Tribute to
Margaret Griffiths'
"Pismire Oration"

(Which you may read at http://www.the-flea.com/Issue8/EpigraphPismire.html)
 

May Magog smart the flockers from the highs,
and every lane resound with warbling wickets.
Hazed from memory we teasel dragondreg
all the way, nutmeg and funnels, Asphodel
yodelling in the foundry. We're not discomfit.

May our stories touch the Sphinx in her stable
and the breezy salmon goddess on the high wharf.
Listen. There lies the lingering Balalaika stanza
with its guileless tail rhyme, like a weasel shark
whose sunsets are mango, papaya, brainstuff.

May pasture be found beyond the rawhide point.
The clinking currawong, the Beltane incident,
the entire snaggletoothed lot: bound, not broken
in the bowels of night. May silver and wormwood
merge to engage the speckled eye of language.

May we keep our immersional shit together.
Some folk will bawl and bray when flockers crawl
the turrets nightly, toting their vassals, squires
and wolfhounds. Let spray for portitude, we say;
wanton mastication ne'er did naught but kreck.

May Magog spine the highs and eye them free
of calendar and cornice. Stray voices will be heard
on Sauciehall Street. Fare ye well, me hearties.
Let no weevil be unkind, no believer left behind
on russet evenings when the wind is sturgeon.

Jane Røken

If you have any comments on this poem,  Jane Røken would be pleased to hear from you.

Margaret Griffiths is a poet we are proud to have published in Snakeskin. Her posthumous collection, Grasshopper, may be purchased here.