Kiran wrote... Last March
“Last March was produced in collaboration with the Scott Polar Research Institute to mark the centenary of Captain Scott’s final expedition to the South Pole. This astonishing collection transports the reader to ‘the last place without men’ – a place that, for all our civilisation, we can still be rubbed to ‘knuckles’ by the extremity of the weather, the isolation. And though the poems are routed in history, there is a chilling message here for the future: ‘that water, with seeping insouciance/Really can unmake stone’.” – Jo Hemmant, Editor
Available to order here.
Published by Pindrop Press in March 2012.
Jonah
“Cast the cameras away! The evil eye brings the curse!”
Do you know yourself, because I know The Jonah
and know The Jonah cannot see Itself for the devil’s smoke.
You may think It has no place in this,
a land without men and all his deceits, but I know The Jonah
and saw It coming on the ship, black even on Its outside
not even hiding Itself from what It is.
It blew a gale to return Itself down
It drove the pack on us, full of crush and grind
It sent weakness to the dogs and sent the ponies to their beds
It made seven days to unload the ship in place of two
and It sends you to watch and record each click
of our demise.
I know The Jonah by the pressing of my chest
by the fumbling of hands on a rope when It is nearby
by the tricking of the ice beneath the sledge It rides
and by the whales that rose to crack the ground
to snap at your heels and stop your heart
and take It down to speak with God again.