Monday, December 21, 2015

Tuesday Poem - 'A walk on the moor' by Harvey Molloy



A walk on the moor


The steep ascent
tugs my calf muscles

my camera eyes
survey the moorscape

as I approach
the soft arc of the ridge

I pitch then yaw
arms extended

to avoid a small pool
in the bracken

the wind bites against
the thermal insulation

of my Parka suit
but telemetry tells ground control

we are still go
& confirms a green light

somewhere beneath the peat
the graves of the children

Brady & Hindley murdered —
what were their names?

& why did she name her dog Puppet?
& what happened to Puppet

after she was sentenced to life?
I moonwalk hop

bounce from left foot to right
pretending to be light

to be free of the earth
my gloved hands collect

samples of heather
for detailed analysis later

in the bedroom laboratory
should I make it home.


I am trying to be sanguine and upbeat about the loss of the Tuesday Poem community – kicked off about 5 years ago by Mary McCallum and Claire Beynon. Things fall apart. But I am not ready to fall apart yet. I like having point and purpose to my reading. So I shall carry on until the wobble in my orbit becomes too plangent. And it is very fitting that my first pick for the new regime is Harvey Molloy, who was a valued member of that community. I bumped into Harvey at the poetry conference in Wellington, and we did the book swap thing, the thing that poets do. So I got to read Moonshot (Steele Roberts 2008) and I can see quite clearly why Mary McCallum has selected him for next year's 3 poet Hoopla series at Mākaro Press. The man has skillz. I particularly took to this poem, because it summons up such an ominous sense of place, as it celebrates the natural elevation of childhood.

3 comments:

  1. i like it (http://imagtalks.blogspot.com)

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  2. Hooray! so glad you are going to wobble on. Jackson and I were bemoaning the loss of Tuesday poems. XX

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  3. Glad you're going on too, Jennifer. So am I. It's a kind of focus. And I really like this poem of Harvey's. Some interesting stuff. It definitely has that feeling of the bleak north York moors - I live not a million miles away from them, and I've walked there. Happy Christmas and all good wishes for the New Year!

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