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[Here are seven poems which Kate wrote for her school magazine. The first was written when she was eleven years old--just about the same time that she was beginning to write songs. These poems were taken from Paul Kerton's biography, Kate Bush (London, 1980), pp. 18-21.
Edited by Andrew Marvick.
[In these seven little poems many secrets lie waiting to be noticed by the conscientious Kate fan. Their surfaces reveal much about a child named Catherine. Their interiors, I believe, hold even more about the artist we know as Kate.]
He is pushed forward from the steps. Glistening eyes glare from around at the dropping figure. Silence ceases and murmers gather quickly like the grabbing of a hand. Guilty onlookers hide their eyes from the shame that they know and forbid to reveal. Slowly the dimness falls. The man weeps and his forsaken tears fall, Slipping down the trembling and battered body onto the dust. He collapses down onto the ground. His head bruises past the stones, scarring his tear-stained face. He staggers to his feet, groping toward his fate. Sharply iron pierces flesh, and the shape is raised on the hill. Stillness overcomes the cheering spectators, And the mocked and pride-broken lead turns in outcry. The people form and run down the hill. With a last glance at his betrayers He dissolves into a limp, dumb body, As the blood-red sun sinks into the skull of a dead man.Catherine Bush, (aged eleven-twelve, Form I, 1969-70)
I have noticed him seven times or more But he has not seen me. He may have seen a girl called by My name-- But neither he nor anyone else will Ever really see me.Catherine Bush (aged 12-13, Form II, 1970-71)
Call me and I will come, Across stones of memories, And I will follow the sun. Blare, dare--they are others caring for none but... What of them? They are stones among children's hands. Sighing, crying they, are, memories. They are the stones. Call me and I will come. Call me and I shall come, Tomorrow. What of tomorrow? Time rhyme. Through gates of glass I would follow the sun, To run, to be free, to be me I would flee from corridors of cobwebs. Hold me! Call me! And I will come.Catherine Bush (aged 12-13, Form II, 1970-71)
A word could not harm me. A stone could not bruise me. A gun could not shoot me, For I am not here. Yet I come to receive you, to hold you, To keep you. For I am Death. I am here. And I speak, yet you are dumb. You cannot hear That I am here. But I am gone, And you come too.Catherine Bush (aged 12-13, Form II, 1970-71)
You are a person of unknown reasons, Reacting with movements and noises. You may be bold, wear glasses, or have freckles, Yet inside you there may be great feelings Of beauty and love, fighting to appear On the pimpled surface. It reaches out--"I love you." A laugh, a jeer. The feelings are trapped and you, You--disappear.Catherine Bush (aged 12-13, Form II, 1970-71)
The globe spins, Dragging collisions of clutches, to the end. Blind Joe Death staggers to the instrument And caresses the soft wood of the neck. He guides the dizzy fingers through The mist of Melancholy melody. Blind Joe Death grins at Fahey And moves the cap up the strings. He stops. Blind Joe Death dies. He falls onto the round Persian mat And swings the needle off the turntable. Fahey sleeps.Catherine Bush (aged 13-14, Form III, 1971-72)
The snowlet cover wet, gently, softly, And she turned. All seasons were with, before and after her. But now they all bade farewell. Playing with thoughts of empty echoes, She turned. The swan flew with curved wing To the reed river of reality And pulled her, Calling and leaping. She heard the waving reeds whisper her name, gently, softly, And she fell away before me And under the cold hand of hope.Catherine Bush, (aged 13-14, Form III, 1971-72)
The Garden
©1990
Andy Marvick