Erratics

Cathy Bryant

• Publisher: Arachne Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781909208353
• eBook ISBN: 9781913665029
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Poetry
• Index: Literature

In the red corner: the muck, grit and harsh truths of life. In the blue corner: the beauty of the natural world and the vivid variety provided by imagination. Cathy Bryant is dancing about somewhere in between.
To continue the boxing ring metaphor to a silly (but possibly accurate) degree, the other two corners are culture and experience, the canvas is time and I'm on the ropes of conscience.
For Cathy is stuck as a misfit. Born in the south, she lives in the north. from a middle class home, she is working class by poverty and experience. She knows what it's like to be homeless, and what it's like to pick a dirty penny off the pavement and be happy to have it, and she also know the correct way to address a duchess, and whether to put the milk in first. She doesn't fit in anywhere - except at poetry events, where you can't know whether the person next to you is a convicted felon, a linguistics professor, or both.

How I Learned ‘Welsh in a Week’

The buff-coloured pamphlet cost five new pence

in 1972. I was five, too, and excited

about the ‘rapid’ learning of ‘conversational’ Welsh.

Are you going to Wales?

Then I shall have the pleasure of your company.

Do we change carriages on the journey?

I should go to The Queen’s Hotel if I were you.

You are very kind.

Six of us sardined in a tiny tin-can caravan.

It rained all week. We were surrounded

by surprisingly aggressive sheep.

We dreaded the muddy dash to the loos.

My luggage is at the station; please send for it.

Be so good as to bring me a fork.

I wish to have tea, with bread and butter

and cold meat. Give me notepaper,

envelopes, a pen and some ink.

Is there anything to be seen here?

One cold night we ran out of food

and put own-brand Weetabix in the toaster.

Marged, it was better than you’d expect.

There must have been shops and locals.

We bought food and souvenirs, I’m sure.

I must have spoken to real Welsh people.

Good morning, Sir! What can I show you?

I want a hat. A pair of stockings. Collars.

Is this the best you have?

We have some very good tea at half a crown.

I will take these. Please wrap them

and send them to The Queen’s Hotel.

I know that we went out – we must have.

I remember a railway, and crying on a mountain,

fog and fern fighting my little legs;

but the caravan and the book

were the holiday and the event.

What! You here! Mary, call your mother.

I hope you are well. Are you a married man?

I should go to The Queen’s Hotel if I were you.

I know him perfectly well.

Will you come for a walk?

Willingly. With great pleasure.

Make haste. I am waiting for you.

How far shall we go?

We left, driving sideways across the country,

like the rain.

Years later I went back,

minus book, family and caravan.

It wasn’t the same. It was immeasurably better,

but far less memorable. Mary never did call her mother,

and no one, in any language, asked:

May I pluck a rose?

I must go.

Wait a little.

But really, I must go.

Remember me to all at home.

I hope to see you again soon.

Excuse my leaving you.

Farewell! a pleasant journey.

Hwyl fawr. Diolch.

(Thank you. Goodbye.)

Erratics

The hills and stones are drunker than us.

Someone spilled a thousand rolls of green velvet

at a party of rocks. We walk over them

and through the glissading stream with our

clompy boots and tupperware.

We’re mushroom hunting on the fells.

It’s like trying to spot a bird in a blizzard.

You have to tune in. There! Look!

Tiny freckles on the hill’s skin.

We boil, fry, make tea to get them down.

Our stomachs fizz as new perceptions kick in.

Otherworld. More dimensions than usual,

but how many is usual? Can’t remember.

There is no word in the world for that colour.

The standing stones are having a laugh.

New eyes open. We cry with pleasure

when the sun sets like concrete.

Later, someone is snoring Mendelssohn.

The stars are edible and slightly acidic.

The fire ambers then greys. In the morning

the miserable comedown is just the return

of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• CONTENTS
• Introduction
• Flyleaves, Frontispieces, Dedications and Acknowledgments
• Songs of the Starcleaners
• Material
• The Broken Column of the Truly Phallic
• Circus
• Stripped Ease
• The Fish Who Saw Narcissus
• The Huge Paws of Country Fog
• As Dark Asda
• Daffodils After the Zombie Apocalypse
• Seeing the Glass as Half-full or Half-empty
• January Joggers
• How I Learned ‘Welsh in a Week’
• Erratics
• Dear Sir/Madam/Darling
• Secret Knowledge
• Morecambe
• Calculated
• Going Beep in the Night
• Not Cricket
• Ms Bryant is Dangerously Delusional
• Bite Down Hard
• Cargo
• Bardmon K’s review of ‘Poem’ by A. Famous-Poet
• Falconar’s Flautist
• Fear and the Familiar
• I Have Tried to Stop Eating Stars
• Social Etiquette, 1950s
• Sylvia Plath Talks about England
• Transition
• Midnight Moments in the Mosh Pit
• Morphinesque
• Shit People Say to Bisexuals
• Wuthering, Wuthering, Wuthering Heights
• There Must Be Something In It
• Skeleton Orchestra
• Witness Statement
• Aurora Borealis/Migraine
• You Might as Well Fuck
• Still Life
• Take Five Decades
• Such Life and Brilliance
• Warmer Places
• Bloddeuwedd’s Trinity
• Such a Thing, My Leaping, Dancing Heart
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• Copyright