Mark Tarren - Issue 35

Mark Tarren is a poet who lives on remote Norfolk Island in the South Pacific.

His work has been published in literary journals and magazines in New York, Los Angeles, Dublin, the UK, Indonesia and Europe. Referred to in Italy as “la voce dei Mari del Sud” (“The voice of the South Seas”), Mark’s poems have been translated into Italian and published in Critica Impura, L’Atrove, Pangea and Puntoacapo.

A Pushcart Prize nominee, he is currently a member of the judging panel for Soundwaves, an Impspired event which is held annually in Portrush on the North Coast of Ireland.

Books by Mark Tarren:

A New Heaven The Norfolk Poems 2021

The Place of First Things 2024

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St Benedict’s Street

I had to navigate the chambers

of Odysseus’s broken heart

to find St Benedict’s Street.

My Nostos.

A solitary expedition from

Norfolk to Norfolk —

from the soul of the sea

to the sea of the soul.

Here, inside this

City of Stories

ghosts have holy days.

On this holy day

inside this poem,

I bind Telemachus’s sandals to my feet.

A far-fighter’s final pilgrimage.

The journey of son to father —

father to son.

Through the eye of

St Benedict’s Gate

inside the holy ghosts of Norwich,

I move in monk-light,

through shrouded shadows,

beside four forsaken churches.

St Laurence —

is dressed in flint and stone.

His head, carved with angels,

his voice, a ring of six bells,

that no longer tolls,

for The Son of Man.

Fathers and sons,

sons and fathers,

that circular, eternal, embrace.

St Gregory —

clings to a portrait of

St. George and the dragon.

St Benedict warns me not to enter his house:

Non-Draco Sit Mihi Dux.

Let not the dragon be my guide.

St Margaret’s —

in the east window of her womb

is the stained glass

Ascension of Christ.

It was born the same year

as another Son:

1967.

Fathers and sons,

sons and fathers,

that circular, eternal, embrace.

At the end of the west wind,

there lies the broken body

of St Benedict.

His tower is all that remains.

O blessed by God, Saint Benedict,

Let sadness not our hearts afflict.

I remove Telemachus’s sandals

and find myself outside Norwich hospital.

October 1967.

A new born baby is being brought home.

My Father who art in heaven

what god are you

to crush the small bones

of this terrible love?

St Julian of Norwich steps outside

of her anchorite cell to cradle this child.

She enters this poem to whisper:

All shall be well, and all shall be well

and all manner of thing shall be well.

My Father’s House

In my father’s house

there are many empty rooms:

if it were not so, I would have told you.

In the branch of memory,

when I was wrapped

in the cloth of childhood,

he would sing to me

a lullaby

voiced from the tender roots of

The Ghost Tree

Goodnight Benny, goodnight Benny,

goodnight Benny,

It’s off to sleep we go.

A cold wind is blowing,

up through the pines,

howling through

that mansion on the hill —

that empty room.

The light is left on

and there are bars

on the windows.

The cassette player

has Nebraska 

chewing up that empty

room like a wounded dog

on a buried bone.

The music of

                        entrances and

departures.

Outside my bedroom door

and through the kitchen,

the cat is sleeping with

the guinea pigs.

A menagerie of innocents.

Outside my bedroom door

St Benedict prays over

his poisoned drink:

the cup is broken

and the serpent slithers away.

He prays a blessing over his

poisoned bread:

a raven sweeps in

and takes the loaf away.

O, dark-winged Messiah,

deliver me from nowhere.

Goodnight Benny.

Merrily we go to sleep,

go to sleep, go to sleep.

Merrily we go to sleep,

It’s off to sleep we go.

In my Father's house are many mansions:

if it were not so, I would have told you.

The light is left on

and there are bars

on the windows.