N. L. Chaundler

A collaboration with writers as part of Heron & Willow’s Festival of Stories, 2023.

The Book of Jed is a zine including responses from poets and writers in the Scottish Borders to the skull.

Poem contribution to The Book of Jed.

untitled

My skull shall lie

In the chalk

of fieldfare haunts

that humpbacked whale upon.

Song through marrow

to Ravilious

reverb white curves bend on.

My skull shall lie

In latticed earth

crush these bones

again beneath dewed pond.

Chalk blue tailed

three swallows

strapped, cracking to a pole.

My skull shall lie

On stoned pillow

Iona – Shiants –

embedded walls where seas roll.

White legs open

to waters meet

maybe there’s a book in Woodvale.

My skull shall lie

Upon his table

its vacant holes

for death to have and to hold.

I want mycelia

stretch neuronic

dissolving wind blow cold.

My skull shall lie

In the chalk

my heart is his

my flesh to whither in the soil.

What of soul

left to the wind, whispering unheard, oh deafened ears uncoil.

Available for free at Heron & Willow, a Bookshop in Jedburgh.

Heron & Willow