Clare Shaw

How I heard

I heard rain like conversation,

I heard the warning, more to come.

I heard the front door slamming

and I heard my phone insisting.

I heard Todmorden was going,

Mytholmroyd had gone.

I did not hear the siren.

I heard a sound like anger

and all night long, the river.

I heard rumours of disaster.

Like pain, I heard the water

and I heard the school was under

and I could not get warm.

I saw the blue lights flashing

and I heard my neighbours shouting.

I heard warning, I heard warning –

yes I saw the river rising

but I did not see this coming

*

Roads and paths covered; flash flooding on steeper slopes

The air is forest.

The road is blocked with trees.

There is noise between them

and no word except river;

the canal is fast river; the path

is deep river; the river is a story

that can’t be believed.

The birds have all left the woods.

The lane is a ripped-up book.

And as much as you know of rain –

this rain is taking everything.

Your clothes forget themselves,

your shoes have never been dry.

It has drowned the rabbits.

They could not escape

from the cage where you kept them.

It is lifting the hens in their coop –

you can still hear them scream.

It breaks your phone

and the lights.

You are left in the total dark.

When your town is a river

and everywhere you love

is going under;

when even the boats can’t float

and the water is at your door and rising,

when the mice have all fled upstairs;

when no one can reach you,

the only choice you can make

is what you can lift and save,

is not to forget you can leave –

is to wade with the weight of a child on your shoulders,

to follow instructions for crossing deep water

though the current grows steadily stronger and deeper.

Your house is a river.

Now swim.

*

Flood Town

I am the track

blocked with rubble. I am rubble.

I am the teatime commuter

come home to a town in disaster. I am on my phone.

I am the man saying fuck

over and over.

I am up to my axles in muck.

I am that one car floating.

I am those who did not make it

up the hill.

I am the battery, dead in the cold.

I am the phone’s blank screen.

I am the siren that sounded too late.

I am the neighbour with the cigarette.

I am too wet to smoke.

I am the gate you leaned on.

I am the schools, all shut.

I am the children. I don’t know whether

to cry. Where should I go?

I am the mother, knee deep.

I cannot stop saying Fuck.

I would like to go home now. I am the rain.

A town in ruins. Fuck.

Fuck.

            11       What do I know

            12       Who knows what it’s like

            15       Instructions for coping in terrible times

            17       For the journey.

            18       Late Afternoon, Allan Bank

            19       Water as Religion

            20       And still I don’t know

            22       Lovehearts

            25       Double

            26       Hydrology

            27       Weather warning

            28       How I heard

            29       Roads and paths covered; flash flooding on steeper slopes

            31       Flood Town

            32       Why did the sand blush?

            33       Grabbed.

            35       Rainhill Psychiatric Hospital 1992

            37       This is a man.

            38       For the love of

            40       Just look

            41       Grim

            43       Who said

            45       Telling Tales

            46       Nothing I’m afraid to write except for words

            47       My father was no ordinary man

            49       My mother was a verified miracle.

            50       Low lying regions inundated. Large objects begin to float

            52       Divorce

            54       Rescue effort

            55       Measures of Goodness

            56       This is for Stanley and Dan

            57       Major structures destroyed; terrain significantly altered.

            58       A love song to punctuation

            60       Catastrophic devastation; damage complete.

            61       Love is not

            62       Pinnacle Ridge.

            64       The Cruellest Month

            66       I don’t remember anything about hydrangeas

            68       Open Door Policy

            70       I came back

            72       The Lost King of Calderdale

            74       I sing for the man on the bus

            75       Flood as Redemption

            76       Teaching Your Daughter to Swim

            77       Since I woke up as a spider

            78       I woz ere.

‘As a reader you cannot expect an easy time with Clare Shaw. She deals with the big subjects, war and conflict, violence and violation but also the subtler themes of language as a means of expression, identity and the difficulties of motherhood. She takes us to places we may be reluctant to go but more importantly she fixes her gaze on us and demands our involvement.' – James Caruth, The North

‘The energy and vivacity of Clare Shaw’s writing, its colloquial power, frame of reference and sheer sound is enough to mark her out as one of the most talented young poets to appear in recent years. Hers is a natural gift that speaks as it sings. It confronts the world with knowledge, pity, melancholy, affection and a kind of sympathetic fury, as if the world were shards and fragments that could be gathered into the ear and sung from the heart. And the remarkable thing is that she does gather it and sing it, that she imbues it with the passion owing to it’ – George Szirtes [on Clare Shaw's debut collection Straight Ahead]