Charlotte Peters Rock - Poetry

King 1 - Queen 2

2011-04-17T14:44:00.000-07:00

12.5.96.

Wath - Queen of Villages - reigned
in her flower garden
her turnip grubbing fields
her pig pens and her byres
subjects tugging forelocks
native speech a country slide
years before the pits
-
When Wigan coalpits died
the King - black in workings underground
emerged in Wath to drag her subjects down
drawing men across the border
sinking them in daylight - or forever
in his pit Blueing them beneath

Sending hunker-squatters back to meet the Queen
pandas taken from her service
surfacing - to let her scrub their backs
remove the black

Men with coal-rimmed eyes
like kohl-brushed houris
in nights slaking dusty stomachs
black-lined heads

Scars blue as Royal Service
internal woad gained by ritual crawling to their workings
The Face - smiling its shining black teeth
sometimes biting tropic-naked bodies
sometimes swallowing them
regurgitating
sometimes swallowing for ever

Wailing whistles in the winding gear
women washing away with tears
service to the King of Coal
tracing the blue on silent faces -
thighs - stilled for ever

Wailing winding-sheets around
Returning them to greet the Queen
resting in her gentle soil

Replaced by sons and sons of sons
The King - voracious in his appetite
whispered that no learning
need come between
infancy and subjugation
A place was kept - lined with money

Slowly danger lessened underground
Machines protected men
Above they wandered in the dark
spoil-heaps - black buildings
blackened bushes - soot-flecked washing
on the line from Wigan

Sulphur clouds as yellow as the sun they masked
Cooling towers producing clouds
reigning over sky-clouds
rolling over men-of-darkness
soaking their sons

The King was growing old
his grip slipping
Wars fought by frightened men
to keep their subjugation
failed
-
The Queen of Villages
rested by her isolation
reclaimed her subjects and her garden
threw green across mountains -
dragged black from underground -
closed cooling-towers and re-invented sky
washed her trees and bushes into blossom in the Spring
cleared the eyes and voices of her singing birds
returned her men from pandahood
moved inside their heads
blowing away the black

Cushioned them richly from poverty
but not from poverty of spirit
Taught hard lessons
Hopeless empty-handedness
Insinuating empty spaces
Acceptance of the need to learn
burning brightly in their pit-pale eyes
etching into sons let loose upon the world

Where's the party?

2007-11-20T15:38:00.000-08:00

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Jade for ever

2007-11-20T10:10:00.000-08:00

22.11.2000

Jade
Give me jade
White and yellow and palest green
Grey - rich green and spinach

Give me jade
Jade for luck
Jade for mystery and promise

Carve a spell
with sharp bamboo abrasion
Lotus leaf and flower
A horse - a goose - a lamb
A bottle made for snuff
A yellow lion

Give me life
Long life and happiness

Give me warmth
A carving made of spirit
A history extended through the age
Give me riches made of time
Give me jade

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Lapis lazuli

2007-11-20T09:40:00.003-08:00

12.8.96

Lapis from Badakshan
carried by mule
guarded through Peshawar
spread as far as Cleopatra
Blue to contrast with her scarab stones
guarding the ancient throne of Egypt

Along the Silk Road
Alexander's elephants hauled its precious weight
Blue as the skies it touched
in steady daylight moving West

Ground to powder
gleaming blue it glows along the ceiling
of the Sistine Chapel and
across the world where paintings
by Michelangelo and da Vinci
are prized for beauty and inventiveness

The richest seam
Sapphures to prospectors of ancient Rome
Six thousand years of labour
spreading wealth about emerging Empires
drawing envy from declining states

In winter lying silent
above the ice-line
Deep below the snow
in high Afghanistan
its single resting seam
waits for plundering

Chip by chip
and stone by stone its precious colour
taken in the spring and summer
through the Badlands and
the rifle fire of bandits
trickles on

No other stone
glowing ultra-marine
like sea above the coral reefs
or depths of blue descending down their seaward walls
no other stone can take the place
of lapis lazuli

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Time away

2007-11-20T09:40:00.001-08:00

20.5.96

Time was I held you in my arms
soothing

Drove away the hooded crow that perched
at the end of your tiny bed
crowing

Silenced the rampant cock that strutted
along the lane on your way to school
darting his beak across your skin
pecking

Swung you out and high and wide
your hands in mine your head thrown back
a Magic Roundabout all our own
as the earth dipped in and the sky fell out
spinning

Tickled your knees and ears with grass
summer-seeded along the lane
where you lay asleep in the afternoon
near the shadowed spider spinnings
that glistened all night in jewelled dew
teasing

-

Lying in sheets all tumbled round
I fret and fumble murmuring low
shaking sounds to a deafened door
standing between my life and death
staring in from the window behind my bed
teasing

Swinging all the world away
the hands and hearts and the heads thrown back
giggling into a roundabout laughter
as death dips in and life dips out
spinning

Silences call from the ramparts now
to winding gears as the years run out
and death's mouth kisses at my skin
pecking

Driving in the hooded crow to perch
at the end of the tumbled bed
crowing

Time now to hold me in your arms

soothing time away

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The point

2007-11-20T09:39:00.002-08:00

14.3.92

The point of learning
is to stretch imagination
to the wider shores of dreams.

Coercing each brain cell
to feats beyond imagining.

Removing every limit
but the tick of endless time.

Oiling the cogs in its clock
to make it march
effortlessly
on
forever

copyright 1992 Charlotte Peters Rock

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Windmill

2007-11-20T09:39:00.001-08:00

1.12.92

As windmills go,
it was too far back to hit,
too distant for deriding at full tilt,
like Don Quixote and Cervantes.

Its blood, its life, should spill onto the ground.

This windmill's spinning arms will still go round
and rise, beyond my wishes and advances,
not tilted full, nor tilted to the hilt.

But at least this windmill, just a little bit,
was pushed off balance as I turned to go.

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A degree of thought

2007-11-20T09:38:00.001-08:00

2.5.95

"A kilo of mixed degrees please.
One high degree two low degrees
Rather louche the low degrees
don't you think?
Oh yes and one of optimism
one pessimism one cleverness..
and possibly one of stupidity?
No Hang on I've changed my mind
Ditch the last one

One of certainty and one excitement
One of passion Two of se_ No.
At my age..perhaps not
I'll consider Would it be too tiring?
Oh alright then We only live once
Make it three Yes three!
Yes I'm quite certain

Now what's left? A degree of patience
One of staying power One tenderness
One friendship No make that two
One pleasure One intensity One equality
One respect One concern One communication
One support (no not a truss we're speaking degrees here)

One security One sensitivity
One of warmth and one of closeness
Humour? Yes a few One of wit (vitriol-free)
One hilarity One kind-humour
One good-humour
What do you mean I have to take
bad-humour as well?
Cheaper by the pair? Don't care
Hang the expense Good humour only!

One degree of trust two sided 3D
(space and total)
One of time and that larger one
of varied thought
Oh yes and a degree of feeling
the multi-pack-numerous
Oh and can I have one in
mental bungee? I wore the last one out

Thank you

copyright 1995 Charlotte Peters Rock

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What degree?

2007-11-20T09:36:00.000-08:00

2.5.96

Aiming
over years
for a Degree

Degree?
Of what?

Philosophic learnedness?
Can sophos be learned? *

Is philosophic thought
the better then
if someone else
philosophed it?

Ah! Literature!
Alliterating literature.
In what degree?
Fifteen letter words?

But what if
sixteen letter words
are also learned?
Would that degree
be too high
a degree
for a Degree?

Does a Degree
raise the degree
of consciousness?
Would that make it
a Degree of Levitas

Did the studied literate
and philosoph first
take a higher Degree?
If not would studying
their thought bring down
your own?
To a lower degree?
If not why not?
Discuss

*
sophos = wisdom
philosophy = the love of wisdom
contention: wisdom is innate causing the seeking after philosophy.
Otherwise everyone would seek it.

copyright 1996 Charlotte Peters Rock

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There is no money..

2007-11-19T15:39:00.000-08:00

3.4.92

There is no money could compensate

for walking the fox on a frosty night
when dawning cock-crows hang upon the air

And charge you not I would for loss
of cats with fleas and dog that growls
and perfumed scents that fill the breeze
and friends and swaying rowan trees
and butterflies and such as these

For money could never compensate
for pleasantness small and pleasures great
which flood my mind in grand estate
to make life worth the living

copyright 1992 Charlotte Peters Rock

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Pantry interloper

2007-11-19T15:29:00.000-08:00

12.11.95

in the store
movement
twitch and flick
flee and hide
dark and still

the curl of a long tail
careless

proof
droppings proof
black torpedo shapes

oats digestive biscuits sugar
soft tea towels
shreddings paper shreddings
tucked in boxes
tucked up corners
-
blue grain
small tasty bright
stepmother to Sleeping Beauty
Lethe's gift
-
scuttling
noisy clumsy
tailcurl lax

leaden foot
belly trail
back hunch
tail hang

stupor

caught
eye-pinned
evil eye looking
casting spells of guilt
pain

field mouse
into bucket
out to die

eye watching
guiltspell

copyright 1995 Charlotte Peters Rock

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Rabbit Trap

2007-11-19T15:25:00.000-08:00

25.4.95

A rabbit caught
in the headlights
of a stoat
Lost for escape
equal frantic
equal calm
Stoat closes eyes
but their phantom
eyes stare on

Rabbit panic
Hears in silence
stoat regard
Replies in calm
still in silence
speaking thought
Stoat opens eyes
full beam searching
Rabbit trapped

waits for the bite
sharp stoat-snapping
of a neck
Constricted throat
living lifetime
in the span
Stoat closes in
breathing warmlife
with each breath

In waiting trap
rabbit welcomes
draws stoat on
Teeth nuzzle neck
Unexpected
gentle touch
Stoat opens out
watching rabbit
closing in

copyright 1995 Charlotte Peters Rock

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November Swans

2007-11-19T15:22:00.000-08:00

8.11.95

Nine swans long
Languid silent sweep
Whiteness set
against a grey November sky

Below
green and golden pink
runs and rills of trees
in glowing leaf

sharp quacks
gull calls
whining honks
moorcock squeaks

a busyness around the mere
Landing flights of geese
Clumsy ducks flapping
sizzling along the water
Moorhens scuttling
floating in the overhang

Nine swans long
overseeing autumn

copyright 1995 Charlotte Peters Rock

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2am hare

2007-11-19T15:15:00.000-08:00

15.4.96

Lump on the carriageway
Two ears
a head
a big body
lept up high

Two long legs
hopped it
higher

Startled
Staring eyes
frantic hopping
..clear
..back into the track
..clear
(a sigh - too soon)
..and back

Brakes could only slow
Will could only will
Voice could only moan
"N-o-o-oo"

Bang!
Too late to stop
Arcing and flinging back
long ears
long legs
long body
Lump on the carriageway
..twitching

part 2 - Not another

One day later
writhing and arcing
on the carriageway
trying to leap - it seemed
as dying hares
leap

Driving past
on the other side
I saw a plastic bag
rolling in playful breeze
filled with air
leaping

copyright 1996 Charlotte Peters Rock

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A tail to wag

2007-11-19T15:13:00.000-08:00

23.2.92

It must be very nice,
though I'll never have the choice,
to have a tail to wag.
Graceful plume, to indicate,
conversing clear, sans voice,
wave aloft. A tail to wag.

copyright 1992 Charlotte Peters Rock

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Canadas

2007-11-19T15:09:00.000-08:00

22.8.96

Thirty Canadas
and Canada the last thing on their minds
flew in lower air above the birch

Gleaning grounds warming in the morning sun
had filled their crops with wheat

Meeting eyes above the stubble
decided that the mere - though low -
fetid as a carrion corpse
as droughtrage summer lingered on
would do for swimming
cooling water flowing round their feather

but streams of rushing water
sweet from days of hanging in the upper air
would suit them rather better

copyright 1996 Charlotte Peters Rock

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Anarchy

2007-11-19T15:04:00.000-08:00

19.8.95

It's anarchy down in the poultry plot
juvenile chickens are rioting round
muscovy babies are out in the field - all over

..with goats on the loose
and they've barged through the fence
the littlest billy - with horns and a beard -
has climbed up a tree
and is eating the tail from the peacock

the guineas are forming a rough-housing mob
and they've beaten the cockerel
and duffed-up the turkey
and now they're advancing to beat up the dog

..and Oskar Kokoschka is in on the act
That gander's attacked every duck I hold dear
and he chases the children
and last week he laid out the postman

The tom-cat delivered another great blow
He's worked out who lays
and now every fresh egg's got a hole in
..no yolk and no white in..

A hole in the head
Yes. That's what I must have
I'm wholly fed up with this slaving about
and there's no point continuing..

..look..the old goat's turned frisky
she's luring the billy and turning her head
and batting her eyes at his sniffing and scenting the air

..and there she goes - off through the raspberry patch -
ungainly with udder all swinging about
but stopping for morsels of raspberry-leaf
and sweet fruit

I lie on my back and I can't see the grass
nor the length it has reached since I cut it.
The sky's turned pale blue and I can't see a bird
nor a goat

..but the fox is awake
and she's crept from the shade
of forsythia branches which root in the lawn
and she's foxily laughing uproarious laughter
to welcome my idleness
tease me to fetch her an egg

copyright 1995 Charlotte Peters Rock

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Destroying History in Tillya Tepe

2007-11-19T14:59:00.001-08:00

2.11.98

Along the Silk Route Tillya Tepe
hid a Bactrian treasure burial
Treasure with the bones they found there

Archaeologists and workers
patient brushing every feature
logging every smallest placement

Ancient bodies spoke of riches
Golden crowns and golden hair-pins
dressed them for a golden future

One young woman wore a fire crown
A nomad's crown of golden life trees
made to flatten to her saddle

Another woman wore a necklace
hollow gold and ivory beadwork
fine and varied for her honour
-
Every grave site told a story
Styles of Scythia and Greece
mingled India as Kushan

A mound above the fire temple
resting through an ancient village
carried bodies fine and noble

A warrior with his sword and dagger
dressed in silk and golden baubles
Nomad horse to guard his resting
-
They plotted out and cleaned the goldwork
photographed and worked the levels
sent it on to Kabul City

Then the war swept in and over
turquoise studded bears and buckles
golden Scythian warrior horsemen

Looting soldiers took the treasures
opened graves in Tillya Tepe
sold their golden-magic future

Here they offered work for money
history from two millennia
spread as nothing more than gold-weight
-
After they were driven outwards
archaeologists and workers
told remembered tales forever
-
Women buried in the fire-halls
in a thousand years of temple
through the village crumbled after

One was thirty - maybe forty
One was sixteen at her dying
One was young in plainest costume

But Oh her finest collar necklace
- drops of garnet mixed with turquoise
set in finest gold - was with her

Another - and the first we found there -
dressed in tiny plates of gold-ware
pointed where the others rested

One - a princess so we thought her -
with her pendent Aphrodite
winged in high design of Bactria

with an Indian mark of marriage
on its forehead for her pleasure -
dressed in spangled golden platelets

And her crown was tall in splendour
hung in drops of leaves and circles
set with turquoise-centred flowers

Shapes of hearts and moons and tree-like
made to lie in silent saddle
as the nomad trail moved onward

Only one men found a place there
He a warrior with his waist band -
nine gold Goddesses on lions -

gone to meet his long remaining
meet his Afterlife in splendour
where the Gods would claim his kinship

After all the finds were gathered -
as the war raged through the Afghans -
rain and falls disclosed the others
-
Two more grave sites - bones and goldware
Who was buried in these coffins
no one searches to discover

But the gold was sold forever
into penury-collections
hoarded nameless out of culture

Archaeologists and workers
hear the vaguest news of battles
hear the news of auctioned goldware

Still their dreams pick round the grave-sites
lost forever in the carnage
high along the Afghan frontier

copyright 1998 Charlotte Peters Rock

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The End of Atlantis

2007-11-19T14:50:00.000-08:00

10.9.98

Lung burn floundering in water
where we hunted out the shoaling
Fishes for The Elders' table

And the air is worse than water
filled by powderings and greyness
pumice shattered into talcum

Where the boat had floated - nothing
Nothing lingers in the darkness
all except the rain-storm powder

I alone - and elsewhere nothing
Stars nor daylight - none remaining
Easy now to sink forever

From the darkness looms a monster
High - and blacker than the falling
Nudging ribs with every movement

This the end? To feed a monster?
Do I care when there is nothing
nothing in this life to live for?

Clinging to the monster's tail-fin
Pushed by lapping waves towards it
Lifted high then dropped aboard it

One night - two nights - on the tail-fin
Waking Moaning in delirium
Finding lighter hours and greyness

Sundered from the island vastness
when The Gods of Speaking Fire
spewed their anger into sunburst

Spreading round our Kingdom Vastness
powderings in air - and greyness
searing lungs and crops and sunlight

Where this fine and mighty kingdom
coast by coast - and in the ocean
spread its greatest wealth and grandeur

there came anger to The Kingdom
once called Mightier Than Ever
There came death and retribution

Every palace fine and airy
mosaic floored in lively pattern
gone to feed The Gods' destruction

Butterflies and seagulls - airy
blasted dead in immolation
Songbirds shorn of songs of living

Once the land was calm and golden
Once the rivers flowed abundant
and the birds sang oh so sweetly

Where the palace - statues golden -
every servant and his master
worked and walked in great contentment

Death there was in God-libation
Severed heads and blood in flagon
Time for harvesting and pageant

Nubile boys and girls libation
Brought to bring The Gods' Great Favour
peace and grand success in growing

In the highest palace compound
rising up to meet the star-shine
there the alters waited ready

Spreading splendour round the compound
square-foot buildings peaking skyward
housed The Princes and The Elders

Every day they rode to hunting
- silent ponies - harness clinking -
caught the beasts and brought them homeward

Spears and sling-shots in the hunting
Arrows flighting into bodies
Blood-Libation to The Earth God

On our island - peaking skyward
smooth round mountains speaking Godward
roaring into stars and sunburst

Pushing stones up high and skyward
Raining down to burn our houses
Flowing rivers searing bodies

Then - the anger dissipated -
slowed to rumble into speak-smoke
Gods would let our ground recover

let their anger - dissipated -
teach our Elders to obey them
sacrificing beasts and children

Over centuries of speak-smoke
peace resided on our island
riches came from distant Empires

Sailors spying on our speak-smoke
brought us silk from distant China
lapis stones from on the Silk Road

Monkeys jewels leopards tigers
flowering trees and sweet persimmons
messages from every Kingdom

Eyes of rubies Golden tigers
Sandalwood in greatest carving
scented rooms about the palace

Woven silver-threaded small-cloths
ivory carvings elephants
came from ships inside our harbour

Bearskins foxes birch-bark loin-cloths
slaves from every distant country
added to our island Empire

When the Gypsy legions landed
fiddle-dancing of the women
set our Court in sighs of rapture

Eastern women - downcast - landed
Eyes and veils and finest garment
Languages so strange - outlandish

Speak-smoke puffed in gentle God-ways
When we fought around the sea-lanes
when we sank the foes from yonder

And the captured - for our God-ways -
strung from trees and sprawled on alters
gave our Gods their due libation

Elders spoke on lines of reason -
seen to reach the stars unending
Found new ways to help our people

Nowhere now exists of reason
Stars are covered by the God-fire
as I lie upon this monster

Our Empire - mountain after mountain -
still placated by our Elders
watching speak-smoke through the starshine

When it happened every mountain
low and high in hundred fury
poured The Gods' deserved libation

on the heads of we - their subjects
Gold persimmons - golden tigers -
melted in The Gods' own fury

And we terror-stricken subjects
watched as every thing before us
vanished - where had once been plenty

Where The Land had been Our Mother
shaking quaking cracks of hell-fire
spread the molten lava wider

Calm and gentle Our Land Mother
taken in The Gods' libation
sank beneath the sea forever

On the boats across the ocean
as we fled the waves came skyward
Looking back the land was vanished

Walls of water in the ocean
Terror stricken sailors perished
boats The Toys of Gods' Own Children

Lung-burn floundering in water
I alone - and elsewhere nothing
Stars nor daylight - none remaining

Nightmare thirst - Surrounding water
On the tail-fin of the monster
Lily-blossom haunts my fever

copyright 1998 Charlotte Peters Rock

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Apprentice to The Telling

2007-11-19T14:43:00.000-08:00

28.5.97

When I was young
the storyteller took my hand
You have the look she said
You have the look of one like me
Come willingly and I will teach you
how to keep the roughest ones in thrall
to your imagination
and your telling of our history

I listened at her feet
and sitting round the cooking fires
she told about the days long gone
when ancestors of ours had fought
and perished on the steppe
Sometimes they brought celebration
and their bandages of blood
were marks of honour

Our people rode the treeless plains
encountering the Persians and
where silk comes from the Kashgar
Dealing lapis for a flock of camels newly trained
and repulsing Mongol armies
which would take our grazing ground
and make it theirs

Each honoured name was brought
where flames could flicker round its memory
and we could pay it honour
The storyteller knew where swans
more numerous than any we had seen
would flock along the mirror water
and cygnet beaks tip-tilted to the sky
would jabber in the sunset's fading

Sometimes in the quiet hours
when men were hunting
and women making tattoo patterns
she would let me tell her stories
about my mother or my brothers' ways
my sister's happinesses
my father's sternness
when we met with his displeasure

You tell it so she'd say
but you could turn it on it's head
weave a different thread and make it more exciting
Your father's anger told
without your mother's laughter
when the wolf ate all the mutton
is not so interesting

And the day the horse was digging water
where it flowed below the ground
needs to include your brother's thirst
and his impatience that the horse was first
Without your brother and the horse
without the thirst and the impatience
the story is not so interesting
You must weave it all about
the eyes of listeners around the fire

Each telling must be gauged to them
each lingering approach must carry
old and young before it
You must be aware of eyes
fixed upon the essence of your story
If they start to wander
you are lost

By this method
over many seasons
she taught me how to tell the stories
Sometimes I would stand around the campfire
and later she would gently say
A word or two in here about the river
This line of yours is very good
but do you think it matters that the man was dead
before they sold him into slavery

Every time I listened to her stories
I learned a better way to understand
When to wait as listeners took in the joke
or all the recognition of a horror
How to feed the line to make them weep
Which word would let them understand
honour brought upon our house
clowns who squandered their adventure
for our fond amusement

I earn the cats which face each other
the lions marked upon my saddle covers
My storytelling is the best that ever was
and though I will not live above the ground forever
I have trained a girl to carry on the line
She has more important things to do
than wield a spear or bow

When I am gone below the ground
my tallest headdress fixed on me forever
she will tell the stories which I told
Elaborate with her imagination
a thrall which will around the cooking fire
keep warm through hardest winter ice
each man each woman and each child
the beasts which gather round to listen
and my spirit which will still applaud the telling

copyright 1997 Charlotte Peters Rock

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Pazyryk Chief

2007-11-19T14:40:00.000-08:00

6.8.97

My bridle lies inside this room
in readiness against my need
My boots and saddle rest
against the wooden walls
with saddle covers decorated
as is the custom for a War Lord

My Sphinx of horns and wings
my lion-griffin marked along
to show what braveries I follow
echo out the finest features
in the tattoos of my arms
my chest and here along my face

My woman pricked and rubbed in soot
to make these oxen on my chest
the leopard here the lion there
and round my body To the back
a tiger striking down a deer
My woman lies beside me in the room

Lord of the mountain and of plain
below the lights of all the seasons
I slept and fought to take in war
this woman here the guarding horses
set outside my door forever
the wagon where we made my sons

They found my body in the hills
just where the mountain meets the plain
The hair - to guard my strength -
had gone to decorate a belt
My skull was broken in the rain
of blows from axes in their hands

My women died as women die
Our bodies lie inside this room
in careful herbs and well preserved
My wagon waits beside the door
my horses - masked in death - as strong
as when I beat her tribe for her

This coffin-log from where trees grow
is carved to keep my journey safe
My tigers march along the lid
She serves me for eternity
and when I reach the Afterlife
my riches will precede my coming

copyright 1997 Charlotte Peters Rock

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The Wiser Man

2007-11-19T14:38:00.000-08:00

20.4.97

Along the camel lines
where horses with their screwed up nostrils
will not smell and be disturbed
by carriers of the steppe
the certain-footed ones which never stumble
the ones which starved of water
still plod on until the spring is reached
I live

Forty seasons on the highest steppe
- or a hundred - it is all the same
I have tended first the horses
then the camels which will keep me warm
serve me with their milk and meat
their skins to make my shelter when the howling winds
sear the bones of lesser men
and their delicate horses

My mother was the favoured of the gods
before this woman which we honour
and the one who came before her time had died
Her tales continued through the winter nights
and under stars we touched in summer pasture
She bequeathed the mantle which I carry
the way to show how honour must be done
how chambers hollowed from the thawing ground
in summer when the nesting birds call loud
can carry to the land beyond
the living newly needing passage

They send the woman to consult me
She What does she know
I can tell her of the depth which must be dug
how to line in interlocking flattened wood
the walls to keep the dead one clear of earth
which horses must be felled
and how to put them facing east
outside her chamber door

I can tell how many days the feasting must
be taken by the storytelling
and when to make the feast for her
to take upon her longest journey
how to lay her on her side
her tallest head-dress fitted into time
and mirrors decorated by her emblem
placed beside her in due reverence

After many days of feasting
when the horses all lie ready
when the stories all include
her living and her dying
I can supervise the final reverence
how to seal the coffin lid with copper nails
to put the roof in place
and where to stack the stones
which show her final resting
keep the wolves outsideclaim this land as hers

copyright 1997 Charlotte Peters Rock

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Bronze Mirror of the Ice Maiden

2007-11-19T12:42:00.000-08:00

22.4.97

My mirror set in wood
and guarded by the doe
the doe I carry into stories
into history I tell
is placed beside me in the log
its red cloth case protecting
til I should need its magic
its glitter into where I wander

In autumn's icy wind we found
we found our little house
still waiting as we left it in the spring
The yurts around all gathered families
as - cobwebs cleared - I sat
to weave the telling of the season
and the hardships we had suffered
into richness of our tribal story

And sometimes in the mirror glitter
I can see the times before
the times before I lived
or down the camel line
the oldest gaffer dreamed about
I can see the pictures
of the stories I still tell
which story-ancestors related

The great-great-grandmother of this one
first told the tale I told you yesterday
and that old gaffer's mother
was a legendary power
whose imagination still entwines
with every story I remember
and who saw the anguish of that winter
when the wolves descended

In my mirror I can see
serenity of swans in summer
where the trees in lower pasture
march around the Mirror of the Moon
foretelling richness in the birthing season
gentle winters on the steppe
when no-one but the oldest dies
and stories feed the flame about the fire

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The Magic Lake

2007-11-19T12:28:00.000-08:00

6.8.97

When I was young and strong
the old man looked me over
His younger wife the second
had laboured long inside her yurt
to birth a child to be his heir
Her child her womanhood all gone
she died in moaning loss

But he would carry on his line
His strength along the plain when young
was legendary to our tribe
His wisdom in the fruit of age
must pass along the trodden way
- where every child of his had died -
and live to take his right-won place

When I was young and strong
the old man took me to his silent yurt
- set off a little way from all the rest -
and spoke of swans along The Magic Lake
and where our sons would wander
in their youthful carelessness
as seasons changed from ice to flowers

They grew to carry on his line
two sons of mine to keep him living
and three small daughters just like him
The youngest one who smiled at birth
lived just one icy autumn in this life
but four still grew and laughed and tumbled
learned to ride and tell the stories to each other

When I was young and strong
the old man found the best of places
sheltered in the hardest winters
Gentle to his timid daughter
firm and hard to strengthen up his sons
and so indulgent that our youngest
never needed tears nor favours

Kon and Pek - so like each other -
followed herds and killed our meat
astride their horses from my skirt-lap
Kana stayed beside me in the yurt
but Tarsa rode behind her father
Wilder yet than both her brothers
Tarsa stole his company

When I was young and strong
the old man honoured me with children
- wealth of every roaming tribe
This life of times and seasons travels
Now we leave him in the ground
where once - and now forever -
he has company to mark his time

My Tarsa - wilder than her brothers -
dressed in flames of silk from China
died in grief as he lay dying
Lying near the three strong horses
her thin body keeps a vigil
as her grief had made her ready
for his company for ever

When I was young and strong
the old man traded for a camel
the grivna which my Tarsa wears
- leopard-headed either end - for me
It seemed to suit her bravery
And now I leave it with the casket
near the mirror she can look inside

When her other life continues
she will use the precious needle
make a fiery silken dress
to spangle in the golden plates
we sewed across her sunset-shroud
and wake her father and his horses
to ride across The Magic Lake

When I was young and strong
the old man seemed to me too old
but now my hair is grey in grief
there is no place above the ground
except to see my sons move on
my Kana in her marriage yurt
and look to find The Magic Lake

copyright 1997 Charlotte Peters Rock
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The Warrior of Siberia

2007-11-19T12:24:00.000-08:00

6.4.98

You find me as I died
My horse fell under me
Their horses hooves came down
I died complete

They slashed my stomach red
My new skin coat turned red
Their horses hooves came down
and finished me

When they had ridden off
my kinsmen rode to me
Their horses hooves had killed
our overlord

From finest strength and might
from thirty years of life
their horses hooves came down
to beat away

My body frozen still
My horse protecting me
Their horses hooves had brought
the Afterlife

My two red braids fall down
below my woollen cap
Their horses hooves stayed off
my leather boots

Three thousand years or more
my elk tattoo still fine
Their horses hooves gave me
this Afterlife

You found my arrows and
my bow my axe my knife
my horse's harness fine
with wooden boss

My griffins and my stags
Their coverings of gold
My horse in finest garb
to honour me

You found my frozen place
My tomb below the ground
Their horses hooves and mine
still echo yet

My guardian horse with me
The grief my sister felt
Their horses hooves still pound
the centuries

In this strange Afterlife
I lie exposed to view
Their horses hooves gave you
my history

I rode across the world
From Scythia to here
Their horses hooves and mine
wore tracks away

To China in the East
and back to die below
their horses hooves which pound
which pound me still

I lived in times of wealth
The world was mine to cross
and horses hooves still pass
where I once rode

My sheep are herded on
My camels carry still
My horses follow trails
which I once took

Don't think your life the best
Mine was the best of all
My horses hooves picked round
a world I knew

copyright 1998 Charlotte Peters Rock
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Kreka of Vyatichi

2007-11-19T12:04:00.000-08:00

13.5.98

The bones in this small urn
attest that once I lived
Inside this barrow as in life
I have the place prescribed for me

Before my body - lying broken
days and weeks beneath a bush -
was claimed and recognised as mine
death and battles claimed the others

Besha my much older brother
burned on fires to cleanse his spirit
when the raiders poured his blood
by the Don where he took theirs

His women and his children wailed
as women and their children must
and when the fires had died away
their weeping ended at the barrow

Besha - strongest of our tribe -
my brother who would kill the foe
and kill the friend who claimed his temper
my brother who had killed our father

Seshka father of the tribe - who smiled at me -
lies in the urn close by my brother’s
His white hair kindled in the flame
was once a crown above his wisdom

He took on several wives in turn
and guarded all his little children
and showed us how to hunt and fight
But Besha was the favoured eldest

Besha - brother-man of childhood -
always argued with our father
but only once he raised his axe
in anger - at the feasting season

My mother Maga stood between them
- her golden plaits her eyes on fire -
beside the baking-oven glimmer
Her eyes stayed steady as she died

Inside that smaller urn she lies
behind my father Seshka’s bones
which grief interred within the time
we took to burn and place her there

And further back and further back
the years and ancestors still lie
My father’s uncle - killed by bear
My father’s father - dead of fever

All my other kinfolk lie
in places distant now and lost
They fell to fever or to foe
or rode away and still ride on

But I have lain ten centuries
A son - a man of middle-age
Kreka of Vyatichi
who travelled once to sail the Don

I brought my woman back from there
She bore eight children - five survived
Four sons to carry on my line
and Maga with my mother’s eyes

Kreka - whose descendents pour
around the Volga and the Oka
west along the Vistula
south to touch the River Danube

If I had lived my mother Maga
she who died with eyes on fire
would still stare back from every woman
She who once outfaced my brother

copyright 1998 Charlotte Peters Rock

* details taken from Archaeology in the USSR p273(ish) by A L Mongait - A Pelican book

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If I'm corrupt..

2007-11-19T11:30:00.000-08:00

19.2.96

on the nature of political power(Imagine this person as a newly fledged MP, who moves on rapidly)

I enter this hall to the greater good
my oath is taken
Silence falls on me but soon - as any debutante -
I make a maiden speech
Good or bad, the Order Papers wave
ignoring every word
each fluff and nervous tick and stutter
They lead me into cliques

I fit, a body claimed, a vote in the Division
new-boy-nervous
Speeches which I make are vetted, by masters
who whip me into line
Policies I query, leave a slope of ice before which
I sit gazing

Moving up includes unpalatable facts accepted
I gag - and swallow
Responsibilities awarded by masters of corruption
or wiser men more generous
lead me into murky water, seething in ooze and lies
or stagnant pools
Sometimes I leap, rock to slippery rock, falling in
before the bank is gained

My speeches hit the page clamouring
in altered meaning
I trade one imperfect phrase of yours for one
unwise response of mine
In the trade-off factories are closed forever
fishing nets destroyed

I hide the evidence, they're certain that I have
- and lie abroad
I face their grand exposure of my wrongs
- and lie at home

If no answer comes, no blame is possible to shift
I touch the wall
Back against its roughened granite block
fingers raw
picking my escape. As baying Press advance
I turn

Your evidence, in spite of perfect proof
is wrong my red eyes stare
Should it prove correct and I a liar
I will state

You do not understand the power you vest in me
and furthermore
my clique will still support my strong position
I'll not resign

They will echo, echo, echo still with me
If I'm corrupt
so would they in their long corruption be
They will echo every word I state
If I'm corrupt..and you have proof
..SO WHAT!

copyright 1996 Charlotte Peters Rock

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Curfew

2007-11-19T11:21:00.000-08:00

4.4.92

Whoever called a curfew on the night
decided I should go to bed and miss
on every night such star-delight such bliss
demanded I should lose this outer sight?

Who said I should sleep through brilliant skies
insisted rest renewed in darkened hours
would fit me better yet to draw life's powers
than greeting dawn with star-demented eyes?

Who made the box and said that I should sit
within its walled-up confines in the dark
unconscious then but rising with the lark
still fettered by the box they made me fit?

Oh I will wander looney as I may
entrailing with the fox's loops and turns
I'll survive smelling bramble leaves and ferns
and rest in hours I've stolen from the day

copyright 1992 Charlotte Peters Rock

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Frozen Princess

2007-11-19T11:11:00.000-08:00

13.3.97

(Put on site for Christie Dickason)

Here on the highest steppe
Here where the mountains rise
Here in the icy wind
Here here we wander

My father rode the treeless plains
two thousand years and more before you came
to scour my grave and those around me
digging out my coffin made of log
from deep inside the Pazyryk mounds
Scattered low across the Altai steppe
at Ukok carved into the permafrost

You found my wooden salvers
bearing horse meat and the mutton
still uneaten in my chamber
Disturbed my chestnut horses
from their sentinel without my door
examining in high excitement
the single blow that felled
my favoured into guarding me
the felted saddle covers
the loyalty of centuries

You call me Frozen Princess
but that phrase can not describe
my warmth in living
The years I rode across the plains
plaits streaming out behind my surging progress
following trails my ancestors laid down
and my descendants followed

Before I died - approaching middle age -
I knew the warmth of babies suckled
-the ice of babies dying -
watched my daughter learn to walk and run
and dressed my charming rough-haired son
in finest wool and skins so supple
he was prouder than his father
as he followed in his hunting

Around the cooking fires
older women chattered
as they worked the tattoo patterns
into arms and legs
remembering the shapes their mother taught them
Passing on the knowledge
of a griffin or an antler-deer
- a snake to wrap around the wrist

I tattooed my younger son before he died
my older son before he rode away
my daughter in the antler pattern
which my mother gave me

She showed me how to work in leather
how to make the felted lions
and the richest birds
to hang inside her funeral chamber
the swans we set to guard my son in his
the wooden head-dress which you found
on me when you let in the light

copyright 1997 Charlotte Peters Rock

(This is the performance piece of which I spoke. The first verse is sung - the rest is 'declaimed'. Charlotte)

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Leaving the ocean

2007-11-19T11:07:00.000-08:00

16.4.97

Pella
silent in the sand
ran questing fingers through her hair

Short it was
but growing longer
since the harvest for her mother’s sleeping

Scraping sand
carefully and scooping
she uncovered finally the blackened face

two tiny places
which the eyes could see through
the nose and rounded `o’ of mouth

Touching
blackness with her gentle fingers
and bleakness with her weary eyes

working
carefully around the head to see
her shock of hair still there protecting

..following
so big you seemed to be - and I so small -
You laughing as I learned to run

Seal babies
lolloped in the sea long before I reached them
You scooped me high into your arms

I lived
and you were grateful for a child so strong
You took me to collect the pool-meat and we gorged

Sea birds
wheeled around our feast
and took the shells we threw

The man
my father brought the fish
He caught it on the hooks you fashioned

Home
hauling netted bags of silver blue and red
to bake inside the sun bright sand

Feasting
on the freshest ones still bloody in our teeth
..putting scales and fins on arms as ornament

thinking
of the drying store to carry as we moved
to hunt the meat along the river plain

Gone now
The man my father died along the plain
You and I packed his bones with grass long dry

His face
like yours - oh mother - formed in blackness
lingers where the Atacama dries his weeping

The hooks
and spears beside his resting body
still serve him well - as I will see

My man
says we must go along the river
where last season’s hunting still lies waiting

My father
- close to there - will look into the sun again
and I will speak to him of you

copyright 1997 Charlotte Peters Rock

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Chinchorro teaching

2007-11-19T11:00:00.000-08:00

28.4.97

He’s growing strong and clever now
our little one
This morning he played hidey
on the shore

Between the bushes stalking me
collecting pool meat
Jumping out to startle silently retreating
to re-start
the game which once he learns it well
will keep him fed

Yesterday he caught a little cui
and brought it back
I showed him how to kill and skin and now he wears it
as a trophy
on the belt his father fashioned

All day he’s finding crabs for me to catch
and screeching me
He has his father’s ways and will not let them nip
his little fingers

I’m showing him the way to carve a stone
to make it sharp
but he’s impatient to be running
round and round
disturbing sea birds in their nesting

I tell him to be silent and to wait
to take their eggs
I say how good they are to suck still warm
He can’t remember

I say If you disturb them they won’t nest
We’ll lose their food
I tell him You can have a baby bird
to keep as yours
once its feathers have all grown

Tied by one leg it will look to you for food
and let you stroke it
as you stroked the little cui along the river
until we needed it to eat

copyright 1997 Charlotte Peters Rock

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Chinchorro child lament

2007-11-19T10:47:00.000-08:00

15.4.97

Alone amongst his father’s children
this baby bears my mother’s face
and gentleness

The look around his wiseling eyes
that smile the echo of her own
She should have lived to see him

And if I scream his name
and hold his small cold body to my breast
he’s gone

as much as she is gone
and as forever I will miss her
in his echoing

Along the shore where every wave
falling at my feet recalls him
back to meet the salt

I try to see the girls the boy
the father to them all
but everywhere this baby

follows where I walk
And when the sea birds run
before the waves

and when the moon
arises out of sunset’s burning
leading points of light

his face his kneading fist
pains at the breast he once devoured
and I weep

-

Yesterday my brother’s wife took my child
to empty out his living
make him ready

And with her care he’ll be prepared
to last forever as my mother
was made ready

She will take the flesh from round his bones
and from inside his bones
and make him fit

to live forever in the sand
to join my mother and my father
and the babies I have lost

I will see him stiff and still
his flesh made soil and reed
lying straighter than he ever did

My child will wear the blackened face
the sheen of pelican to guard his travelling
into the world beyond his life

We will wrap him gently in the woven reed
where his round eyes will see
and his round mouth will breathe again

and set him gently in the sand
gently in the sand
to live forever

copyright 1997 Charlotte Peters Rock

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Chinchorro at the shore

2007-11-19T10:37:00.000-08:00

15.4.97

He took our elder son
- who looks like him -
down to the shore
and I said
Please our son is young

but he said Yes
and he must learn
where fish are waiting
- and our son’s eyes shone

The waves were high
and they so fragile near the water
Our son was waving
as they walked below the hill

I saw the ocean heave
into the distant air
I knew the gods were angry
- my son so young

I shouted
but they could not hear
My voice roaring out to warn
was like a sea bird in its nest

On came the heaving ocean
one wave much higher than the palms
and then my cry
was silenced

as he and our son
- who looks like him -
were taken

Our daughter still prepares
the fish for their return
She didn’t understand my screams
How will I tell her

The ocean
- from the gods’ displeasure
will strip their bones
of all their roundness

Her father
- who could take the fish
build up our house of reed
and stroke her shining hair -

will never wear
the blackened face
nor join my son
(Too young to die)

(Too old to die an infant)
straight-sleeping in the sand
his bones packed out with earth

And I can’t weave the mourning reed
to wrap around the son I bore
- the man who warmed my body

copyright 1997 Charlotte Peters Rock

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An eye on the void

2007-11-19T10:30:00.000-08:00

an eye
on the void
between the two
the pull of life
****************
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Bluer than the moon

2007-11-19T10:25:00.000-08:00

27.11.97

The little baby in the cradle looked
Her two big eyes were bluer than the moon
which dangled out of reach above her head
surrounded by its twinkling stars

She saw two rounded eyes - a little mouth
A pudgy hand reached over - touched her face
Pinching fingers pulled her cheek and twisted
Tiny knuckles punched her eye

The little baby in the cradle saw
Her two big eyes were wider than the world
Her mouth gasped air beyond her body-reach
Her face turned white and blood-sad blue

A struggle with no breath to cry beyond
A gasping - sucking-in of air - to feed
her reddened face with anger at unfairness
Her wailing cries began to build

The little baby in the cradle roared
Her two big eyes were oceans in her pain
Her lungs two bellows raw inside her pain
surrounded by its twinkling stars

-

A woman brought a bottle to the room
Her older child was playing on the floor
Her baby screaming-angry in her crib
had caught her face against the cot..again

The little baby in the cradle screamed
The woman soothed and fed - below the moon
walked up-and-down and up-and-down the room
Murmured as she settled her to sleep

The woman took the older child away
He ate spaghetti hoops and buttered toast
He asked why babies have to scream so much
and curled his little body in her lap

The little baby in the cradle knew
Her two big eyes had opened wide
and seen the world’s unfairness falling on her head
Surrounded by its twinkling stars

Copyright Charlotte Peters Rock 1997
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Justice

2007-11-19T10:12:00.000-08:00

2.8.91

Once upon a time there was justice
But it was so long gone
that nobody believed in it

So one day a search was mounted
Files were disturbed
Wigs dusted off
Gowns shaken out

Every corner of every court
looked at and checked over

No sign was found until
lacking any other place to look,
a check was made
inside the head of one
who dared to hope
to find it there

Searching in amongst the cells
long dark with age
and atrophied with lack of use
a small glow was seen

A glow of conscience
And hiding close
within this glow
was justice

Copyright 1991 Charlotte Peters Rock
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