Meeting Ground were extremely lucky to be joined by talented poet Becky Cullen for the development and production of Inside Out of Mind in 2013.

As poet in residence, Becky produced several pieces inspired by the performance which you can now read below.

Special thanks to Becky’s sponsors: Nottingham Trent University and the Midlands3Cities Doctoral Training Partnership.

I – Welcome to the Ward with No Name

On the dark side of the screen, a man in a linen jacket
nuzzles a pillow. Behind the curtain, a man of action
nestles in a wheelchair, slinks into a dressing gown.
Hidden by plywood, a woman in a beak becomes a nurse,
draws her hair into a ponytail. You two: her one expensive
shoe, and you, showing what it is to watch your wife
brush lips with another man. Now our dear girl, soft
like her doll, a rose, her chair; our gentle biscuit stealer.

Then the one whose fingers pinch, making a break
on legs warped by too much sitting. They find her
half way down the corridor, her nightdress billowing
behind her. She makes it clear: being here is ruining
her marriage. Sometimes, her tongue rolls and flickers,
her bag clatters on a gangster’s back. Sometimes,
she stands at the window, listening for a gasp in flight,
a bird to talk to, her face lit by the right size of moon.

II – Alouette At Sundown

When you find me singing at the gates of heaven
I will engrave your life in notes on your inner ear
so you are retrieved, and not retreating.

Oh the mess of it: leaving you here in the sandbanks
with no recollection of the striped deckchair
substituting the complete works of Shakespeare and Jung
for a child’s song jangling.

I slip from ear to mouth to ear, my beak and neck
and feet and wings plucked back to fledgling.

III – When She Speaks the Brown Leaves Settle

If there comes a time I fix you with my eye
and I cannot tell you who we are, bring her to me.

Her voice is a cool sheet. If you think I ache,
that my ribs are full of lungs, let it cover me.

In this book, we have written out my life, its rhythm:
If we cannot speak the words, ask her to read them.

IV – Under Keith’s Sheet

Miss Sophie Scales, I think you’re beautiful.
So clean and fresh, a new ring flashing
on your finger. Massive! The ring, that is.
Yes, he makes you laugh –but will he
make you laugh like me? Could he play
pranks with plastic spiders? Would he let
you box his ears? Does he notice when
your hair’s like Queen Victoria’s? Or love
to hear you say ‘It’s right murky weather’?
When a wild swan passes on a winter shift
as disinfectant seeps into your skin, will
he keep you tethered to yourself, ring a bell,
run a bath for you?

V – Waiting for the Last Laugh

You say I might remember dreadful jokes. So, let me tell you now
the one about the Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman, criminals
this time, chased furiously by the plod, legging it across a field
and hiding in a barn. Watch them wriggle into sacks, keep
completely still; look, they are quiet and barely breathing.
Next, the anticipation of their discovery – hamming it up slightly
– almighty kicks up their behinds by the coppers and an English
bark and Scottish miaow.

I may sit hazy in my chair, shouting Potatoes with an Irish lilt,
perhaps I will repeat fortissimo Ha ha! bonk! and jerk,
and no one, least of all myself, will know I see a man laughing
yes! – his head off. I hope I make no grown-up children cry,
no fellow japers flinch or jump. If you sit with me in my joke,
keep up.

VI – The Actors Are Not In Until One

This is how you hang a string of pumpkin lights,
slice a sheet of pink and make it into morning.
This is how you wear a lassoe on your shoulder,
lug ladders, one trouser leg rolled higher
than the other.

This is how you make a flock of elderflowers
take off, find a baby crying underwater
We put that crackle there, that pulse,
those are our branches
scanned onto the walls.

And this is how she walks down stairs,
glides a broad broom round the stage,
gathers feathers in a tidy pile. All of this
without chitter chatter: so much to remember.

VII – Do We Understand The Rules?

When she dies, I take the feather tucked inside my cuff
and lay it on her lips. I give my pillow to make a nest
for her lost child, for the husband, sister she wishes she had not let go.

Then my book, my flapping history; love, a family,
an expurgated version of my victories. I rest this volume
by her feet, gift her comfort, words. There is logic in this.

When her last strand of breath reaches up like branches
pressed against the underside of a glasshouse roof,
a steady unremitting pressure pushing out the panes,

I will be waiting, watch our words ride on feathers
out into the night, catch a drift and settle on the lake,
sailing there, small white boats, keening.

©Becky Cullen, 2013
becky.cullen@yahoo.co.uk