Anne Iredale – 'Bread and Circuses'
Anne Iredale’s debut publication for TartanMoon is a collection of poems, brimming with emotion, from tenderness to anger. Her work covers a range of subjects; but whether she is responding to the senselessness of Hiroshima and John Lennon’s murder, or love and the things that make us all tick, she paints striking pictures with her words.
Excerpts from ‘Bread and Circuses’
A northern tale
In this frozen sweep, sweet buds have yet to bloom. www.anneiredale.weebly.com
Hearts that too easily crack perish in the dawn.
Knights and maidens put their armour on.
Songbird ascending in defiant cry,
A burst of joy, a look, an invitation.
The stars are cold in velvet skies.
Another glass to warm the blood.
Mirrors shoot back the wrong reflection.
The dance is out of step.
Truth is somewhere behind the eyes closed in fear.
In this frozen waste, sweetness waits to spring.
Truth is courage behind tired eyes,
No places left to hide.
Knights and maidens lie like spoons,
Make promises under crescent moons.
Courage snapped and bitter taste.
The mirror is cracked and bleeding.
Another glass to warm the blood
And cases packed for leaving.
Somewhere on the frozen ice,
A tune plays on a broken piano.
Settle out of court and change left over
To feed the pigeons in the park.
There was no fairytale ending
But a brief shooting star through the dark.
Role play
If I were an English Rose,
I would float in cream chiffon,
Playing rummy in velvet drawing rooms,
Reciting Keats with perfect rhythm.
If I were a Southern Belle,
And all my sweetness in bloom,
I would elope with a handsome stranger,
And make love under an electric moon.
If I were a French Madame,
Sipping absinthe in my decline,
Elegantly wasted but adored,
A legend in my own time.
