Anni Wilton-Jones
                                                        (Áine an Caipín)  

                                                                    aine.an.caipin@gmail.com

 


Anni is a writer of poetry and, occasionally, prose. She has been a performance poet for rather longer than she cares to remember and has read her work in Wales (where she used to live), England, the USA and, of course, Ireland. She now lives in Co Mayo and, as well as performing with the Hermit Collective, is a member of Pen and Ink Writers. She also offers workshops and readings. 

Anni also presents an Arts magazine programme and produces radio plays on Claremorris Community Radio and is always interested to hear from anyone interested in being involved in either of these. 

Her poetry and prose have appeared in a number of publications, including The Cuirt Journal, Of Sawn Grain, Salvo, The Scotsman and Index on Censorship. She has also produced two solo CDs of poetry readings, Anam Cara and Moth, and another, This is… Salem, as part of a team of five poets.

Solo publications: Bridges, Moth (as Victoria Tims), Light Touch, Winter Whiting 
Co-written publications: This is… Salem, Fresh Voices for Younger Listeners, War Poems


Unmarked

The security of war
her life
     from birth

warmed by another’s blanket
food laced with charity

the taste
     turns adult stomachs
     fills her own

death in life
the return
     to the perils of peace

homecoming
     three walls
     a sagging roof

green flecks
     new
in battle ruts
entice her
     after the sheep

foragers
     among blades of grass
lips nibble
shrunken feral flanks
     twitch

sheep and child together
forge their lineage
in the lurking lines of war

the minefield
dormant
     through the conflict
erupts
     lava of screaming blood

sheep ripple away
     pause
     graze on
inured to blasts
     and peace-maimed children.


Trawler Number 23

Leaning her loneliness
into the scourings of the vagrant sea
she rots her rusting course to oblivion
trawling the sand in her last resting place
her bulbous blue-white beam belying
the shrivelling at her seams
the corrosion of her cabin

she sinks slowly to starboard
keeling towards an ebbing grave
while the keening cry of the gulls swirls
deafening above the defiant mast
the trawl-net shieldings
on the rails that top the tide
hold back the silver writhing
wave of memory
bare now and brown they rusticate
backwatered
their last catch caught

forsaken: the fleet flown
seeking the autumn herring
while she awaits
the winter whiting.


Saying goodbye

His touch would be
her last memory

it was the hardest thing
she’d ever done
making the decision

          knowing it was right…
          …feeling only guilt

willing herself to stay there
stroking the soft fur
on his swollen belly

her touch would be
his last memory


Frog Marsh

Down where the river's overflowing soaks
the rank wild-cherry wasteland, raucous croaks
          sound klaxons through the bogs,
rake slivers through the pall of peace that cloaks
the slime-green sloughs and mud-and-gravel chokes
          – the kingdom of the frogs.

They glory in their realm, where rotten logs
and bags of rubbish, torn by feral dogs,
          lie equal in decay.
Their playgrounds are the pools which litter clogs,
where tyres and engine parts with rusting cogs
          form stages for display.

The Alder and the Hawthorn and the Bay
are mighty giants in their midget way.
          This is no place for Oaks;
for trees must join the game the lordlings play,
where tiny kings and princes hold their sway
          in one of nature's jokes.

 


 

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