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Briony Dennis
Featured Poet September Issue 2006
Featured
Poet May Issue 2007
Published in Poets' Letter Print
Magazine Issues
Poet in Residence at 3rd London Poetry
Festival 2007
You can never be whole,
until you are broken.
Never be one until you lie, a fleck,
a grain on the skin
of the endless
expanse of eternity.
Sinking
into the earth.
Sinking
with the weight of a drift of seconds
that accumulate
as a deep drift of leaden snow.
And the galgos steps across the paper strewn stone
Down into the city
down onto the shrinking world.
------------------------------------
Briony Dennis comes
from Hampshire, England and, is interested in exploring mythology, science and
different personas through her poetry. She recently completed a Masters Degree
in Critical and Creative Writing at Winchester University and one
day hopes to have earned enough to be able to afford to do a PhD with a
thesis on the relationship between science and poetry.
This is one of the
rarest joys of being the Editor of a magazine like Poets' Letter in which
one has the opportunity to read the best of poetic works of today that are
undertaken in this land and all its little cities, towns and villages that
come through to one's way. This is one of the moment in which Briony
Dennis' submissions came along! Since she joined and become part of Poets'
Letter family (as our Literature Editor) and may be that prejudiced
against her being featured in the magazine so late (!) although she
appeared in our print magazine! Yet, with great pleasure, enormous pride
and absolute delight Poets' Letter presents the works of this young poet
(who is one of the five Poets in Residence at the 3rd London Poetry
Festival) for the readers of contemporary English Poetry. If Poets' Letter
has any sense of poetry, let it be marked as saying: Briony Dennis is not
just a poet but one of the best young poets writing today in English in our
country and she has all the hall marks of a great poet in the making. Read
her and your rewards are enormously manifolds! Enjoy.
Briony Dennis: I
aim to draw the reader in through their senses
I was born in 1979 in
Hampshire and grew up in the beautiful city of Winchester. My poetry
really started to develop while studying at St. Mary’s, Twickenham and
then during my Masters at Winchester University. I am interested in
exploring mythology, time and science through poetry.
I started writing poetry 15 years
ago, although it was often very obscure, as I believed a reader should work hard
for the rewards. After being taught by writers such as Marion Lomax (Robyn Bolam)
and Amanda Boulter, I realised the error of my ways and now try to untangle the
images for the reader! The music of Bob Dylan has been an influence on my work
his Last thoughts on Woody Guthrie being one of the most beautiful pieces of
writing I have heard. I studied Eliot’s Four Quartets eight years ago, and even
now I still see something new every time I read it, so echoes from this will
always haunt my writing.
I believe that as a creative art
form, poetry provides the opportunity to view our world in a different way and
that it should be used in conjunction with empirical methods of study. The world
is an intensely complex place, so we need to use every method possible in order
to understand it. My writing process itself always involves music in some form
and I find it hard to write without the other layer this can provide. If I could
I would always ask a reader to listen to the music I wrote the poem to. Maybe in
the future!
My poetry explores various themes
in particular an individual’s place in time, I aim to draw the reader in through
their senses.
I have been lucky enough to be published in a number of publications including:
Canon’s Mouth, Deep Cleveland,
Fire, Voices, Fourth Order, Astropoetica, Poetry Now, Forward Press, United
Press, Poets' Letter.
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Four
Reflections - on Eliot's Four Quartets
Heart of Light
I
I tread over the dust.
The moon drops onto the earth
drawing the waves and the wind.
The levanter lures its tales,
a whispering cloak for the water.
These stories cannot be spoken, cannot be heard,
they may only be known.
Known by those who quiet their minds
silent.
Long enough to feel their chatter, to see through a mist…
the other.
The other who stands on a shadowed shore
expanding
with the sounds of the sand drinking the sea.
The other on a peninsula of calm
eyes gazing across miles.
Boundaries shiver, insubstantial in this place.
I reach the sea's edge
streams of light lick over and…
I am home.
Far from that place. Far from those faces. Those things.
Yet…
I am home.
It cannot endure, it is merely a reflection but,
in one pure, painful second…
I am home.
But this home, does not belong to me.
It's not mine.
Not yet.
II
And turning from the fading sounds of hushed footsteps
the other, another
drinks down the…second
savoring its aftertaste before it evaporates
in reality's heated breath.
Never to have existed.
III
And walking across the
lazy earth,
the dry, stretching earth, yawning its limbs across the years.
The other.
Another, gazes across the walking moments… of a waking eternity.
IV
You can never be whole,
until you are broken.
Never be one until you lie, a fleck,
a grain on the skin
of the endless
expanse of eternity.
Sinking
into the earth.
Sinking
with the weight of a drift of seconds
that accumulate
as a deep drift of leaden snow.
And the galgos steps across the paper strewn stone
Down into the city
down onto the shrinking world.
Go Up
Copyrights @ Briony Dennis |
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East to Nowhere I
Take me into the earth.
Smelling the dark soil.
Breathing the dew-damp dark.
Will I have left samsara then?
Every sign representing another
and another and neither representing
a real thing.
Take me back.
There is no going back
or forwards
or standing still,
there is no direction.
Merely correction,
rumbling in these catacombs.
The truth is now. This second. This instant,
the heart of mind, is brought home
in an instant, by the drowning of the telephone,
the destruction of the doorbell,
the demolition of 2.4 and the dinner party.
It's brought home for an instant…
Somewhere along the way to
finding something,
to keep us from thinking about that which we should not lose,
whilst we distracted ourselves from that which we were losing.
We forgot to breathe.
To bring it home.
Sit, as the world wheels about
you,
Ride the bus, as the universe flounders
and what will we leave?
Empty promises and shiny cars,
we didn't so much as look at the world,
or touch it with a curious finger.
Yet.
Go Up
II
In the stretched second before
dawn.
In the final breath of frost before spring.
In the blast of August during May.
Then it is only the reflection of an instant.
Mirrored in a pool of dust.
It stands alone on an expanse of ice,
towering down a sprawling look over the cold.
Spinning about the pole.
Watching.
Invoking our intercession.
But we have no time for contemplation.
It terrifies. Creeps into your heart.
The stone-still dusk
whisper of the real you.
Go Up
The Sanctity of Death
I
It's not on the
frosty field
or in the birth of suckling stars.
It's not buried beneath the atom,
or in the icy brook.
You won't find it
in clever metre
or in the formulations of equations
and you can't find it with the
microscope however hard you look.
It's in the
darkness of the soil.
It's in the death that makes us whole.
It's in another's grieving tears.
It's in the death behind many years.
It's in the life cut cruelly short.
Because in the end
to truly live
we must remember that we are dying.
II
The field is a
reflection
the stars are drifting rocks.
The equations and the metre will
Be discarded and reworked.
Find peace in
death, but in the knowledge
not only the action.
Embrace the drift
of seconds
thank the passing years.
Hear the silence of light on the hawthorn,
feed the thirsty sea
the seeds of your creation.
For what you grow
will never live until it dies
Go Up
Heart of Light
I
I tread over the dust.
The moon drops onto the earth
drawing the waves and the wind.
The levanter lures its tales,
a whispering cloak for the water.
These stories cannot be spoken, cannot be heard,
they may only be known.
Known by those who quiet their minds
silent.
Long enough to feel their chatter, to see through a mist…
the other.
The other who stands on a shadowed shore
expanding
with the sounds of the sand drinking the sea.
The other on a peninsula of calm
eyes gazing across miles.
Boundaries shiver, insubstantial in this place.
I reach the sea's edge
streams of light lick over and…
I am home.
Far from that place. Far from those faces. Those things.
Yet…
I am home.
It cannot endure, it is merely a reflection but,
in one pure, painful second…
I am home.
But this home, does not belong to me.
It's not mine.
Not yet.
II
And turning from the fading
sounds of hushed footsteps
the other, another
drinks down the…second
savoring its aftertaste before it evaporates
in reality's heated breath.
Never to have existed.
And walking across the lazy earth,
the dry, stretching earth, yawning its limbs across the years.
The other.
Another, gazes across the walking moments… of a waking eternity.
You can never be whole, until you are broken.
Never be one until you lie, a fleck,
a grain on the skin
of the endless
expanse of eternity.
Sinking
into the earth.
Sinking
with the weight of a drift of seconds
that accumulate
as a deep drift of leaden snow.
And the galgos steps across the paper strewn stone
Down into the city
down onto the shrinking world.
Go Up
Sod Cliché
Year one:
Whisper hot breath on my neck take my hand in yours let us run with the
wind on our faces take me in the long grass under the jealous moon let
me taste your sorrow, kiss your laughter and walk with you through life
and after.
Year Two:
Whilst my heart is aflame for you, I want to flick your ears every time
you dribble when you brush your teeth. (….I’ve just cleaned the sink)
Year Three:
My heart belongs to you, but why can’t you go that extra step and put
your underwear inside the laundry bin, instead of leaving it crawling
towards it. (…Only a couple of inches more!)
Year Four:
My heart is laid bare, but what is that clicky, grunting noise you make
when you sleep? (…Do you have some sort of allergy developing?)
Year Five:
However…
You set my heart on fire, by understanding my hysterical tears over the
last ten minutes of The Way We Were (….I was expecting our first child)
Love is blind, and you said I was beautiful, whilst I consumed 1
kilogram of chocolate and plucked a long black hair from my chin
You had love in your heart when you drove 1½ hours to get me a pint of
milk and some apples
Even If…
You were surprised I wasn’t rational when 6 months pregnant
your underwear is still hiking to the laundry bin
the clicky noise is getting worse
so is the dribbling
I’ll always love you and SOD CLICHÉ okay?
Go Up
Copyrights @ Briony Dennis |
You Breathe
I breathe,
milky and warm, I take it in.
It feels like home.
The way that you need to be
held—
not just held but contained, as if you still were.
You breathe,
insecure little gusts of reproach are you close enough?
I look
you are not fragile—as you look
defiantly existing.
You are at home in this chaos of worry and work.
After nights and nights on fast forward, I realise you will continue to
breathe.
So I breathe
new warmth, perfumed with everything of you…
it is beyond description, I cannot try to…
Slowly you begin to unfurl
testing each day suspiciously, then you realise slowly
very slowly
all is as it should be—
except are you close enough?
I am humbled, ashamed that I
could forget
the simplest pleasures,
a hand opening and closing
a chest rising and falling.
I breathe
because you breathe.
Ripe
Looking
into the mirror at distance there is no familiar face.
Years have thorned into my rose.
Doubts
seep
creeping along
the shivering thump thump of flesh
through the basking corn,
past the trees-
their aroma of warm sodden wood as they inhale the summer rain.
The
expiring hours are filled with
uncertain, uncertainties.
Fog is
hanging heavy, wanting to blanket and warm the still lake,
leaving the air alive with its nakedness.
Across the
field rain has sweated onto the grass.
The late summer symphony has no crickets they are listening to the
change.
Looking
into the mirror
ripening along with the corn.
You'll be hear when the last leaf has fallen.
Go Up
Andromeda's
Whisperings
You are
Gone.
Crumbled into ancient stone-
Risen in dust-vapour of bone-
Spiralling
into glittering dark.
As the leaves embrace the earth-
with red tears.
You appear once more,
answering the season with triumphant gold, streaming towards me in
all your glory.
Richest rain.
Led by
ancient malice. Your journey began.
You were sent to die.
Glassy
green eyes of cool reflection
would not see this.
Fires of the deep dark places
would not see this.
Tales borne by the layered air
would not see this.
As I
struggled you were not taken from me…
Writhing,
twisted.
A strangled rank cry.
She fell.
A
chrysalis, from the gnarled black,
light sprang, muscled feathers
unfolded-
baptised by evil blood,
he was pure, swift-
carrying you to me.
As the blood dripped from your bag
each tiny drop
fell
into
the
foam,
unfurling
little fists-
fragile coral the first the world had ever seen.
My
exposed
flesh cried out to you dressed by jewels.
He would not let me live.
My flesh curved away from him under its iron bandages.
You gazed,
frozen
in the air and saw-
me.
I was
meant to die.
But your
veins ran with flaxen love,
and would not see this.
He fell.
We rose cushioned by salty air- lost in amazement of each other
and returned.
Grasping
hands
greeted you but you drove them away
to touch those which had
rocked your childish dreams.
You journeyed on, but seen by primeval,
lidless eyes
your grandfather died
you wept.
Unable to forgive,
yourself, but years passed-
you held tiny healing hands, the vision faded,
we were whole.
I look
down upon our citadel alive
once more,
a shadow snake of curling green,
a Gorgon's rose to bind the ruins-
a carpet on our halls again, life beneath the stone she made.
As the day turns
autumnal
I see you in the sky's soft bed.
Go Up Event Horizon
[1] Russian Spirits of
streams and birch-trees. Rusalki are beautiful and they live in groups
of a dozen or so in the waters of the Rus, or in isolated parts of the
countryside. The laughter and songs of Rusalki are deadly to men,
entrancing them and making them join the Rusalki's dance. After dancing
for a while the Rusalki either tickle them to death or entice them into
water and drown them.
… it’s cold
I stand a fleck against a gas-spattered dark
Spilling time
Encircling nebulae…
Rotates around me, blindly spinning
Almost time.
Planetary vista…
Reach my fingers through the spiralling dream
No time.
Alone from the earth…
Pull up my hood to hide my beacon gaze
Reverse time
Looking down on a universe…
I can still see your star deep in it’s well of despair
Hiding time.
Over my shoulder no one is there…
Crumbles, powdering in collapsing crust
Its time.
It’s gone from view…
It is done. It is formed
It’s time.
Could I leap down…?
Do I leap down…?
No things were before not eternal; eternal
Remain.
…
Abandon.
Go Up
E = mc²
Twisting I arch over planetary systems.
A sentinel for the suckling stars,
blinking from their dusty ether,
so swamped by vapour I can hardly see.
Their stellar hunger stalks a gaseous eternity
gathering a galactic quilt to scorch themselves.
Soldering souls. Two becomes four, four become
one.
Light withdraws sneaking through the smog
ashamed of its inception.
Dismayed as it perceives its blazing trail.
Caught, once more to be digested.
Infant stars gently drop hot light-breath
onto sooty beds
exposing the slow dawning of
preconceived siblings.
Go Up
Idle time
Idle time is the best time
it's the time you appreciate the most.
It’s the delicious slow morning dropping
when you have no pressing tasks.
It’s the space between having to do something,
and needing to.
You can sink a coffee, slow-walking around
the exhaling house. The backdrop of idle noise:
birds, someone else elsewhere climbing into a car, the whistle of the
postman, the click of the kettle and the hum of the sleeping
refrigerator.
Dip the cups gently in sleepy suds, fluff a cushion, idly flick through
the paper.
The morning fritters it’s time rolling along— on the heels of the dog
walkers and pram pushers, meandering along half-full streets.
You can find idle time almost anywhere between the hours 09.15 and 11.45
it’s there in the aisles of the chemist, leaning on the shelves as you
browse,
breathing apple-air around the shopping centre as you walk.
Idle time is good for you, it’s the unexpected day off work after a
power cut, the indulgent “sick” day, the week between jobs, or the time
before the family gets home.
Every soul needs idle time, which is so hard to be in in our world.
When found it sips, gladly washing over you, a breeze, which freshens
even the dustiest hearts.
Unmoving as you are in motion.
Find some,
Go Up
Copyrights @ Briony Dennis |
Pentade Issue: March Year MMIX
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In Publication Since March
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