Originally from Scotland, Nicola Geddes is based in the west of Ireland where she works as a cellist and tutor. Publications include: The Irish Times, Poetry Ireland Review, Crannog, The Galway Review, Crossways, The Blue Nib, Skylight 47 and internationally in the US, UK and Europe. Her poems can also be found in anthologies including Writing Home (Dedalus Press) Poems for When You Can’t Find the Words (Irish Hospice Foundation/Poetry Ireland). Awards include: Special Commendation – Patrick Kavanagh Award 2017, Highly Commended 2018 The Over the Edge New Writer of the Year. In May 2019 she won the Irish Times’ New Irish Writing.

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Skin

Is my skin the boundary of me?

I asked the great gull
the whitest egret
and the ancient heron

but what do my feathered selves
care for boundaries?

I asked the silver mackerel
reflected in the highest clouds
I asked the shell
of the sideways little crab

but all that was there
was air

I asked inland
down in the small corners
where skin is covered
in grey-brown fur
all the way up
to bright black eyes
listening

my ears prickle
listen, mouse whispers
there is no other

our bird self
could be that circling hawk.

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Wake

I spend night after night
in the company of crows
we peck the tideline
at the sea of minutia
hop back from the ripples
among the shingle and the glidders

and you will say
are crows nocturnal?
knowing they are not
you, who gently sail
from shore to shining shore
safe in your slumberboat

we spread our inky wings
ascend a grey sky
it may not sound like singing to you
but the music from our feathered throats
is raw and beautiful
as a lunar landscape.

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No-one is Watching

Unharness your two beasts
Ambition and Anxiety
from your chariot
Unharness yourself
from all electronic devices
You will not be followed

Did you look, did you
see the tree tops career above you
in an ecstasy of elements,
smell the damp brown
leaves under your feet?
Did you witness yourself
in the middle
of all this rejoicing
and all this decay?

Or are you still stooped
under the weight of your expectations?
See the grey clouds skitter across a yellow sky
See the fat bluebottle climb the window again
See the oceans
who have carried our ships on their backs
and from whom the feast was delivered
See the oceans
Rise up
No-one is watching.

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Duoverse

There are two worlds- Otherworld and Realworld
Realworld is not real, and Otherworld is not other
Realworld is ruled by Reason
Lines drawn straight
Everyone must be online and within reason
Anyone outside the lines cannot exist in Realworld

Otherworld co-exists with Realworld
But its orbit is like a spider’s web
Time dances
It may be charted in the lines of your hand
But not visible, if there is a screen on your palm
When Realworld eclipses Otherworld
We become lonely, victims of our brilliant minds.