Tag: Mary Paterson

Two Poems by Mary Paterson

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

We did not capture the bird

The bird bombed itself into the kitchen window,
repeated calamities against the glass – beak / blood /

beak / blood. As a result I cannot come to your party. I am too full
of elastic and stinging nettles. My arms are shot with feathers

out of sympathy for the cadaver, its neck stabbed backwards into its body,
its wings a broken protractor. There are reasons

the birds are throwing themselves away like this & I’m in charge
of none of them. My role is to witness

using almost obsolete technologies. Think of the man
who built a library of creature songs in California,

who lived long enough with water bottles and escalators
to see his tapes ingested by fire. Recently, I will not name things –

not robin, nor Mohammed, nor Olivia – because I hope
the unnamed may proliferate. Ask me how I know

about the Zayante band-winged grasshopper, its buzz
that sounds entirely like plastic melting.

*

Defences

He says, you must locate the heart
of the enemy. You must pour boiling water

onto their queen. You must watch the steam
worry the sunless morning. What a morning.

What a honey trap sticky with ants. He says,
probably the ants are farming the aphids.

Probably the ants have nested under the bath.
What a forest of rose-fists knocking

on the bathroom window. We refuse
to kill the ants because we believe

in the sanctity of bodies clambering
for a future. Because we know what we will

become. Let us cloister inside with vinegar.
Let us sign a petition. The petition

says, please: not me, please, please, not me.

*

Mary Paterson is a writer and curator based in London (UK). She writes mainly for performance, and her work has been performed around the world including with Live Art DK (Copenhagen), Wellcome Collection (London) & Arnolfini (Bristol). Her poetry has been published by Poetry Magazine, 3am Magazine, & Ambient Receiver, amongst others. Mary is the co-founder of ‘Something Other’: a platform for experimental writing and performance, running since 2014.

One thing you could do by Mary Paterson

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

One thing you could do

is rent an apartment that is unfurnished
except for a large television
and a brown settee. You could go there
two to three times per week

to watch true crime documentaries
and cry about your mum. The deal is
you tell no one. At home you maintain
your days all perfectly ordinary:

magnet parking tickets to the fridge,
recycle cardboard, and so forth. Cycle there
as if you don’t believe in traffic. Hang a mirror
in the darkest room. The story is going to angle

itself out in instalments. You will see
your features become smudged away,
one by one, and, one by one,
see them repaired. Do this for nine months

and then it’s winter, your lungs burst open
like poinsettias; you, with ribbons on,
in the supermarket, everywhere. People
will think that it’s finished, people sing,

‘you look well!’, people make up
hoops of small talk about the sky.

*

Mary Paterson is a writer and curator based in London (UK). She writes mainly for performance, and her work has been performed around the world including with Live Art DK (Copenhagen), Wellcome Collection (London) & Arnolfini (Bristol). Her poetry has been published by Poetry Magazine, 3am Magazine, & Ambient Receiver, amongst others. Mary is the co-founder of ‘Something Other’: a platform for experimental writing and performance, running since 2014.