Poem
John McCullough
TALACRE
TALACRE
TALACRE
when we veered off the dissolving pathto chance uncertain territory. High dunes
like hills of sugar, so smooth we lost whole feet
but found ourselves again, defied dense sky
by making our own light. We followed
the roaming fence and, like the rabbits
squirting over marram, were never caught out.
We reached a new country, the sea
at first too far and blocked by swerving
channels – mercury in the dimness –
but we weren’t afraid to innovate,
rolling up trousers for running jumps,
splatting down with a squelch to write names
in the sand amongst the casualties
of starfish, bladderwrack. Messy letters,
our fingers digging past the first resistance,
our only witnesses the wind turbines way out –
a sleepy, inaudible crowd, two so close
to each other from our perspective we swore
they must have inhabited the same dream.
© 2008, John McCullough
From: the lives of ghosts
Publisher: tall-lighthouse, London
From: the lives of ghosts
Publisher: tall-lighthouse, London
John McCullough
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1978)
John McCullough was born in Watford in 1978 and grew up there during the eighties and nineties. He studied English and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia before completing an MA in Sexual Dissidence at the University of Sussex, followed by a PhD on Shakespeare and friendship. He still teaches creative writing there now, in addition to similar work at the Open University. His ...
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Poems of John McCullough
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TALACRE
when we veered off the dissolving pathto chance uncertain territory. High dunes
like hills of sugar, so smooth we lost whole feet
but found ourselves again, defied dense sky
by making our own light. We followed
the roaming fence and, like the rabbits
squirting over marram, were never caught out.
We reached a new country, the sea
at first too far and blocked by swerving
channels – mercury in the dimness –
but we weren’t afraid to innovate,
rolling up trousers for running jumps,
splatting down with a squelch to write names
in the sand amongst the casualties
of starfish, bladderwrack. Messy letters,
our fingers digging past the first resistance,
our only witnesses the wind turbines way out –
a sleepy, inaudible crowd, two so close
to each other from our perspective we swore
they must have inhabited the same dream.
From: the lives of ghosts
TALACRE
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