Stephen Moran’s Museum of Illusions

Three

Photo: View down woodland steps into Grove Farm local nature reserve, Greenford with two separate figures in black ahead at equally spaced distances along the path

PRESENT

I have nothing but time 
and nothing is more beautiful than time. 
But there is no more time, I have it all. 
Would you like to share some of my time?

THERE'S NO TITLE

There are no stars, no outer space. 
Rockets cannot escape, 
they're never anywhere but here. 
Birds are not in the air.
There's no surface of the earth, 
no inside where we're buried.
Down the mine is also here 
and nothing but it's already gone,
only words. And there are no words
only sound, and there is no sound
only words and it's all a dream of God
and stars and outer space.

WASHING THE WOODEN FLOOR

Some of the spots on the floor 
would be knots in the wood,
some wouldn’t be knots at all. 
Not all spots are knots 
and not all knots are spots. 

To summarise, some are knots 
and some are not knots. 
I know not the would-be knots 
From the not-knots and spots.

More than that I wouldn’t like to say.

I’m on Fonoteca de Poesia’s YouTube

Bookmovie from Fonoteca de Poesia – Stephen Moran

I read the first three poems from Day of the Flying Leaves. The text is displayed smoothly to look like book pages turning.

The Hunter-Gatherer Children of Dublin
Eleven Homes
Visiting Molly

My reading, I don’t know, not too bad. I’m grateful to Fonoteca de Poesia for this, which I consider an honour.

I was very lucky to get a story from Neil Brosnan for Willesden Herald Story of the Month. As I say in the intro, I love a story where you have to ask yourself, “What’s happening here?” See what you think yourself.

Update from Judi Sutherland

https://judisutherland.com/2024/02/28/recalled-to-life/?page_id=1071

You might remember I was a guest reader in London on Judi’s book tour with her epic river poem “Following Teisa”. Click the link to read the amazing journey she’s been on since last summer.

Sleepy Sounds Don’t Waken the Other

SLEEPY SOUNDS DON'T WAKEN THE OTHER

The ripple of clothes shaken out to get dressed
sounds like wind blowing in the chimney,
so that’s okay. Tiny creaks of toes and knees.
That huff in and out with a big draught of air.
Have to get something out of a wardrobe - 
for God’s sake don’t drop a hanger.
Mattress springs when you sit on the edge.
Let nothing be louder than the ticking of the clock
and get out before the alarm rings.

Photo: Self-portrait with peonies last summer

Gasworks Update

GASWORKS UPDATE

They are coming again tomorrow
to restore the old path they dug up.
To do this so well, they bring a grabber
that takes away the dirty old dirt.
They’ve got in some new clean dirt,
the old stuff wouldn’t fit anymore,
all lumpy clay and broken slabs.
The man asked me if it was okay
to get yellowish ones as replacements
because it’s hard now to find the grey.
He goes to buy them tomorrow.
Yes, he. I'm quite cheered up by this,
as lots of our paviours will no longer
have hardy weeds in between them.
xx

Photo: Front garden dug up for replacement of old metal gas pipes with modern plastic ones.

Empty Balconies

EMPTY BALCONIES

My thoughts are ephemera, and mostly about ephemera - 
the words of a song that was once popular, now outdated, 
train window onto a rattling conveyor belt - trees - roofs -
green - green - warehouse - roofs - green - grey - black -
no one on any balcony on any block of flats in the frozen city - 
weeds - platform - stop - nobody - hedges - platform - stop -
And back on the high street under a cyanotic winter sky,
flights of street pigeons practice shearing the icy air 
into the transparent sliver of a second that is all we are.

Photo: View from inside a London Underground train stopped at a station with no sign of people, empty seats opposite and a blur of advertising text and platform flowers seen through a rainy window onto an empty platform.

Valentine

VALENTINE

He’s buried there in Whitefriar Street
and they are buried too,
the disappeared,
all the matronly types I fell for.

I never knew it was you,
I never knew!

There are different tears
from different wellsprings,
ones that only know themselves
why they flow

silent as Marian statues
where sackcloth urchins
behold miracles in blue and white,
silent as the widower
who dips fingertips only in the font
and waits
by the Stations of the Cross.

I drink holy water
from the tin cup on a string
and try to re-hydrate
ashes and dust
of all those harbour girls
and sanctified ballerinas.

Sleep, and let me sleep with you,
just you and me and the ghost makes three,
with St Valentine in Whitefriar Street.

Featured Photo: Shrine of St Valentine, Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church, Dublin. By blackfish – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16607748

Note: I put this in Day of the Flying Leaves. Generally wheel it out every February 14th. Eventually we will all sleep with St Valentine; I make no bones about it! I include here some lines I cut out for the book, which I regret and want to put back now.

The casket in the photo contains the bones of the saint, donated to the church in the 19th century by Pope Gregory XVI. The church also has a relic of St Albert, one of whose bones is dipped in the well providing miraculous holy water, which I refer to in the poem, “I drink holy water from the tin cup on a string”.

This was my parish church as a boy to the age of seven or so, “the age of reason”. One ceremony I remember was getting our throats blessed with crossed candles on the feast of Saint Blaise. Everything about the church is fabulous. Here’s another photo from Wikipedia showing front entrance, which is in Aungier Street, unless I’m much mistaken. (Whitefriar Street is round the corner.)
Stephen

Photo: Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church By DubhEire – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9833342

Short Story “Case Notes: Alison”

The last time I went to see them, the stepfather was trimming a hedge. He looked at me through the garden shears and when I caught his eye, he snapped them shut.

I said, ‘Hi, I’ve come to see how you’re getting on with little Alison.’

I know that most people are not happy to meet me in my line of work but as long as I can help the children I don’t care. There was no gate, so I walked past him up to the open front door. The mother appeared, looking pale and thin.
The opening of Case Notes: Alison by Stephen Moran

An early version of this story was published in “Magazine” (New Zealand) edited by Raewyn Alexander.

If you don’t want to know, don’t ask

- Knock knock!
- Who's there?

- Nobody.
- Nobody who?

- Nobody Somebody.
- Nobody Somebody who?

- Nobody Somebody You Know.
- Nobody Somebody You Know who?

- Yes.
- What?

- Knock knock!
- What do you want?

- Let me out.

Photo: Trip hazard – a box with the word “trip” lies on a crossing