ANDREW MCCALLUM

KRISTINA ZIMBAKOVA

BIGGAR POETRY GARDEN

2012

EKPHRASIS

a collaboration

Andrew McCallum

and

Kristina Zimbakova

Copyright © Andrew McCallum and Kristina Zimbakova 2012

All rights reserved

Allura

She threads through a crush of bantering shoulders

to swoop on our dead men.

It is the swaying barmaid.

It is she whom we have always loved,

she of the long salty heartaches,

the flirtation of passing hip and thigh

pressed into our scrapbooks of desire.

We hear the begging fiction of nylon-rasp,

the silky diction of limbs dipping into

the moist labour of our drinking.

We lap at the dregs of her,

the cherry red suggestiveness on the brim of a glass,

its foaming emptiness.

We play the line of her high-heeled banter,

teetering on the nether edge of fantasy.

She leaves carrying a silver tray

loaded with ten-a-penny sins.

Ours is a sordid kind of love.

But even as the beer-spills run,

even as the beer mats sink in their own saturation,

it is better than not

to have known the mystery of it all.

Daunce

Tанц

Yer daunce is lik music; yer step,

ootby itsel an bricht,

muives ti the meisur o its ain dumm sílence.

The sounless spartlin-back o siplins i the win

speiks throu yer bodie’s lissom strenth,

an throu yer slicht an slenner heicht

tids the lithe rhythm o the bluid.

An wi ilka braith yer breist airches,

liftin ye lifewart in lang lines o brawness…

syne draps ye doun the braes o daith again

Dance

Your dance is like music; your step,/outside itself and

bright,/moves to the measure of its own voicelessness./ The

soundless springing back of saplings in the wind/ speaks through

your body’s graceful strength,/and through your slight and

slender height/tides the supple rhythm of the blood./And with

each breath your breast arches,/lifting you lifeward in long lines

of beauty…/then drops you down the slopes of death again.

deleerit lassie

луда девојка

she sets i the faur neuk

scaurs vísible on her naikit airms

wan-shoothert lik venus de milo

we cam here on a thursday efternuin

ti speik for twa-three oors

for ordnar – in whíspert syllables

fornent oor ain

her wuirds are fire alairms

beseikin aab'die ti rin ti the exits

but we set an herken ti

her aintrin ailphabet

her unco vowels

ettlin ti ken hou her ‘now-time’ feels

agin aa the oors an meenits spent

scartin her shackles

Mad girl

she sits in the far corner/scars visible on her naked arms/white-

shouldered like venus de milo/we come here on thursday

afternoons/to talk for a couple of hours/usually – in whispered

syllables/against our own her words are fire alarms/warning

everyone to run to the exits/but we sit and listen to her strange

alphabet/her peculiar vowels/striving to understand how her

‘now-time’ feels/compared to all the hours and minutes

spent/cutting her wrists

dream o the butterflees

Сонот на пеперутките

licht-farrent they faa on the gairden

bricht butterflees o spring

chitterin braiths breid frae heiven

sakeless they licht upon the green

that yester-year’s kail-wuirms strippit doun

ti grou the wíngs o this year's brawness

Dream of the butterflies

frivolous they fall on the garden/bright butterflies of

spring/shimmering breaths manna from heaven/innocent

they light upon the green/that last year’s caterpillars

defoliated/to grow the wings of this year’s beauty

flying together

Заедно во лет

they leave

the wind is slow cool invisible

through the wind their arms waft

icarus ascends

swimming through air he puts

distance between himself and the sea

the weight of logic burdens him

makes pessimists of the blindest of watchmakers

just as the wax begins to warm

the earth is forgotten

icarus follows his father’s tunnel through the sky

the sun follows icarus, orbiting his temptation

sweat drips into the sea below

swiftly they move - meandering

guided by landmarks -

towards their destination

he has had all time to plan

but he twists – a moment’s careless genius --

flies back the way he came

sun stalks his father still

diving back into morning

as far as the night before

icarus calls to the top of the sky

the sky sinks to meet him

he rises

her legs pull him upwards into

the safe warm comfort and excitement of her

behind the light the lovers enfold

in perpetual uninterrupted night

gaeins-on in naitur

Случување во природата

"Gin the doors o perception war soum’t, aahin wad be kyth’t ti

man as it is, mairchless. For man haes steek’t himsel up, til he

sees aahin throu the nairae gaigs o his co’." – William Blake

the craws are stappin chimleys inti their kists

an flittin ti the laund o the pharaohs

snaa white is makkin freens wi hailstanes

staurs wi rings throu their lugs

are settin on twirlie stairs

a haun draws back the simmer rain

alang wi the girse

that grous doun lik hingins frae the luft

up i the glen a loch sprauchles ti its feet

ti ser as a keekin-gless

stanes are stane-cauld

betimes lik bairnies blabbin alang the burns

– an the dorbie’s gleg eneuch ti trowe whit they say

a muinth o muins rises lik the stove o oor braiths

ane wuird leads ti anither

ti mak poetrie fou o brawness

lik the nicht daidlin a neu daw in its airms

ilkane the aik-nit o the morn

I speik ti god but the luft is tuimt

Му зборувам на бог но небото е празно

god’s forleetin me

he telt me sae

I ast whit fir, an he said

thon’s juist the wey it is

I ast him whit I wad dae athoot him

he ast me, whit will ye dae?

I ast cud I dae onyhin I wantit

he said, ye can dae that onywice

I ast wad I gang ti heiven

he said, heiven’s nou

dae you hae heiven?

I ast wad I iver see him again

he said –

ye’ve ay bín the een I leuk throu

I speak to god but the sky is empty

god is abandoning me/he told me so/I asked him why, and he

said/that is just the way things are/I asked him what I would do

without him/he asked me, what will you do?/I asked if I could do

anything I wanted/he said, you can do that anyway/I asked would

I go to heaven/he said, heaven’s now/do you have heaven?/I

asked would I ever see him again/he said – /you have always

been the eyes I look through

mother and ember

Мајка и жарче

say a quiet word to the cat

when you wake in the dark house

before the light grows loud

say good morning to the fears

that scuttle across your bedroom floor

say hello before they dart beneath the shadows

say good evening to the flies

scrambling in and out of the honey pot

say a word to them

to the geese working towards a place of greater warmth

say goodbye without hesitation

The wundit warld

Ранет свет

We ast the deid ti bide awa --

wee laddies, buggert an strangelt, fed ti hungert syle

neist muckle gallaes; sodgers, shreedit throu the

cuisinarts o roadside bombs an guidit míssiles; auld

fowk, aipples flain bi baignets, left ti shrível in the

sun

– but the deid war sneistie an misbehauden.

They war owre thrawn ti tak the empie forms o

ghaists. They crowl't inti oor harns lik keds. An whan

they wammelt their mittelt bodies, we cudna

gainstaun the thochts we’d shapt that haurd ti birrie.

Whit fur are ye daein this? — we speirt.

Reddin ye — they said – juist reddin ye.

The wounded world

We asked the dead to stay away - /small boys, sodomised and

strangled, fed to hungry soil beside large gallows; soldiers,

shredded through the meat grinders of roadside bombs and

guided missiles; elderly people, apples peeled by bayonets, left to

shivel in the sun./ - But the dead were disdainful and

unobliging./ They were too intractable to take the empty shapes

of ghosts. They crawled into our brains like sheep-ticks. And

when they writhed their mutilated bodies, we could not withstand

the thoughts we had tried so hard to bury./ Why are you doing

this? – we asked./ Preparing you – they said – just preparing you.

the ratton’s staur

Ѕвездата на стаорецот

we haedna a hantle o time…

the hunchie-backit win

led the wey throu the wuids

oor sílence gart us leuk lik ghaists

that haed roup’t their corps

we socht ti fuind oor ain skíns

an be haill wi them aince mair

leal-hertit we taen the nairae gait

the win ruívin oor faces

the rat’s star

we did not have much time…/the humpbacked wind/led the way

through the woods/our silence made us resemble ghosts/that had

pawned their bodies/we were looking to redeem our own

skins/and be whole with them again/faithfully we took the strait

path/the wind lacerating our faces

God knows what the wind will blow away

Кој знае што се ветрот ќе однесе

An old woman, who hasn’t died a winter yet,

wanders the fields, gathering daisies.

Every flower in her apron is a star;

her apron is the sky.

When she returns to her house,

she scatters them to dry like shells on a beach,

to bring good fortune, to whisper the days to come.

Her hair glistens in the sun.

A star glints in her golden earring.

The daisies dry.

Then her hand, scarred by labour,

that spun the wool of the ewes

and flourished her wedding dress,

gathers the dried flowers to sell.

But next winter, when the future comes,

it will silence the whispers.

She will be buried with her ancestors.

And yet – as if by chance,

as if by magic,

as if by a miracle –

behind her house

daisies will continue to grow each year.

Many seeds have flown;

these have remained.

Artist’s Statement – Andrew McCallum

“A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his

ears.” - Gertrude Stein

“A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a

confession.” - Albert Camus

Born in 1959, Andrew McCallum is a widely published

poet from Biggar in southern Scotland. He writes in both English

and synthetic Scots.

Andrew was brought up listening to the Scots of his

grandparents’ generation and associates the language with the

local landscape in which that generation lived and worked and

left their traces. Much of his writing reflects a powerful

connection with that landscape and its resonances.

While studying philosophy at Dundee and Edinburgh,

Andrew was particularly attracted to the ideas of those writers,

inspired by Der Blaue Reiter group of artists, who explored the

role of poetry in ‘disclosing’ aspects of the world – its moods and

meanings – which are ‘forgotten’ in the hustle and bustle of

modern life and ‘forbidden’ in scientific narratives. In much of

his poetry, he tries to disclose the moods and meanings he finds

in the landscape in which his biography and family history are

rooted. He calls this project 'an attempt to lyric existence’. He is

strongly committed in his practice to the idea of poetry as this

kind of expressive engagement with the landscapes of one’s own

life-world.

Andrew is also interested in interdisciplinary creative

practice. His ekphrastic work ties in with his expressionist

aesthetic: attempting to express one’s sense of an artwork

poetically is an [authentic] way of engaging with it as part of ‘the

landscape in which one dwells’.

Artist’s Statement – Kristina Zimbakova

''As is painting, so is poetry'' - Horace

"Poetry is a speaking picture, painting a silent poetry.'' -

Simonides of Keos

Born 1975 in Strumica, the Republic of Macedonia, the

artist and philologist Kristina Zimbakova lives and works in

Skopje.

Since the early 1990s, most of her work has involved the

creation of paintings and drawings that are essentially a subtle

confession. Her personal world of both anguish and bliss is

rendered through expressive, colourful, symbolic representations

that evoke feelings which all of us can identify with: love, pain,

fear, ecstasy. Her art is an attempt at healing and self-discovery.

With a degree in English Literature from Ss. Cyril and

Methodius University, her literary background also informs her

paintings in a variety of ways and contributes to her

interdisciplinary approach to visual art. Language is a prominent

feature of her work. References to the poetry of Sylvia Plath have

been a lush source of inspiration. Kristina often incorporates text

into the piece and creates graffiti-style, witty, embroidered

inscriptions.

Pertaining to techniques, all her artworks are mixed-

media. In addition to conventional art material (acrylic, pastel,

charcoal, pencil, wax), Kristina commonly applies collage of wood

shavings, shredded paper, poppy seed, raffia, fabric, leather, wire,

hair, as well as found objects (fungi, minerals, shoes etc). In the

last two years she has also resorted to hand-embroidery. Texture

is a vital element to the content of her work and, since her

beginnings as an artist, she has found that the richness of mixed

media provide her with the necessary freedom of formal

expression.

No matter how contradictory it may sound to produce art

that is concurrently discrete and confessional, in many aspects

fine art equals poetry. Hence it must retain the alluring mystery

of its visual language.