Miriam Gamble

The Oak That Was Not There

The oak that was not there was not there

and the sands went walking under the sea.

The clocks went forward, the clocks went back.

Someone lost their temper with me.

From a hillock, we looked on as water

swept its grey silk garment through the estuary.

The clocks went forward, the clocks went back.

The penitent, down on his knees, begged

for the honey of forgiveness from a round god whose 

presence we had proven.

The clocks went forward, the clocks went back;

there was no response. But we must act responsibly!

said our grave leader as the flowers of the machair 

grew scissor faces. On their faces, 

the hands of the second went chop, chop, chop; 

the digitalis ate a mink. To think, 

one murmured, that it should come down to this.

Another nodded: I consent there is something wrong – 

as the blown-glass nimbi angled and clinked

and the clocks went back and forwards, back and forwards – 

Where is the oak, for one thing? Where is the blasted oak?

And the round god fell from the sky like a fish.

*

Wonderland

It came to me of a sudden that my neighbour was a threat to peace, security, the nation. Previously I had had no sense of this but I knew it to be true so I set about letting the people know who should know and I must say it was a source of pride when, on the basis of my information, he was carried away for questioning, his face blank as a moon.  

I dream sometimes that my neighbour is a nut in a cluster of nuts hanging on a tree. They’re out of reach and beautiful, glinting in the sun, and my dream-self wants to grab one. I don’t know what it means; but did I say that the Queen called, afterwards, to offer her congratulations? I said to her, Your Majesty (and here I grew feet taller than my normal stature), what you see is what you get, and I am a personage who knows what he sees. She liked that, though – the strangest thing – she complained of snow when one felt quite clearly it was balmy and the depths of summer: flowers blossoming to the waist, bees whipping the pollen into sugared combs.

*

The Landing Window Is Unspeakable

There’s a turn in the stairs beyond which,

in the darkness, you are terrified to go –

the realm of the creaking life which somehow carries on

when everyone is out cold and unable to witness it.

There’s a mind-made barrier at the door

of your parents’ room: their sleeping frightens you, 

the heavy breath, the still, recumbent forms. 

You’ve been ferried back from light-drenched places, 

in coaches, the customary glare 

of the mint-green bathroom trebled in intensity, 

like it sucked in pigment while you were gone.

Then woken foxed by the dimensions of the house 

you’ve lived your whole conscious life in.

The recurrent dream of a cat walking a wall,

a provisional touching your father’s hair.

*

Sometimes Nothing

She never did it, the girl you were supposed to meet

in pink slippers and dressing gown

in what seemed the dead of night

after the world had gone to bed.

Sodium lights still garnished 

the suburban street

with the gladsome hue of territory.

You waited on the curve of the road.

There was nothing in particular to see.

In what claimed to be the dead of night

you stood alone 

at the mouth of her development;

sodium lights still salad-dressed the street. What

were you waiting for? 

You’d always known she wouldn’t do it.

You leaned flimsily 

against the curve of the road

where the remnants of a wood

you’d never had the name for scythed

on its cluttered stream

through the new developments,

and no bough juddered in the capricious night.

You stood gilded by the sodium light

as fat forms riffled through

your parents’ garden;

you fought to keep yourself concealed

from the nothing that was there.

You wanted to go midnight walking. Where 

were you going to walk to?

Through the developments, the pepper sniff of wood?

You, scuffing down the road

in your slippers and your wee fleece dressing gown.

You went home again,

you climbed the creakless stair.

You dreamt the dreams that were appropriate.

11 The Landing Window Is Unspeakable

12 The Oak That Was Not There

13 Time Ball

14 Odradek Returns

15 Wonderland

16 Amethyst

17 Coda

21 Feria de Málaga

22 Leòdhasach

23 The Holy Host in Spanish Art

24 Gutties

25 Alchemist

26 Betty Staff’s

28 Feldspar

30 Incident Report

31 The Wits 

32 Oils of Sculptors Working

35 Crane Fly 

36 Parotia Displaying in a Forest Clearing

37 Plume

38 Girl with Book and Rubber Bands

40 Bloater

41 Enkidu’s Worm

42 Mare at Large

43 Credentials

44 Siete Lagunas

45 Kitten

49 Marine Snow

50 The Canal at Fountainbridge

52 Gardyloo

54 Little Monument: Se Vende

55 In Memoriam Your Stuff

56 Urn

57 Handwriting 

58 Wormhole, Westlink

61 In the Annum

63 Abandoned Asylum

64 Sometimes Nothing

66 Winter Sunday

67 Holograph

68 Person

70 In the Recliner

71 Madeleine

72 IndyRef, 2014

73 Samhain

74 Moths

79 Notes

‘Gamble can be very funny as she winds up grandly rhetorical phrases for seemingly inconsequential events… The book’s best poems offset that witty, jiving, occasionally arch voice with tender, slower effects...’ – John McAuliffe, The Irish Times, on Pirate Music

‘These poems… understand the relation between form and violence, understand that craft and control can be acts of brute force too – against the other, even against the self. The Squirrels Are Dead is a collection of extraordinary formal versatility and skill.' – Fran Brearton, Edinburgh Review, on The Squirrels Are Dead

‘Experimental and wide-ranging, her work is by turns lyrical, surreal and quirkily humorous. Her debut collection shows that she is already a writer of considerable achievement and one who looks set to promise more in the future.' – David Cooke, The North, on The Squirrels Are Dead

‘What separates her from the thousands of other poets with a gift for sharp description, is the complexity and tautness of her arguments… Gamble’s intelligence is what makes these poems a pleasure to read.' – John Clegg