Great North Run

Under the steel bars of the Tyne bridge, 
they take over the river as they run, 
a mob of perseverance, a swarm of northern pride

Family Resemblance

My family are all from Glasgow or Port Glasgow, so we travel up there a lot.

 

Family Resemblance

On our way to Glasgow via the M6 northbound,

 I rest my head against the back seat car door

of the 09 blue Passatt my mother adores.

I lean on it’s inside window ledge,

the door lock jabs me behind my ear,

a little bearskin hat, marching on me, one, two, one, two,

like small utterances that I can’t quite hear.

It murmurs like vibrations on train tracks

of a journey, further away from the platform than here,

whether on its way, or having left, somewhere near.

There’s four of us in this car, all silent, all murmurs of each other,

like ripples in water, which only become visible at a touch

and eventually, fade away.

First Aid

As a day job, I work in a swimming pool.  Every day we have to deal with some sort of accident, mainly cuts and bruises from children running and slipping over.  It made me think about the body and how it has the amazing power to heal, alongside modern medicine and skilled doctors.  So, I wrote this very short poem, 'First Aid'.  Here's the first draft

First Aid

Knit together my broken skin, cuts next to scars,

lined up like snags in string, like laddered tights

on shredded skin.

A faded mark the only tar, a hint of the power to heal,

perhaps a lump, new tissue to feel.

Thumbs rest as wrists twist, fingers dance with bandages,

stitches, plaster. A doctor, the director, caster,

with an imperfect model to fix,

his patient, his actor.

© Caitriona Hansen

Whitby Abbey

In summer I went on holiday to the beautiful Whitby for a week with family.  We had amazing weather (for England!) and after going to Whitby last year and not visiting the Abbey, we had to go and spend some time there this year.   This is a poem about the mysteriousness of the Abbey. 

Whitby Abbey

A stone carcass sits behind a cemetery,

like a superior grave stone, boasting.

A rotting body of broken bones,

feet without legs, no room to grow,

or pattern to fit pelvis to hips,

or mouth to tongue.

No tongue to tell what lies in this beast’s past,

his past now a supple worm, escaped

from its eroding cage,

free to roam into the unknown.

Then, a meeting of past and present,

reason in a recent room,

facts preserved like treasure in a tomb.

They read, and believe, set up their picnics,

no time to grieve.

Grass tickles legs, slips among toes,

fingers that pull it from roots and leave it to lie

and die, as they turn with a fickle smile

and look away, demise in denial,

in the in the cemetery in front of Whitby Abbey.

.

© Caitriona Hansen