• Archive of all Poetry Space showcases
Guest editor: Moira Andrew
Well swept
Her new yard broom has a plastic, made-in-China handle,
its bristle mane sits on broad shoulders,
a deep thread seals their partnership.
She stores this one head up
–a lesson from domestic science.
Inside she uses soft locks on a head that falls away
from its wooden handle at a mere knock.
She coaxes hair, pinhead paper pieces,
snipped thread ends to their grave;
leaves this one hanging by its hook.
Sometimes she takes a feather duster
that is not made from feathers, whisks
into corners deep as the last C on the keyboard,
shakes it out, unseen debris floats, falls,
floats –goodbye, she whispers.
Outside she sweeps foot-crushed leaves, infant twigs,
bark crumbs from the deck; the dust drops,
like finely sieved flour, between the planks.
She hides the rest under bushes, ready
for the wind to scatter it behind her back.
© Marilyn Hammick
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© Chris Sims
Rubbles
My fate’s to leave you,
My fate’s to leave you all,
In darkness,
Sheltered by tears.
I am a shadow and I’ll run in midnight,
I’ve taken what I can,
An erotic sustenance to breathe again.
Promises of love and warmth,
Promises free of pain,
Promises of myth.
You’re alone now.
My silhouette is painted in your eyes,
You’re reaching to the sky,
Offering surrender for a second of happiness.
Meanwhile I am born again,
My demons satisfied.
© Alex Wyatt
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Ottobanda
At Ottobanda
I turned aside in my sleep
and woke to see you coiled like a snake –
your slow length –
in the crook of my thigh
and I marvelled how
you shed your sorrow
in the runnel of my body;
your new self
emerging now
stronger in the light
© Neil Leadbeater
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© Chris Sims
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Apprentice
Enclosing anarchic experiences
© Chris Sims
by holidays from facts,nuances offset
the flights of fancy that could froth
or turn cruel
absurd simplifications.
I prolonged my apprenticeship
leaving behind beautifully dug caves…
for others to enter
or sometimes to go back to
capacious splashes of emotions,
burlesque exaggerations.
I wish to paint on grotesque canvases
long festering issues
demands
excuses
like grapes from vines
© Prem Kumari Srivastava
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Looking for an Oxygen
I tried to tuck some wee pillows into my
chest as I dreamt in this sunny morning.
I knew it was crude just to be the goner
amongst them. I wondered why a body
didn’t thrive the weather this hot or this
cold that men killed themselves in old
winter times. There was never a snow
in this brown- skinned tropic where all
the lights scattered , where all my brain
got abused, that my cerebellum opposed
the melanism in my skin. I imagined why
I kept getting sick and cured each week.
It was how they defined life- you jabbed
your own and took the thorn til you saw
those scars that ended up being stuck in
beds where I laid with my fellow shut-ins.
©Sarah Gamutan
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Dream of things that never were
© Chris Sims
I’m not a painter
I am a dreamer
You will be visually rich
and the red army
in your body
will not defeat us
will not defeat us
Nothing is so dark
oh so dark
as where you’ll go
so tread with your eyes closed
Im dropping rocks
Trapezee!
Ssshhh!
I always stumble
upon you
first
Come
into
my arms
I promise
I will
keep you warm
Porcelean wrap
you in dreams
whisper feather
I will help you
fit, fit, fit,
even though I don’t
One salt tear
crying
Hello yellow emerald
my heart is broken
but I wont go crazy
before you
The sickness
is in the body
Rub ash
dry brittle
carve me out his little body
and very delicately
saucer eyes
and baby heart
silver threads
all woven around him
wrap him in warm paper
A spell we will weave
and sculptor his nerves
and dance
over and over
Drip his body
in honey and milk
all his dreams wash over me
I cant grow a new heart
My sleep is so short
I love you
please see me through
I show you bubbles
you like?
We shall go follow the marsh
and whilst we are so happy
in this country
not a single green leaf
is left
upon the trees
All the clouds have frozen
and fall down
onto us
in little white pieces
Down in the pool
there lays a child
who has dreamed away his life
he weeps
for he has a dead sister
he has a dead sister
hailstones have danced
on the ground
and snowflakes have fallen
all around him
Purple rashes
rake over the dead!
no sound silent
rustle the emptiness
Shake! Shake!
The river has no ending
the boatwoman will take his body
all frozen
and the coldness is bitter
it never thaws here
his heart was torn
ripped out by the bitter wind
his soul was taken
and fed to the hungry
so sad, so sad.
© Julianne Davis
