Deborah Swain

1 - I can do better 2 - Jury's out 3 - Pretty darn good 4 - Splendiferous 5 - Awesometastic by 3 people | Log in to rate

Ranked #5,988 in Arts , #150,122 overall | Donates to Action Against Hunger

Poetry by Deborah Swain

A selection of poems from chapbooks by Deborah Swain - Kissing Gate - Through the Skylight - About Gravity - Filling the Silence with a Sigh

Kissing Gate 

published by Comrades Press 2005

KISSING GATE

Her great-grandfather
(whom she never knew)
was the town blacksmith.

Often, there were horses.
He'd fill his mouth with iron tacks
then spit them out
into blackened fingers
to drive them finally home
into newly shod hooves.

Sometimes there was art.
He'd draw rods of ferrous lava
from the fire
and with the muscular alchemy
of hammer & anvil
release keys and locks
and wheels and bolts-
and the kissing gate!
where his great-granddaughter
would later hesitate, frightened.

For there was always that moment
on the long walk back
home across a memory
of Sunday meadows
when she was afraid.
The kissing gate would swing
then clang shut behind her
trapping her in a different field.
Then she would remember
and feel safe
as she touched the sun warmed
burnished metal
as if reaching for the protective hand
of somebody tied by blood.

Kissing Gate available online 

Book Details:

- Paperback: 50 pages
- Binding: Perfect-Bound
- Publisher: Comrades Press (April 2005)
- Product Number: 20347132

Kissing Gate

Kissing Gate - a book of poetry by Deborah Swain published by Comrades Press.

Price: 9.00Buy Now

Powered by CafePress

Through the Skylight 

published by dPress 2003, cover by Lucienne Dorrance

THROUGH THE SKYLIGHT

Through the skylight
in a slate roof
slick with rain-
the bright blob
of a shade-less bulb
blotches my retinas
with its phosphorescent echo.
I steer it across
the inside of my eyelids,
chasing its elusive colours,
but cannot blink it away.
Like a film
I project it over
the blind stare of the house
& light up the windows
of each deserted room-
a mischievous ghost
flicking on switches,
mimicking lifetime habits.

The garden backs onto ours.
Pink roses drop
petals on the lawn.

TOAST

Making love
then making toast
one Sunday morning
they caught a glimpse of
other people,
rather like themselves,
long before
they got to know each other
intimately.

THE EGGSHELL BLUE ROOM

The locked bedroom
was painted the colour
of a magpie's clutch
-a speckled eggshell blue.
The night he pounded
his head against walls
built of brick
he really believed
he would smash his way
through delicate chalky tissue
& find only glutinous goo
the other side.
Then he'd swim his escape!

They found him
the next morning
in the eggshell blue room
-speckled red.
He had smashed a way out
of sorts.

About Gravity 

published by dPress 2001, cover woodblock by Lucienne Dorrance

THESE RED SHEETS

These red sheets
have swallowed me
in folds the colour of peonies.
They make this page seem
less white, like
the creamy top of the milk.

Your purple scarf, left
uneasy, gaudy on the bed,
still warm and
steeped in your skin-
scent sweetness,
pulls me away from
these blackly biro-ed words
on fine and pearly-grey lines,
(such delicately imposed discipline)
to press my face into
its surprising tickles,
breathe you in and
make whole your absence.

RELIC

If I'd known
you weren't coming back
I'd have waited
before washing
our last sheets and
kept them instead
in folds of tissue paper,
the invisible body print
essence of you preserved
in myriad molecules
of skin and hair and sweat.
X-rays and carbon dating
would prove that you'd existed.

But now, only I can
trace the outline
of where you lay.
And then, only
because I remember.

dPress 

dPress
The chapbooks 'About Gravity' and 'Through the Skylight' are published by dPress, a small literary press established in 1967 by Richard Denner.

Filling the Silence with a Sigh 

published by Comrades Press 2001, cover by Verian Thomas

THE HARE

I knew that you had
seen it too.
Sitting in silence,
wanting to share
our individual wonder,
release our excited child
and meet in common joy.
But I saw it
smudged, and
filtered through
desperate tears and
sniffed indifference;
you saw it,
but didn't, focussed angry
and only inwards,
blind to the outside
images flickering through
the windscreen, onto your retinas.
Chancing its luck,
now! it lolloped
across the road,
all twitching energy
and irresistible life.
Maybe you saw it only
later, as a ghost,
later when you touched
my knee, and
then my hand
as I changed gear,
letting me know
you were back.

You turned on the radio, and
I drove on,
elated.

Anthologies featuring work by Deborah Swain 

The Women of the Web: Anthology of Poems

Amazon Price: (as of 07/13/2009) Buy Now

Uno

Amazon Price: (as of 07/13/2009) Buy Now

When in Rome...Deborah's Blog 

Poetry :: Short Stories :: Videos :: Photography :: Occasional Reviews

Loading Fetching RSS feed... please stand by

Deborah Swain's Photographs on Flickr 

Harvest and Sibillini Mountains by Deborah Swain

Harvest and Sibillin...

First snows on Sibillini Mountains by Deborah Swain

First snows on Sibil...

Sibillini Mountains National Park by Deborah Swain

Sibillini Mountains...

The Sibillini Mountains by Deborah Swain

The Sibillini Mounta...

I Monti Sibillini by Deborah Swain

I Monti Sibillini

Mulberry Tree and Mountains by Deborah Swain

Mulberry Tree and Mo...

Sunflower Sacred Heart by Deborah Swain

Sunflower Sacred Hea...

Montefiore - Piazza and Carpet of Flowers by Deborah Swain

Montefiore - Piazza...

Montefiore - Town emblem in flowers by Deborah Swain

Montefiore - Town em...

Gateway to Montefiore by Deborah Swain

Gateway to Montefior...

Montefiore dell'Aso Corpus Domini by Deborah Swain

Montefiore dell'Aso...

Montefiore - Church Square and Corpus Domini Flowers by Deborah Swain

Montefiore - Church...

Rain-Morichella by Deborah Swain

Rain-Morichella

Big Sky San Ginesio (MC) by Deborah Swain

Big Sky San Ginesio...

Sheep - Le Marche, Italy by Deborah Swain

Sheep - Le Marche, I...

Meet "La Raganella" or "Hyla Arborea"... better known as The Italian Tree Frog! by Deborah Swain

Meet "La Ragane...

Una Raganella - Italian Tree Frog by Deborah Swain

Una Raganella - Ital...

Le Marche landscape, near Servigliano (AP) by Deborah Swain

Le Marche landscape,...

Early morning mist, near Amandola, Le Marche, Italy by Deborah Swain

Early morning mist,...

Sibillini Mountains and Mist by Deborah Swain

Sibillini Mountains...

Deborah Swain's Videos on YouTube 

Books by Friends 

Collected Poems 1961-2000

Amazon Price: (as of 07/13/2009) Buy Now

Ex Literotica

Amazon Price: (as of 07/13/2009) Buy Now

Verian Thomas 

Recent magazine publications featuring poems by Deborah Swain 

Orbis Quarterly Literary International Journal
Consistently high quality reading - Orbis poetry magazine edited by Carole Baldock.
Liminal Pleasures
Excellent poetry magazine edited by Andrew Nightingale

Stop Global Warming! 

Click on the banner...sign the petition!

Stop Global Warming

Deborah Swain on Amazon 

About Gravity.

Amazon Price: (as of 07/13/2009) Buy Now

Thorough the Skylight.

Amazon Price: (as of 07/13/2009) Buy Now

Please consider making a donation 

The Squidoo Charity Fund has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity. Thanks to the Squidoo community, we've built schools in Cambodia, given underprivileged classrooms computers and software, funded important reseach against Juvenile Diabetes

We at Squidoo passionately believe in creating new ways to support good causes online. By making a donation to Squidoo Charity Fund from this page, you are sending money directly to that organization, in whatever amount you want. We don't touch it. We don't even see it. The author of this page doesn't either. And if you made it this far, thanks for caring.

Cancel

Reader Feedback 

Lensmaster

marcia wrote

Wow, Debs! I am so pleased you put some of them up on the lens. There are some beautiful things here.
I'm especially crazy about the kissing gate and relic.
OK, now to vote forJailhouse rock.
Love,Marcia

Reply Posted January 22, 2007

Lensmaster

Verian

I am lucky enough to own all of the books of Deborah Swain and each one is a joy.

ReplyPosted January 16, 2007