by Aonghas MacNeacail

“I used to be Snow White, but I drifted”

mhàiri sìne, mhàiri sine
bu tus an té
bu tus an té
chuir feise mach
air chlàr an t-saoghail
mar gur naidheachd raoin e

mar a thuirt thu
come up sometime
’s mar a thuirt thu
and see me
’s mar a chunnaich sùuil na h-aigne
do choltas broilleachail ’s an
t-sùil-bheag na d’ fhiamh
a’ smèideadh ris an smuaint

’s mar a chaidh thu dhachaidh
bho’n àrd-ùrlar
gun sgeul air toit no
sùgh a bheirme
gu suidhe cùl deasc do shaothair

bha thu cus
dhuinne le do theanga
lasrach a beadradh dùil
le do ghàire mar
uinneag fhosgailte air
nithean nach do sheall thu, ’s
tu cur, ann ar n’ inntinn, pòr na smuaint
gum b’e siud do chur seachad
measg nam féithe teann ’s
nan gualainn farsaing
’s tu fhéin aig an deasc ud a bualadh
nam facal amach as a bheairt

ach bha, bha na leannainn ann
gaisgeil, òg, cuimir
air àrd-ùrlar an t-saoghail ’s
tu fhéin na d’ thé òg ann
tromh shìneadh fada do bheatha

“I used to be Snow White, but I drifted”

mary jane, mary jane
you were the one
you were the one
who broadcast sex
to the world at large
as an everyday thing

the way you said
come up sometime
and the way you said
and see me
and how the mind’s eye saw
your bosomy appearance and the
wink in your smile
beckoning the thought

and how you went home
from the stage
no word of cigarette or
the spirit of yeast
to sit behind the desk where you toiled

you were too much
for us with your tongue
of fires flirting with expectancy
with your laugh like
an open window on
things you never revealed, while
you sowed, in our minds, the seeds of a thought
that that’s how you lived life
among taut muscles
and broad shoulders,
as you sat behind that desk tapping
the words out of their loom

but there were, there were lovers
like champions, young, handsome
on the world’s stage and
yourself like a young girl
through the long reach of your life

© Aonghas MacNeacail

Aonghas writes - 'Having written poems on those two iconic "screen goddesses" Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich, I was prompted to complete a poetic tryptich after reading reviews of a new biography of Mae West, which, inevitably, revealed her to be a very different character from her stage persona - although she required neither camera nor footlights to become the wisecracking dame we all recognise. Any public appearance was also a performance. The private Mae was (more or less) all work, drafting and redrafting scripts, which makes for some intriguing paradoxes.'