The Creation Myth
I am moulded as my mother
Sculpted then as if my father
Landscaped, excavated, examined in his shell.
Are you on any medications now
I ask him, after the four days and
nights without sleep.
‘No. I just work.’
•
When she was made, she fit.
When I was poured in from out
It overflowed and flopped about.
This is me now. In a week I’ll
be someone else. The silver oxide face
is my face, but not me now.
If the pictures end up bad, can I blame him,
or is it me, unable to keep still?
Over-fat, extra dough on bones,
Redundant dough balls on the side,
Sinking slow like stones.
How much had I changed? Tapping the floor
with my right foot, nerve caught in the moment
in the end of the black tunnel; I
Under comprehending, over
Contemplating. Not even very good
At skiing.
running around the field as if the lightning
might strike down on me
if I find myself grounded
in one place.
Bring it back up, heave ho.
Swing it back around, slo mo.
I’m always on my knees.
Now it’s starting to rain
outside, down the windows
giving the room a greyer tint
for the two old friends inside.
Not praying, not pleasing,
But deeply excavating-
Just removing alien dough.
Lara Johnson-Wheeler
In My Friend’s Studio, Söder, 2015
which wasn’t really his studio.
A Leica – the Japanese one, I said,
then it’s not a real Leica, said he.
Looking up at the badger on the top shelf
that belonged to one of the two artists
both of whom were never present
my soles creak the wood-coloured boards
of the white room.
‘I sweat a lot’ then the white flash
‘when I work’ inverted black polyester
Although my head keep turning left and
right, him sweating, not noticing
the flashes almost matching the steady
rhythm of rain outside; I can’t
face it. Keep still.
Charles Yuchen He
Songs of the Heifer
Is.
Nothing.
When I can see and
hear and touch and
feel.
Is.
And he worked all the time. I, in up to my knees
the brook, watching.
If this was a real photo shoot
My face against the bulging retinal lens,
I would have had a nervous breakdown
thinking about the new Sony Ericson he used
in our French class, not working
by now, he said. Nought to be said but
my grandfather, the drunk
would lay flat-out on the bed of his
battered cart, with a horse so loyal
as to take him home.
Back then before my life began.
I’m leaving on Sunday I said
and never to return
I once thought
being able to walk
away from bullshit in life
what a life my life
my silhouette shot through
the windows towards the café
across the park. Trying to keep
naturally still.
When did it begin? Picture
the blank days of nothingness
that he was also part of.
Charlie and I had to pull a calf out, its
legs tied with hay strings desperate
to save the mother
in the barn, stretching.
Gentle Sally, in the den, beneath the ash tree
crying because the
heifer wouldn’t get up.
She with anger at the
barn brutality, me
accustomed to it now,
the younger brother, a boy
the dutiful man. Have to.
But she, a woman and within