbons through haines Tied a fancy bow To a combed forelock But it looked too funny And funny was not what they’d ordered For the Rose Queen of Waterfoot.
The Soap Factory
Mercury changed them It was in the soap They manufactured
Young men became Trembling babblers And most still virgins
Young women couldn’t Even spell mercury They were too impregnated
Older workers were Not available For interview.
Red Hair
Red hair and she would Trail it across the face Of any potential
Smelling of hay warm citrus And other things She loved men regularly and despaired
She didn’t have breasts she Had mammary glands a Gypsy Remarked as she crawled from her tent
I’ll milk you the next time He said as she spirited him to A moor side shallow grave
I will not play the violin She put her foot down on the Latest artistic directions
And she was allowed to mime Unlike the other performers Unlike any other performer.
Pantoum for Karen
She faced her fears and decided this day It couldn’t be as bad as her dreams, as the night Could it really be fatal to ride this way Her steed unfettered, no girth bucked tight
It couldn’t be as bad as her dreams, as the night No, she trusted him, he would go when ready Her steed unfettered, no girth bucked tight She pressed to his back, had faith, held steady
No, she trusted him, he would go when ready Any moment, any pace, anywhere, no delay She pressed to his back, had faith, held steady In the shadow of the tor, its dark forest, she could pray
Any moment, any pace, anywhere, no delay Across the river, its deep pools, to the moor quarried slate In the shadow of the tor, its dark forest, she could pray The horse free of bridle, saddle, stirrups, too late?
Across the river, its deep pools, to the moor quarried slate Past this street, all she knows, all she’s seen, understands The horse free of bridle, saddle, stirrups, too late? Hanging on for her life without reins for her hands
Past this street, all she knows, all she’s seen, understands She faced her fears and decided this day Hanging on for her life without reins for her hands Could it really be fatal to ride this way
Keith
Keith could play anything Keith had a piano Growing in his head All the time Growing like a dermoid cyst Tickling his brain In Keitharian ways We called him A genius.
Hitching in Fun Fur
She arrived on the M4 in fun fur Screaming with a shoulder bag full of useless But spiritually important objects To hitch with me from Cardiff to the North West And paint paper mache mountains for free To sleep in the stench of horse blankets In a fallen wardrobe and starve.
We were on the wrong side of the road For an hour and giggled blushingly across A couple of lucky ducks her yellow hair floating In fumes and dust the fluffiness attracting an Enormous truck which I jumped into first so the Danger of fun fur and gearsticks would be minimal With my donkey jacket unattractively closest
As the landscape lost its buildings I thought of her coat and how crazy it was As the roadkills turned from cats to sheep Her coat was a liability, and so was she As the temperature dropped and old chimneys Appeared I thought about stinking horse blankets And knew I would be asking to share her maddening Fun fur crazy naïve silly body cover from hell Or wherever she came from.
Ellen Strange
We look at our feet churning April muds Heads in a mist of gods fine hairspray So unstylish in the wetness
There are many vantage points along the moor If I cared to look up a galleries worth Of impressions and colour
I can feel the stone in my pocket For the Cairn of Ellen Strange I sing her ballad in my mind
It’s such a long way up I forget how long We’ve walked but I think about her That night running across the moor
Chased by her lover through cold black air along These paths until he caught her, his metal heels Spilling a fire of sparks as he flew
It was bloodhounds that traced her Eventually, up here the colour of stone, Her hair the only bit of her unchanged
And she was forgotten and the ballad was Soon lost amongst more respectable documents But someone must have known
Someone laid the first Few stones where her body had been found Someone built the Cairn of Ellen Strange.
A Performance
The local community expected A bonfire and colourful flashes In the November sodden skies
Well behaved they stood in clumps Behind sagging rope for the annual Flinging of expensive incendiaries
They did not expect nothing to happen for a full Thirty minutes because 20ft tall Puppet Fawkes Got his hat tangled in overhead cables
Or a wild costumed horse to Whack its head on the tree it was Tethered to after running in circles screaming
Or three masked Pendlesque witches To fall in black bundles down the hill into Screeching children because they could not see
Or for the rain to so brilliantly soak Mr Finale Fawkes to the point of no fire risk Causing great pokings of paraffin torches
The only consolation was the unpopular sheep- On-a-spit sizzled to greyhound proportions and Given to the theatre group by way of a thankyou.
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