Jill Rees: Welcome Press

Follow the spires:
You will see in the distance,
between the oak and the sycamore tree,
mist hovers over the ragged fields
and the cows lowly moo
at your heavy footsteps.

March on over the remnant buttercups of summer
screwing your eyes at the sinking orange sun.
Draw your leather coat tight round you
and breathe mist as you come.

There are no minarets, but
Follow the spire and turn left
at the car park beside the gravestones.
There you will see the names of my fathers.
Between the white cottage and the pink cottage
you will find me pruning roses,
sweeping back the memory.

Follow the spire:
you will find A garden of humanity.
I will sooth your wounded bravery.
You can say whatever you want
and if my friends are shocked by it,
you can laugh out loud.
Follow the spires
and come to me from afar,
wearing your long scarf,
your sad eyes
and your cumbersome dreams.
Come to me as you are.

Jill Rees
August 2008
 

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You raise your scimitar arm

and scowl, eyes like slits, the wind

raising dust behind you.

This is how things used to be.

We will take the hot train,

wiping our eyes and wrapping

our scarves again around

our heads. We will watch

the grey desert, expecting to see

camels, but through the haze

cars scream down the highway

to Ankara.

You order the boy to bring

tea on his silver tray

as I smile at the women

sat closely shoulder to

shoulder, and the shy children

clinging to each other start

to giggle. You grin and

soon they are sitting on

our laps and the women

are taking tea, dropping

cubes of sugar in the

decorated glasses.

When I breathe, the dry

heat scorches my throat,

and when we kiss the

sweat on our lips moistens

our mouths. It is like kissing

underwater.

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It took me a while to call you
By your proper name Wien.
I used to call you Vienna.
Like Vienna schnitzel
And Wienerwald in the days
When I still saw Kafka’s eyes
Everywhere I went,
Skulking round the Haus des Meeres
Eying the Kokoschkas,
Peering from behind the
Cafe window, tutting at
Chocolate cake and
Fighting against the system,
Knowing we wouldn’t win.
At the station
60 kilometres from Vienna
I had to ask
Is this the Vienna train
And the man laughed
And shouted Wien Wien
You are not what you seem.
Can anyone love you more than I do?

I packed my case again
For I am a stranger
And a rambler.
I made love to you
One last time, kicking
My boots against the pines,
Scowled at the Schoenbrunn
As I passed on the tram,
I hated the Empire
And the children wide-eyed
Telling me about their
One-vote parliament
And I wheeled my case
Along the cobbles,
Into the number 78
To the Sudbahnhof.
Suddenly the blue hollow eyes,
Uncurious, unassuming, gazed
Once more at the traveller.
But when I travel now I am
Forever exile.
Sometime I wonder if
Everyone in Wien must be
An exile, it seems the mean,
Freud and Schoenberg, and can I
Please have a plot in the
Zentralfriedhof cemetery with the
Exiles if I am dead when I return.

Here the air is hot, I stifle
To breathe, I wave a fan
And drink lukewarm water
And I dream of frost and
Scurrying into the Aida bar,
And long for gloves and hats
And murmur in my sleep,
Pronouncing your name correctly.
Wien,Wien.

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 Someone to love you Vienna

When I’m gone, I hope you find

someone else to love you Vienna

Someone who won’t care if you preen your majestic veneer

And play the sweet facade, who will

Dance among your pruned lawns as if

You are young again, for I can see

The lines in your face and the soft jowls begin

To crumple like an old Bassett hound. Soon

You will begin to boast about your age as well

As all your former glories and temper

The tales of your malfeasance. Were you

Charming and desirable, beautiful, rich and adorable?

Did princes come from afar to ask for your gelded hand?

Did your well-decked lips ever cease the obligatory smile

And curl into a hateful hiss, and is it true

That once you rejected a generation

Of suitors?  You mad old lady

Of the Ottomans, where is the sensuous squirming girl

I once held in my arms? Isn’t it true

That you have become a bitter old woman,

Jewel of the past?

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