Frances-Ann Norton: Poetry

Dream Poem 103: The Knives A Bronze Age village near the sea Round low houses with high pitched thatch. Inside peaty smoke, prismatic blacks Long shadows. Red light from the fire pit rising up blue light from the sky, slanting down in a shaft through the smoke hole. A curdling of smouldering curls make paisley patterns of the air. I am the chief’s daughter eleven years old. This is my house All my relatives and family live here together. Vikings from over the sea live in the next village. They come and steal from us. I have two knives, One is a special dagger, the other one is an everyday blade. I must hide them so they are not taken from us. I am small and insignificant wrapping the knives in a skin I push it into my clothes and hide. The Vikings come shove around my brothers scare my mother. Make nuisances of themselves fall down drunk in a tent next to where I’m hiding. I wriggle out and manage to find...

Children of Lir Where you come in at is where you stay The children of Lir are mute as they fly over lakes  and see swans reflected in their obsidian depths. The world doesn’t turn on a pin Decades have passed in silent gliding. The hated King in the coffin at the front Will always be there. The daughter silently kissing the coffin Is a Greek tragedy And we are the chorus. As she spins her yarn of dandelion clocks,  weaves and sews shirts  in voiceless vow. Her promise,  to make good the transformation at the predestined time. Speaking not a word in the face of accusation As her own children are stolen. The stake and pyre are banked up A whole day and evening has passed now. Five men in gossamer shirts walk from the funeral with their sister singing The Green and Red of Mayo quietly to themselves  putting out the singed hem of her gown. The child with one good arm  and one swan’...

Wish Bone This is not going to work if you don’t open up she thought Shame. Let me in, but you shake your head - no. This is really not going to happen if you keep closing your lips into an invisible hard line Fold me your arms like the gathering of white sheets on laundry day Crisp paper folds in the midsummer scorch. A dancer’s wrist A Robin’s tarsometatarsus dressed in fine silver bangles Snapped across your turkey wish bone Little fingers wrapped Winning, winning, winning… Then crack, Hollow bone tear in ragged, needle sharp filaments. Close yourself up Lock yourself inside a bear trap, Laid in A well deeply Dug by a young boy In a dark forest Covered in bracken. No one knows Or comprehends what is going on in your special head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryno8zBVDa4 - wishbone Rag Image wiki commons - Wish Bone Rag 1909 composed by Charlotte Blake

The Academia Game Caught into the whirlpool of Abstract Mode. She was writing abstracts for work, for admission to conferences for competitions and exhibitions. Became so abstracted that she became very good at writing these paragraph length bite size chunks of research concentrated information. She forgot how to write deep,   how to write long and how to write wide. She is in the research zone but so far away from a conclusion of any kind, a standing up stance of any sort or a side to come down on. She is with it but running to catch up collecting seeds of information all useful stuff and gathering it into her research basket, only to throw it away over her shoulder as she moves on to other seeds. Jumping to catch a glimpse over a tall crowd of authors and thinkers She thinks she is getting it but is it just the foot of an elephant? image: wiki commons , the Walk of Ideas Berlin.

Dream poem 115; Knife dream She perpetrator and victim of her own actions. Horror and anguish, pain and fear spring from her deeds. She is the sharp instrument of her own sorrow. She Tool of utility Mechanism of symbolism, Contrivance of ritual, Medium of ceremony, Agent of threat. She Expression of her own exasperation Her inner strength deflects the double edged blade Her resolve keeps her from flinching.