In Your Absence E-Book

Jill Penny

• Herausgeber: The Poetry Business
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Serie: The International Book & Pamphlet Competition
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 15

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

In Your Absence is a response to a year of bereavement, a murder and a trial, estrangements, departures and insights. Troubled by ghosts, these poems are ultimately a gift to anyone stranded in the whiteout of loss.

Leseprobe

Published 2021 by

Smith|Doorstop Books

The Poetry Business

Campo House,

54 Campo Lane,

Sheffield S1 2EG

Copyright © Jill Penny

All Rights Reserved

ISBN 978-1-912196-42-5

ePub ISBN 978-1-912196-52-4

Typeset by The Poetry Business

Printed by People for Print

Smith|Doorstop Books are a member of Inpress:

www.inpressbooks.co.uk

Distributed by NBN International, 1 Deltic Avenue,

Rooksley, Milton Keynes MK13 8LD

The Poetry Business gratefully acknowledges the support of

Arts Council England.

Contents

Part One

Blunt Force Trauma

Things I See on the Hard Shoulder

In Your Absence

Part Two

The Met Office Predicts a Heavy Fall of Snow

Anorexical

Funeral Flowers

The Sin Eaters

Thick Time

for Jack and Lily with love

Part One

Blunt Force Trauma

Today, this hour, this minute, there are things I need

to be true, and to not be true.

I need it to be true that on that night it really was help offered,

by that young lad, not the broken ribs from three to twelve,

shattered cheek bones, both eye sockets broken,

smashed nose and the fractured skull

resulting from a blunt force trauma.

I need it to be true that in the intimacy of a pocket,

hands were searching for your phone to call for help,

or at the very least feeling the quality of your suit,

which looked expensive, looked like privilege,

which was second hand.

That the lad was only asking for the time

and that I never knew the meaning of a contrecoup.

I need it to not be true, that there are people who have nothing,

have not got a lot, that rumour had it was some Asian lad.

True, that he was looking for a job to get his life on track.

Not true, the lifelong trauma, the blunt force of ‘care’.