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Mandy Coe

Practicing Emptiness at Calais

Practicing Emptiness at Calais

Practicing Emptiness at Calais

Through shanty-towns of canvas and plastic
lorries queue. Cargo of the world
behind taught straps and bolted doors.
 
In dreams that stink of diesel,
tailgates tumble open,
loved ones inside beckoning, come, come.
 
This grey channel of sea is so narrow
one scar-faced boy shrugged off his leather jacket
saying that he would rather walk.
 
On flattened cardboard boxes
the schematics of airbrakes and exhausts
are mapped. Spaces measured, air holes, marked.
 
Emptiness must be mastered
So detection-dogs will pass,
tails wagging – carbon monoxide detectors
 
will read, all clear.
Those who name villages and cousins,
or talk in their sleep of soldiers and bombs
 
make the pine-tree air-fresheners swing.
In the stillness of motorway car parks,
they make St. Christopher catch the light. 
Mandy Coe

Mandy Coe

(Verenigd Koninkrijk, 1957)

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Practicing Emptiness at Calais

Through shanty-towns of canvas and plastic
lorries queue. Cargo of the world
behind taught straps and bolted doors.
 
In dreams that stink of diesel,
tailgates tumble open,
loved ones inside beckoning, come, come.
 
This grey channel of sea is so narrow
one scar-faced boy shrugged off his leather jacket
saying that he would rather walk.
 
On flattened cardboard boxes
the schematics of airbrakes and exhausts
are mapped. Spaces measured, air holes, marked.
 
Emptiness must be mastered
So detection-dogs will pass,
tails wagging – carbon monoxide detectors
 
will read, all clear.
Those who name villages and cousins,
or talk in their sleep of soldiers and bombs
 
make the pine-tree air-fresheners swing.
In the stillness of motorway car parks,
they make St. Christopher catch the light. 

Practicing Emptiness at Calais

Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
Lira fonds
Versopolis
J.E. Jurriaanse
Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
Elise Mathilde Fonds
Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
Veerhuis
VDM
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