Repeat prescriptions 3/3

This is the third in a short series of poems that first appeared in an anthology called The Prescription from a writing group of the same name working at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.

Special thanks to Gillean McDougall for her invaluable input.

<- Repeat prescriptions 1/3
<- Repeat prescriptions 2/3

I’ve included “item details” with each of these poems. These are not the exact catalogue texts for each item, but all the information present is correct. These details seemed to me like the basic dimensions of sculptures, while the poems that follow them are my visceral reactions to the objects themselves. I think the restraint of modest catalogue listings invites imagination, much as sculpture so often invites our touch.

listen to this piece:

Steve Smart · Repeat prescriptions three: Bycatch

Repeat prescriptions three:
Bycatch

Though now beautifully curated, Dr Harry R Lillie’s bag and contents remains a somewhat unruly heap of objects. Something about the incongruity of an ordinary box of matches rattling amongst all the medical kit reached out, signalling what so much of the entire collection does: there are medical stories here certainly, but that’s not all.

item: ship’s surgeon Harry R. Lillie’s medical bag
date: c1950s
notes: the canvas tool-roll with Lillie’s surgical dissection kit is very similar to one a medical student might encounter today. Witnessing scenes such as the use of explosive harpoons led to Lillie campaigning for changes to whaling legislation as early as the 1950s

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Bycatch

The strand-line of your care buttoned-back in a canvas maw.
Something of a bourach: tagged, bagged and curated now.
A lucky dip of sharps and scissors, no sealing wax or string,
an auriscope rattles against 50 grams of Anaesthetic Chlorethyl
for easing hypodermic needles through whalers’ tattooed skins.
The familiar dissection roll, the hidden pressure gauge underneath,
but your Bryant-and-May’s something less expected from the trawl:
that man fished from whale’s jaws moderately crushed – doctored,
back on deck in weeks – God knows, you’d need a smoke at least.

Guddling deeper breaches wet last-straw memories, sounds
of pineapple-scaled harpoons blooming in cetacean flesh.
You heard the gunner’s words before any dreams that whales might sing
No man alive could stand to hear the sound, and all this industry
would surely stop – if they could but only scream.

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more about this object

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Repeat prescriptions 2/3

This is the second of a short series of poems that first appeared in an anthology called The Prescription from a writing group of the same name working at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.

Special thanks to Gillean McDougall for her invaluable input.

<- Repeat prescriptions 1/3, Introduction & Points of entry
-> Repeat prescriptions 3/3, Bycatch

I’ve included “item details” with each of these poems. These are not the exact catalogue texts for each item, but all the information present is correct. These details seemed to me like the basic dimensions of sculptures, while the poems that follow them are my visceral reactions to the objects themselves. I think the restraint of modest catalogue listings invites imagination, much as sculpture so often invites our touch.

listen to this piece:

Steve Smart · Repeat prescriptions two: Waiting

Repeat prescriptions two:
Waiting

The simplicity and looseness of David Warrillow’s painting draws you in. I tried to keep its spirit and texture in my poem. The subject is at once abstract, intangible, and universal. Patient, relative, doctor, or friend, we’ve all lived these achingly slow, nervous moments.

item: a painting by David Ross Warrillow
date: C21st
notes: oil on canvas, a monochromatic suited figure, standing back to the viewer

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Waiting

So, waiting’s pretty easy –
you just hang about
put one hand in a pocket,
or a hand in each,
breathe in and out, repeat,
and time should pass.

You might take a step –
before stepping back,
or sit, then later – stand again.

Maybe a pace or two 
to ease the wire twisting
between your shoulder blades,
stiffening your neck.

Buy tea from a hospital machine.
Sit and sip and drift and realise.

That more minutes passed.
That this unwanted drink is tepid.
That something might have happened.
That you feel a little sick.

You check your phone,
your watch, study a clock that
does not tick but sweeps and swims,
a shark in silent four-four:
Slow. Slow. Quick-quick. Slow.

If only you smoked, you might 
leave this place, go outside
for ten minutes. Take a drag.
Except while you were away –
someone might come.

Until then hope and fear
can continue to roll dice
in uneasy superposition,
each preparing by turns,
each placing their shaky bets.

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more about David Ross Warrillow
more about this painting

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Repeat prescriptions 1/3

In 2023 I was fortunate to have three poems included in a beautifully produced collection inspired by objects and texts from the archives of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. The Prescription anthology came from the work of a writing group of the same name that was organised by the marvellous Gillean McDougall. Gillean also masterminded and edited the anthology.

Unfortunately as this publication happened the College was undergoing some staff changes and after the launch the anthology seems to have vanished somewhat. Certainly there doesn’t appear to be a clear pathway for anyone who might want to lay hands on a copy.

To let my three published but invisible poems see a little light of day, I decided to post them here as a short series. Special thanks to Gillean McDougall for her invaluable editorial input.

I’ve included “item details” with each of these poems. These are not the exact catalogue texts for each item, but all the information present is correct. These details seemed to me like the basic dimensions of sculptures, while the poems that follow them are my visceral reactions to the objects themselves. I think the restraint of modest catalogue listings invites imagination, much as sculpture so often invites our touch.

you can also listen to this piece:

Steve Smart · Repeat prescriptions one: Points of entry

Repeat prescriptions one:
Points of entry

I love tools, and the resonances they hold of the hands and skills of previous owners. In the case of nearly all of the surgical tools in the Royal College’s collection, my feelings of respect and curiosity are tinged with the strong and distinctive metallic tang of plain, blood-in-your-mouth fear.

item: trephine set in a case
date: C18th
notes: case materials: mahogany, velvet and brass, ‘trepan’ from Greek and antique French: to bore

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Points of entry

Larger than a burglar’s kit
smaller than the stone mason’s,
A socket-set for the box garage
where you park your thoughts.

Picks to unlock your sterner stuff,
braced awake in trepidation,
uncertain of tradecraft or assault,
of the carpenter, the butcher, or the bill.

Green plush codes faint impressions,
pale sonograms tracking the bulb and heft,
burr and spike, the very pike and halberd
press of those absentee devices

you find knolled on the lower stage,
ten miniature besieging tools,
old steels, perhaps now lacking purity,
complete with a neat cleaning brush.

Found gadgets seen and held and
in imagination afforded application –
this turns so, clicks here, connects,
and this, all together, twisted – cuts.

In the theatre boxed inside your head,
music strives, your pulse rate quickens,
devices coupled with expert hands
tooled-up for an impossible mission.

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more about this object

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Stanley Knife Corner

Passed over at a quotidian forty
in momentary shade from Asda delivery,
school run, and Jamieson truck alike,
flush to road-rolled gravel
grey-matched almost to the macadam,
a toucan bill half-hilt, wag pressed,
once-upon-a sticky season, into bitumen.
Since then Stanley Knife Corner,
where an uncertain archaeology –
of hand warmed familiar,
drop-forged and unbreakable
steel, yet somehow broken –
snorkels in shallow metalling,
a story surface cast just out of reach.

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iamb wave seventeen

I’m delighted and a little stunned that three of my poems and readings are in wave seventeen of iamb. Two of these are previously unpublished. iamb is “part library of poets, part quarterly journal, where established and emerging talents are showcased side by side. Not just their words, but their readings of them.”

I am neither established nor I suspect emerging (alas!) but I am very happy to be included in the excellent group of poets of wave seventeen.

iamb wave seventeen

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