Poem: The Cliff

The Cliff

(after Anselm Kiefer)

I make a lexicon       of things that can be        white

         linen             lace        sea foam           face

but these     small dresses      nightshirts   doll-sized robes
    

       are spattered               grey     and        maculate

stone ghosts of birds            snagged       on a wall of ash

I wonder                 how they           were stitched

smock       shirr         pick         cross               feather

        but it’s                   impossible             to tell

their seams           have rotted               in the spray

I think      how they once were cut     from patterns

        facing    yoke    placket     pocket        welt

but the waves   have flung      this flock of empty children
      

         against                           a squalling bluff     

all memory of making                           has been lost

Above the cliff  the sky            is cracked like mud

I make a lexicon of things     that are        unravelled

                       

Sally Douglas

'The Cliff' was a prizewinner in the 2015 Exeter Poetry Festival Competition, and was originally published in the Festival pamphlet, Threads.

Poem: Schrödinger's Cat

On 29th November 1935, Erwin Schrödinger published his famous thought experiment about the cat. That famous cat in the in the steel box, the cat which is at the same time dead and alive until the box is opened and the cat is observed. I can't say I fully understand it at a scientific level, but at a poetic level, it's just my thing!

I started thinking about how surely, unless the cat were asleep, it would be able to observe itself. And if it did, what would happen? Would the 'psi-function' collapse and, in effect, the cat kill itself via its own consciousness? Let's hope it's asleep, I thought, so there's no danger of that happening...

So, to celebrate its 80th birthday, here's my ode to Schrödinger's Cat, complete with suitably unscientific 'footnotes'. Imagine it with a bit of a rap feel...

Apparently, in later life Schrödinger wished he'd never mentioned the darn cat. I bet the cat wished so too.