Photo of Jane Angué

Jane Angué lives in rugged country in the foothills of the Cévennes and teaches English Language and Literature. She contributes in French and English to print and online journals such as Amethyst, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Acumen, Erbacce, Poésie/première, Traversées and Arpa. A pamphlet, des fleurs pour Bach, was published in 2019 (Editions Encres Vives).

 

Poems by Jane Angue for morphrog23

Lack of aspiration

Which silence do you hear?

Set in one’s ways

 

 

Lack of aspiration

 

Hiatus.

 

Sounds good.

Too good.

Too highbrow for a lowly soul.

 

Sole lying low on the ocean floor.

 

And one mustn’t drop the ‘h’

as one mustn’t drop one’s pants

in polite company.

 

That is the problem: the ‘h’ dropped.

 

Not the H-bomb,

though in fact it was

a bit of a bomb

 

with a bit of bread

(organic stoneground, a little gritty,

Farmer’s market, Wednesdays, nice lad)

 

and Caerphilly

(artisan Gorwydd, of course,

made just down the road)

 

and green tomato chutney

(Mrs. Postgate’s recipe, matured

until Christmas in the larder).

 

The point is, the crux

and my cross, if you will,

and Will it was,

 

the core of this strange fruit,

the kernel, a tough nut

to put in a nutshell:

 

I ate us.

 

© Jane Angue

 

 

Which silence do you hear?

 

Suspension

 

of droning gnawing vehicles

that bore along the valley floor

underpinning the wind

deviating the essence of the hills.

 

Relief

 

from raucous nature-lovers

who fill picnic-wrappered afternoons

lamely whistling dogs that run amok

till panting ewes abort.

 

Quiescence

 

watching a brimstone shoulder

the thick air bouncing heavily

out of the shade of paper-lace

fingered snowy mespils.

 

Pause

 

punctuating the goldfinches’

ornate song like open-work

patiently embroidered

in linen for a trousseau.

 

Voiceless

 

in cold orchards

there cherry trees cry out

to indissoluble blindness

blossom floating unanchored

 

without bees.

 

© Jane Angue

 

 

 

Set in one’s ways

 

Another and another night

with Mercury on a high.

Wandering empty-dreamed,

pressed in mud-thick sticky prospects,

wondering

if pippins and plums will hang on

or fall, shrivelled and sour,

before their time.

Another fruitless year.

 

Tuesday.

Hanging on to the road,

dull-eyed in dour morning dusk,

cut and paste of dozens like it,

automatic mode. Keep on track,

not veer towards the ditch

churning drought-grey leaves,

frothing sweet and crisp bag scum

by the bus stop.

 

The truck’s flat face blinks,

double-mooned: glowing

through sulky pools of retracting gloom,

two stray dogs, retrievers unretrieved,

their clogged fur clings

and slack collars sway

as they bob in time with the dotted lines,

dodging cars, synchronised

in one mind, bound their way;

their purpose questioning mine.

 

Wednesday.

One hundred degrees clamp down,

blast like an opened oven door;

the snake-dry side road starts to slide,

melting in treacly waves.

Trotting doggedly downhill,

gait tipping, weaving,

flaccid tongue unrolled,

hanging on, those eyes

unutterably lost or searching.

I stop.                 And turn and search:

only one is on the road.

 

© Jane Angue