Pat Jourdan’s poem: ‘Bridal Pair with Eiffel Tower Marc Chagall’ was highly commended in the 2023 Crabbe competition.
Pat Jourdan is an artist featured on saatchi.com. She is also a novelist and prizewinning short story writer and poet.
“Little-known, but gifted, a woman poet of the Liverpool School” Ian McEwan, Saturday.
“Does indeed have a painterly quality” Carol Ann Duffy, former poet laureate.
“Ever a canny observer” Mark Lewisohn, All These Years.
Bridal Pair with Eiffel Tower – Marc Chagall
Where were you when we were getting high? – Oasis
There are other weddings:
the Arnolfinis with their dog stuck to the floor,
Victoria and Albert gazing with polite lust,
Perugino’s filmic Betrothal of the Virgin.
But we are different,
love spreads its invisible varnish over all.
Eve floats past without Adam,
various angels drop by
and the postman reads a book
while a cow plays the fiddle,
it’s happy mayhem up here.
Our farm animals from Vitebsk are here too,
joining with cockcrow at pink dawn
while the rabbi stands beneath his sacred canopy
over in our far-off ceremony.
But now, in chrome yellow double sunlight
we sail above Paris roofs, levitate easily
above the French Ultramarine Eiffel Tower,
even Sacre Coeur is far below.
We will never land, ever, ever.
It will always be like this.
(Her white dress is as wide as a cloud
and my purple suit is speckled with gold.)
There is no dark, it’s perpetual daylight here.
We are missing persons, forever floating.
We do not need food. We can eat the roses.
We will stay here away from rent or mortgage.
We will never land, ever, ever.
It will always be like this.
Pat Jourdan