Jane Eyre:

Trembling and fainting from infant panic,

Solitary Jane is confined to a red room.

She is branded a thieving liar and barbaric

At a school that deals in miserly gloom –

Helen waits patiently there for a benign

Un-evidenced God to stop her weak breath.

Serendipity pushes a man down in time

For her to be brought to a house reeking of death

And creaking with rumour and a bastard child.

Rochester calls her into his room for fire-lit

Discussion of her and him while red hell burns wild –

The hysterical ghost tears the white dress in a fit.

But, much later, she hears his voice bidding for kind

Jane return to a black house and a man now blind.

 

This poem is based on the novel by Jane Eyre and also the 2011 film by Cary Fukunaga. I think it is probably necessary to watch the film or know the book to understand the poem.

Earth (Ghazal)

 

Tug out the henge stones like loose teeth from wet earth

And hear a low moan of dread from the spent earth.

 

Baked, bare souls kick up rising dust. Dark eyes are

Used to the sun’s grim ache and finding coins in red earth.

 

Fat cherubs coo down from a cathedral sky

Framed by stars like milk splashed on jet earth.

 

The one thousand arms of a lover hold flowers

Dripping putrid oil on eyes, mouth and dead earth.

 

An old woman gurgles a “thank you” or “yes”

As she is lowered into sacred earth.

 

Impress ‘Cecily’ into dry sand with a shoot

Plucked from a remote garden of unfettered earth.

 

 

In this poem I wanted to convey a sense of the gothic found in many Psychological Thrillers. I was also interested in the way that ‘clues’ work within the genre to enable the audience to come to their own conclusion and form their own understanding. The different stanzas can be seen to hopefully  act as these ‘clues’ – often the director/writer only gives the audience only glimpses of a greater whole.

Brighton Rock

 

Hail Mary he thinks on the seedy pier

As seagulls screech over old chips –

Rose, the little slut, serves tea

A cross hangs precipitously over her chest

 

Hail Mary as the Boy kicks old Spicer in his brittle shins

Busting a gaslight open on his way down –

Courting on salt-grass, bent towards a cliff

Shows proper feeling, like

 

Hail Mary burns down in Vitrol-hiss

On a bus rattling through Kemp Town –

It’s a fine day for the races and

Being cut to the bone

 

Hail Mary she belongs to him like a chair or a room

“I’ll never ever leave you, Pinkie” –

So he shows her how to pull the cold metal weight

And leaves it on her lap

 

Hail Mary when the record hits a scratch

And regurgitates an appalling hymn

Like a drone or a chant beating back

To a grainy snap taken on a sunny afternoon.