Makarelle is a new online literary magazine, offering a platform for writers and visual artists.
For our Spring 2021 issue, on the theme of ‘Coming Unravelled’, we invite submissions of – fiction and non-fiction of up to 2,000 words- poetry of up to 40 lines- visual art (photos, drawings, paintings etc).
The submission deadline for this issue is 28 February 2021.If your piece is accepted, we are happy to showcase a brief author biography and any website/social media links with your publication.
My third and final guest poet is Mandy Beattie. Here is her mysterious poem inspired by a local Scottish landmarkof standing stones.
A pantry of organic nettle tea and skeins of wild raspberries tumble through the turnstile between times of concrete & standing-stanes where sky sits a duck-egg blue ceiling on the Hill O’ Many Stanes
The Land O’ The Cat where Hairy-Brottachs hatch into Louded Yellow and Green-Veined White butterflies and dandelion clocks puff among mosaics of standing-stanes
Kneeling at a silver stane-pew palming ley-lines with my life-lines I am litmus among lichen waking-dreaming of way-back-when the Wee Folk jigged in amethyst heather and fairy rings in The Land O’ the Cat where the veil’s still thin between worlds.
Poem Copyright of Mandy Beattie
Note:- The Hill o’ Many Stanes consists of about 200 small stones arranged in rows running down a low hill in East Caithness, Northern Scotland. They were erected about 4,000 years ago, possibly for gatherings and religious ceremonies. Caithness was once known as the Land of the Cat People, a reference to an ancient legendary tribe of Picts who inhabited the area.
Mandy Beattie, is a feminist from Caithness, with an MA in Social Work Practice & Research. Her poetry is a tapestry of stories and imagery, rooted in people, place & the natural environment, set at home and abroad.
Here’s a sultry, sensuous poem from my guest poet for this post, the talented Meg Macleod.
I remember braiding her hair, the woman who shared her island with me. “I can’t reach it now,” she said to me. Her hair, as soft as silk, pale golden silk. My fingers lifted it, brushed it out, dividing it into three strands. I slowly braided it letting it fall down her back. “So fine,”I said. “Beautiful.” I walked out across the sun bleached porch and stood looking out over the sea while she wrapped salmon in seaweed and baked it in a fire between the rocks on the shore.
Poem copyright of Meg Macleod
Meg was born in 1945 in England. She lived in America and Canada before moving to Scotland in 1974 where she now resides on the north coast in a house looking out over the sea towards Orkney Islands. Meg has a BA in Fine Arts. Her beautifully illustrated book of poems entitled Raven Songs is available to buy from Amazon.
For the first time on the Purple Hermit we have a poem from a guest poet, fellow Scottish writer and friend, Alastair Simmons. Enjoy!
Blue Poppies (In memory of Esther)
She took ages to answer the door in the heavy summer rain. Finally, she fumbled open the catch. Her hand was bandaged, her eyes blackened, on a white face. “Err, I’ve had a fall,” she said, her hands still shaking. “Err, I’ve come about the garden, gardening,” I said. Suddenly, her eyes sparked then ignited ninety plus years held in darkening pupils, the delicate filament in her blue iris illuminated. “Did I tell you about trekking in the Himalayas? Right over the pass for six days. I remember now, the blue poppies, wonderful,” she said. She began talking, as if she’d known me all of my relatively short life. She took my arm and leaned hard on the old wooden stick, “Now let me show you the roses.” The summer rain pelted like an Asian monsoon. We didn’t notice.
By Alastair Simmons 2012
Alastair lives on the Northeast Scottish coast, finding inspiration in the landscapes of Scotland and Northern England, and also it’s cities. And the gardens he creates, working as a gardener. “Poetry is about finding connection and expressing that feeling, whether it’s people, nature or worlds we find ourselves in.”
Instead of writing my novel I am staring at a bunch of bananas, or more precisely at the juxtaposition of the fruit with a box of Gourmet cat food, a calendar, jars of pasta, a face flannel and a pack of hair grips. The randomness of this arrangement reflects the insanity of my life during these Covid months. If ever there was a plot I have truly lost it along with any desire to keep a tidy house. The absence of visitors due to the restrictions has eroded my inner hausfrau. Instead I have developed a taste for the creativity of chaos. I used to be one for everything in its place, now I think there is a place in everything.
I keep thinking about the paradox of Schrödinger’s cat. If no one speaks to me or sees me or hears me for several days there is the equal probability that I am both dead and alive at the same time. The reality of my existence is not validated by others. For ten months I’ve been living in a grainy gritty twilight zone like a scene from a movie shot on Super8. I need to keep looking in the mirror just to check I’m still here. There’s always a tingle of surprise when I see myself, relatively unscathed, looking back.
I am writing this with a yellow pen and therefore prone to optimism.
Dutifully muted we wait in our bubbles, looking at ourselves looking at ourselves smiling, looking for clues in book shelves, potted plants, interiors.
Sid’s iPad is a shadow. Patrick props a stepladder. Magi’s tablet belongs to a Ragdoll with blue eyes. The third row shows bearded minimalists in grey.
The cool ones are sipping tea from chunky mugs. The patient ones are still holding hands raised while their rictus grins slip off screen to scream.
Three minutes to write a poem about the sea. Try to recall how the sea looks, sounds, smells. Time rubs out. One by one our bubbles turn black.
Something is wrong. A grey fog stinking of wet wool hovers above my bed when I wake. I hit reset and instantly a citrus glow permeates the Sense-o-Net. Lemon scent cuts through the fug. Bitter-sweet, my six naked limbs dissolve like butter on hot toast. I hit open and the view unreels; a newborn sun rising from the sea, a debonair yacht with a white sail, a labrador chasing a beach ball. Let’s get this show on the road, I hit extraterrestrial to transcode.
What if each breath was a cloud, each tear -drop a rainstorm, each word forked lightning and eyelids conjured hurricanes, would your world be desert or ocean?
“The poet’s job is to translate unspeakable things on to the page…”
“Poets don’t get into poetry for money, they do it for vocation – I feel like that anyway. Poets can touch hearts and minds; they can translate trauma into something people can face. Sometimes there’s a cost for the poet to do that as it takes looking at the trauma right in the face and then allowing others to bear the idea of trauma safely. That’s why I write poetry. Poems are empathy machines.
Racism is a system that keeps propagating itself. It wasn’t the bankers, millionaires or computer magnates we turned to in the crisis – it was the nurses, garbage cleaners, supermarket workers; I hope those people will be valued more.”
She has never seen so many of them, diving in ribbons, mercurial as the heart of a virgin. She opens her mouth to cry out, joyful her hot mouth expects a fierce Atlantic roar.
She taps an elegant rhythm as the rocks tease. Not surprised, they reflect the enduring equivalence of a human. Five liquid bodies hurl into the waves. She’s eager to slip
a knot around her waist, slide into the silver gaping mouth. She believes she will fly underwater, melding like angler fish, one into a luminous other. Love lingers
under the scalloped tongue and her smile disappears into a cave. Words are the agony of a different folly, wafer thin, hankering for the heavenly parts of this world.
