Verb (September)

September sucks. Bees bounce on wattle down. September sings, the songs of solitary magpies on high wires. September converses. Another day raises verbosity of opinion. It lumps, it obtrudes, it whistles. September crosses against the lights. September rests on its shovel. September leans against a wall. It has a thirst you can photograph. It is hungry for something good. It blossoms, it parks, it reverses. No one escapes its timely appearance. September texts. Words are graphic and somehow new. September does a Hopkins. Everything’s coloured shapely. September waits in line. September stays firm. September fills with water, overflows. September glows.

Verb (February)

Medbh McGuckian’s Pre-Raphaelite-rich poetry is brocaded; fabric, thread, and stitch receive equal attention. She opens ‘Painting a Verb Half Golden’, “The horizon is in danger/ just off the real land grown on.” We might believe horizon is subject, only it might be verb. Told “thoughts rub against it” we surmise horizon may be her forehead; she leaves us thinking such thoughts. When Medbh halfway addresses someone saying she let them “scorch my tongue to living silver / with your young gold” eroticism makes linguistics physical. Love is verb, time undefined, it could be the Middle Ages, it could be February.