The Photograph Prose Poetry Bus Tongue Twister!

Here's Mrs McIntyre enjoying Issue 1

Himself is driving the Bus this week, and the prompt involved getting to know a new site called, simply, Photograph Prose. Bit of a genius place really, as you can submit photographs and words to go with them, or else just a photograph and wait for someone else to word them up.
Anyway, here is what TFE asked:

Something a little different this week.There is a new website of Photography and writing called Photograph Prose - 'The virtual collision of photographers and writers'
I saw it on Nuala Ní Chonchúirs blog and put 3 photos in and a bit of prose, which they took,real quick and painless.
So painless that I want you to visit the site have a look at the pics and words already exhibited then visit the 'UP exhibit' (clickable along the top of the page) and choose a picture to inspire some words.

Here's the link to the website itself: http://www.photographprose.com/

And here's a link to everybody else's Bus poems: http://totalfeckineejit.blogspot.com/

I was very taken with a fine photograph by someone called Linda, of a row of chairs standing on old floorboards. It reminded me of my primary school. Unluckily, the result grew like Topsy into one of those very long poems I've been getting so good at not writing lately. In real life it's got those juked-about lines that shout Modern Poetry, but I have no idea how to upload the poem in that format to Blogger. Still, here we go.


Killing Horses

St Mary’s: the hard green soap
Sister Gertrude used to scrub floorboards;
Izal toilet paper I did not believe in
until I stole a sheet and took it home
my mother confirming that yes,
that is a type of toilet paper;
damp wool habits steaming
by radiators that burned dust;
soured milk in small bottles at break;
Stephen Window stink,
his having to sit
in the Belfast sink.

Chapel was a sensuous release;
the whole spectrum of light played
on sunny days,
censers swung smoke
of fossil violets,
balm of Gilead
and ambergris,
a whale word I had read and remembered.
Sister Aiden rang the sanctus bells
and they were the faraway sound
of the Holy Spirit
coming to change the wafers and the wine.
Always an intoning voice, with words,
but you could gaze, when not praying
at the exquisite colours
of the Stations of the Cross:
fourteen painted plaques
walking round the walls.

I loved school, and chapel, and Jesus,
in a small way,
but alone of all my classmates
I had cathedral at home
and lived with its lord.
All days were good;
sheep days (every day)
pig days (secret)
but best days were big beast days
when the great killing hall was used.
I liked the horses most.

One rule: you must not get in the mens’ way,
so as soon as the horse was led
up the metal gang plank to
the metal box stall,
walls narrow, high
and galvanised,
I stood on the line where the
channelled
concrete
floor
of the ambulatory
met the smooth glassy concrete
of our great killing hall.
Horse shut in stall, a brother, or Father himself,
would mount angled metal rungs
to staging
that placed him at waist height
to the top of the stall walls,
carrying the captive bolt,
a brass hoof bell gun.
You never heard it because of the noise:
hooves on metal,
beast body banging
galvanised steel sides,
but then, clang, the floor
dropped
so sudden
and down the animal slid.
Limbo horse, kicking furious:
dead but did not know it.

Now, quick
a man had to wrap
chains round rear fetlocks
secure them with iron hooks
and once attached
the great machinery would take the strain
and haul the horse
across and up and
up until its head just brushed the floor,
and you saw
just how big a beast is
stretched out,
and how violent in its jerking.
Then the throat was cut deep
clean under the jawbone
and the blood
erupted from the cut,
forced by the big beating heart.

The kicking eased
as the blood flow slowed.
There was a lake of thick red
spreading slower too now
across the polished floor.
Bled out, the horse was lowered
and this time a flat steel bar, hooked each end
was forced,
one hook into each hock
to part the hind legs
and hold the animal
so it may be raised again
for work to begin.

Slaughtering is an art
that needs many knives, saws,
a whole man’s body
and hoses constantly running;
before your eyes all that is inside
comes out in precise stages
and the hide is pulled off in one.
I shall share that a liver is glossy indian red,
the only smell
old meadow and sharp ammonia
as the stomach is opened,
that a windpipe is banded flake white,
lungs are bubblegum pink
flecked with cobalt,
mauve blue,
and a horse has a big,
purple madder heart.

The end product a carcass
of red muscle, white bone
marbled yellow fat, sleek white fat,
with a glorious shine inside.
All this perfection
for dog food, tallow and greaves.

The Sisters could have the soul secrets:
all this took place in just one hour
in just one room
of my father’s house.
I had secrets too, and knew
what I wanted to do
when I grew up.