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Olivia McMahon
Olivia, who is en route between Aberdeen and Ireland, shapes her take on now and then in many different cultures through emerald and granite.
Poems
OBTAINING TEA IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY
My tongue is hanging out for a mug of tea
Milk and no sugar, please
I have a picture of a cheerful woman in an overall
slopping dark liquid from a huge brown pot
into thick white cups.
You'd like a cup of tea, I know, she says.
Lapsangsuchong?
The name is like a broken violin string.
Or Earl Grey?
Sonorous like the House of Lords:
Lovely, I say weakly and watch
as she brings from the recesses of a cabinet
dainty cups with Japanese ladies
looking exquisite in a Japanese garden,
and a teapot, China blue and tiny, with a wicker handle.
Deftly she is cutting a lemon into slices,
and now we face each other across the polished table.
Is it too late to fish from my pocket
the teabag lurking there,
to say: would it be all right, I wonder, if... ?
And have you a mug? ...A big cup?
Only a bowl? And some milk? Well, never mind.
I raise the pool of scented water to my lips.
Ah, the English tea, she sighs.
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WAR
is a word Leila finds hard to pronounce
Listen to the difference, Leila, between war and woe
war – woe war – woe
What is woe, she asks?
Woe is caused by war: war – woe
And tomorrow I will teach her the vocabulary of war
collateral damage – a bomb landing in a market place
contingency – sewage for drinking water
breaking the china – that's slaughter, that's really bad
And the look the eight year old boy throws at the camera
as he runs towards his dying family?
I'm searching for a word.
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