The Pretence of Understanding E-Book

Beth Davies

• Herausgeber: The Poetry Business
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 19

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Beth Davies' The Pretence of Understanding explores loss, not just of loved ones but of youth and adolescence. In these poems where time can stand still or run backwards, the reader finds themselves caught in longing moments of looking back at childhood; they remind us to run in the snow while we get the chance.

Leseprobe

Published 2023 by

New Poets List

The Poetry Business

Campo House,

54 Campo Lane,

Sheffield S1 2EG

Copyright © Beth Davies 2023

All Rights Reserved

ISBN 978-1-914914-51-5

eBook ISBN 978-1-914914-52-2

Typeset by Utter

Cover image: Annie Spratt  on Unsplash

Printed by Biddles Books

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

Rat Dissection

Familial Scriptures

The Garden at William Street

All I Know of Ghanaian Rain

The Wonderful Everyday

Cleaning the Pool

Sometimes I Miss my Housemates’ Crockery

Visitation from Past Self

Scene

The Road Ran Between Forest and Sea

Final Visit

A Plea for Future Winters

Infestation

Exhumation

Floriography

If You Cut an Earthworm in Half

Perhaps The Careers Advisor Would Have Said

The Doll

At the Wake, We Talked About Fish

Carolling

I Often Dream of Ladders

Acknowledgements

In memory of my grandparents, with love

Rat Dissection

She is crucified against cardboard,

stomach cruelly exposed. I’m surprised

how easy it is to cut through skin.

I try not to think about

my own pale flesh. The intricate mess

glistens beneath. Intestine, lungs,

liver, kidney, spleen … Not neatly

arranged like textbook diagrams. The stench

fills me, threatens to empty me out.

Is this how we all eventually smell? I am lucky

not to know the answer. Opened insides

reveal harsh simplicity. The guts

are only a tangle of tubes, the brain

a lump of cells, the heart a bag of muscle.

I cannot find the signs of how

she moved, how she thought,

how she felt. In the end

there is only meat.

Familial Scriptures

In my house, we are a family

of atheists with biblical names.

My father and brother are both

faithless gospels. My name is

the town of Lazarus – a place of miracles,

where things did not stay dead. My mother

hasn’t sat through a service in years

yet can’t walk past a Catholic church

without entering. She doesn’t believe

in God, but her hands still do. I watch

as she crosses herself at the altar:

bowed head, fingertips flying

to the four points her father

taught her. He treasured his faith

like a rusted heirloom.