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Featured Publication – In an Ideal World I’d Not Be Murdered by Chaucer Cameron

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Our featured publication for March and April is In an Ideal World I’d Not Be Murdered by Chaucer Cameron, published by Against the Grain Poetry Press.

Chaucer explains: In an Ideal world I’d Not Be Murdered is part memoir part fiction. The poems explore the impact of prostitution. Each character has their own story to tell. The sex industry has its challenges, it is a contentious area and is deeply divided. One of the aims of my work is to bridge the gaps and enable conversations to take place, by addressing some of these difficult issues, through poetry and poetry-film.

“These poems ring out like gunshots in the night; they will wake you from your sleep. Yet despite its distilled directness, this book is lifted by both mystery and surprise. Listen for the songs emerging from the dark centre of this transformative work of experience and survival.”  Jacqueline Saphra.  

…

In an Ideal World I’d Not Be Murdered

In an ideal world I’d buy a bigger place, a place where us girls could
work together. There’s safety in numbers. Not afraid of getting busted
or being murdered.

I refuse to compromise my safety, said Crystal, inviting strangers back
to her room. But nights were always hard for Crystal, there’s a safety
in jeopardy, ain’t there?

Crystal loved art. Her bedsit covered in posters from the sixties.
Blondes, semi nudes, mostly murdered women. Her favourite chair,
just a knock-off imitation, she called her Keeler chair.

Crystal could’ve been a hoarder, but in fact she was a hooker. She
was lucky, never murdered, she understood erasure, turned it into
artforms, pinned it to the walls.

Crystal knew what she wanted and that was somewhere quiet, but
not so quiet I get murdered. Then she’d giggle, try to disarm you with
laughter, but not really.

…

Cartoons

It’s funny what you think of when you’ve had a near miss/ I
don’t think my nose is broken/ could’ve been much worse/
no time to check it out/ it doesn’t hurt/ anyway.

It’s funny what you think of/ when you’re gagging/ for your life
when you hear the car doors/ click/
when the music is turned up/ and you put on your disguise.

Tonight/ it was the Flintstones/ I watched them as a kid/ you
can watch it on YouTube/ it’s a sort of animation/
they used to call them cartoons/ but I can’t tell the difference.

The Flintstones were a family/ there was Fred and Barney/
Wilma/ and a Betty/ I had a crush on Betty/
what a beauty/ lovely legs/ she was a real animation.

Fred and Wilma had a kid/ every family had a kid/ named
their daughter Pebbles/ oh/ there was a Bamm-Bamm/ I’m forgetting/
Bamm-Bamm/ they found him on the doorstep/ then took him in.

I loved that show/ I loved the way they loved their kids/
it’s funny what you think of/ when you’ve got a dodgy punter/
bloody Flintstones/ bloody Pebbles/ hell/ a broken nose.

(Peyton)

…

Coup de Maître

I lay you on your back, twist off your claw-legs,
crack them with a heavy implement.
I will not allow you to shatter into small pieces, yet.

I will extract the bones of you,
place them with care into a metal bowl.
I will insert thumbs on the base of your body
push upwards to release you from your carapace.

I will pull away and discard your lungs –
they are only dead man’s fingers;
you know them intimately, don’t you?

I will press your mouth with such force that it snaps
from its shell. I will raid your stomach-sac,
cut you in half, scoop out the meat of you,
fork out the white from your carcass.

You will be left hollow, your cavities
will shimmer thinly, rocking back and forth,
open, empty, ready to be stuffed, dressed, put on show.

Then we will dine. You will be picked, hand-held,
lifted high on a fork, ready to be savoured
by tongue, swallowed down into the gut,
where you’ll rest for a moment, before clawing
your way back through every orifice imaginable.

…

128 Farleigh Road

I find him at the bottom of the stairs, the strange thing is
his eyes are blue with flecks of grey. I could have sworn
they were brown, a dull sort of brown, but then again
the mask, which often hid his eyes and always hid his face.
Apart from one-time years ago when I caught him naked
and alone. Now in death that face looks so serene,
clean almost. I’d often worried that the rubber marks
on his jawline, forehead and just beneath his eyes,
would pit his skin so deep he’d be scarred for life.
But here we are, just he and I gazing at each other
the way dead people do when caught together intimately.
One thing troubles me. I say this in a whisper so not to disturb
the dust that’s gathered. How did this come to be?
This flat, these walls, they’re crawling with dead girls.

I know the rules: no names, no dates, just numbers.

…

Chaucer is author of In an Ideal world I’d Not Be Murdered (Against The Grain 2021) Her poems have been published in various journals. She was shortlisted for Live Canon 2021 International Poetry Competition. Chaucer is creator of Wild Whispers an international poetry film project. Website: http://www.chaucercameron.com Twitter Chaucer @ChaucerCameron
https://againstthegrainpoetrypress.wordpress.com/chaucer-cameron/

Copies of In an Ideal World I’d Not Be Murdered are available to purchase from the Against the Grain Poetry Press website.

Pleasure Yourself Whilst I Watch – Wendy Allen

~ Claire Walker ~ 1 Comment

Pleasure Yourself Whilst I Watch

It is the way you don’t buy my favourite chocolate anymore,
it is on the list of specified items, but you say it is out of stock –
that it must be Brexit, or the fact we are over.
That night, we eat milk chocolate, and it is the purple of the wrapper
which makes me taste copper circled resentment when
I think about the red wrapping of our first night.
In bed, I look at your eyes fucking me, I break into six squares,
and I want to say you forgot my chocolate bar,
you forgot my chocolate bar,
but you are too busy in your own orgasm to notice.

…

Wendy Allen is studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes. Her first pamphlet was published as a Legitimate Snack by Broken Sleep and her poems published in Northern Gravy, Dear reader, and Poetry Wales (Winter 2021)

Obituary – Tamsin Cottis

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Obituary

Subbing memories. Below the man.
Friends and lovers knew. In letters.
They told me. Your words and music.
Their children. You gave them.
Attention and time. I mined sentences.
Adapting. 87 years into 400 words.
Remembering. I imagined your pride.
Once. You said to newly published me.
The girl’s got it! I stored your words.
In my thesaurus of ways. To describe.
Love you mostly did not show or tell.
Cutting. Through the view of you.
At piano or desk. Back turned.
Hour after hour. I chipped at syntax.
Looking for you. Indent line-break edit.
Insertion omission errata. I made.
More from less. Though I lost you.
At the end of breath. I found you.
Dad. In the full stops.

…

Tamsin lives in east London. She is a child psychotherapist who has written widely about her work. Her poetry and short fiction has been published by, among others, Mslexia, Atrium, Rattle Tales, Flashback Fiction, Verve Poetry Press and Brittle Star. She is on twitter @tamsin cottis 

My turn – Finola Scott

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My turn

Slowly folding Mum curves
towards foetal
pebble knuckles clutch
the bathroom sink

Her bones now brittle
weary from holding
the looseness of her belly
so often baby-taut

Time-faded freckles hoard
her long summer days,
shrivelled teats remember
my touch.

As I soap the flannel
I feel the tug of return.
She bows her head
accepts this is her time.

…

Finola Scott’s work is published widely, including in The High Window, Prole and Lighthouse. Dreich publish her recent pamphlet Count the ways. More can be read at FB Finola Scott Poems. Finola enjoys zooming, cakes and blue tits, not neccesarily in that order.

Between Mary Berry’s Baking Bible and My Class Enjoys Cooking – Sarah Wimbush

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Between Mary Berry’s Baking Bible and My Class Enjoys Cooking

there’s Modern Practical Cookery.
Rebound with Bero paste and bedsheet ribbons,
you relax on the eBay table,
glad of the rest from all that standing.

Unused for years but read, shelved, read,
you remain on the kitchen shelf.
Each splodge, each blown stain
amber on your frosted cover –

pages so brittle, if I let you slip
you would smash across the tiled floor:
Contents, Hors D’oeuvres,
Empire Recipes; Woman’s Own snippings –

orange sellotape unsticking cuttings,
paper thinned from a million finger turns:
Tripe and Onions, Semolina Soup,
Christmas card bookmarks,

a paper rose, marginalia: ‘my curry’.
Each time, you bustle in reeking
of a thousand crumbles, gingham housecoat,
bombs, birthdays, talc. Kisses

…

Sarah Wimbush has published two pamphlets: Bloodlines (Seren, 2020) and The Last Dinosaur in Doncaster (Smith|Doorstop, 2021). Her first collection Shelling Peas with My Grandmother in the Gorgiolands will be published by Bloodaxe in 2022. 

Walrussey – Bex Hainsworth

~ Claire Walker ~ 1 Comment

Walrussey

For Wally

They say that you dozed off on an iceberg
and awoke on Irish shores, a Nordic visitor
without a horde, lonely wanderer, far
from your arctic home. Child of ice mountains,
you have ridden these Celtic currents
for months, travelling south, strange sun-pilgrim.
They say that you are lost, gorging yourself
on Cornish clams, preparing for a return journey,
but your continental visits are inscrutable.
Fingertip of Nuliayuk, you bask on beaches
like the discarded glove of an old god,
with your leathery hide, you are your own luggage.
Seafarer, you did not pack light for your odyssey.
Rolling in the snowflakes of the seafoam,
you nose boulders with grizzled whiskers,
snuggle into rocky crevices, coldsick, exiled,
missing the sounds and smells of the herd.
They say that you came to the harbour seeking company.
At night you bob among boats, mourning your lost brothers,
and watch the stars in a black sky, wishing for
a green, kelpy flicker of the aurora borealis.
Perhaps you are a scout from a melting world,
a tusked omen, disaster warning. Dear walrus
of wanderlust, moustachioed philosopher,
you are all of us, floating in an ocean-universe,
with no choice but to go on seeking.

…

Bex Hainsworth currently teaches in Leicester. She won the Collection HQ Prize as part of the East Riding Festival of Words and her poetry has been published following commendations in the Welsh Poetry, Ware Poets, Beaver Trust, and AUB Poetry competitions.

A Mark at Sainsbury’s – Carl Alexandersson

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A Mark at Sainsbury’s

it was by the bananas
and then again
reaching for a loaf of bread
that we were told to step apart.
covid guidelines, of course,
but the straight couples
could shop away—

there are times I forget
that our lives will progress
like this:
glass doors shutting between us
at every other building.

I am tired, Mark.
you made me remember
just how much.

…

Carl Alexandersson (he/him) is a queer spoken word poet and writer, based in Edinburgh. He was selected for the BBC Words First programme in 2021 and his work has been published in Ink Sweat & Tears, Capsule Stories, Impossible Archetype, and more. Twitter: CarlAlex97 Instagram: caarlalexandersson

The Sisters – Maurice Devitt

~ Claire Walker ~ 1 Comment

The Sisters

After the other guests leave, you are alone
with them, and, in the minutes it takes
for absence to settle, you plump up the cushions
on the settee, stoke the fire – seeking refuge
in the crackle of sparks – and wonder
what direction this might take. Neighbours
and friends for years, there was
that gnawing silence the last time you met,
a silence you just couldn’t explain.
Yet, when you invited them around,
they were quick to accept. Now,
turned towards the fire, you sense their eyes
on you – the burr of a cleared throat signalling
a conversation that could go either way.

…

Maurice Devitt: Curator of the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies site, he published his debut collection, ‘Growing Up in Colour’, with Doire Press in 2018.  His Pushcart-nominated poem, ‘The Lion Tamer Dreams of Office Work’, was the title poem of an anthology published by Hibernian Writers in 2015. 

Dank – Rachael Clyne

~ Claire Walker ~ 1 Comment

Dank

One word can hold
everything you need to know
about the stare of sheep
from sodden fields

about the cronk
of raven through fog
a dog straining its leash
the mud-brown coat
of its owner

about luminous moss
down the middle of a lane
the sepia mash of leaf
that plasters its edges

about bleached sedge
that echoes with
toot of coot
chitter of wren
a dead branch
that arches and dips
into a ditch

…

Rachael Clyne’s collection, Singing at the Bone Tree (Indigo Dreams), concerns our relationship with nature. Her pamphlet, Girl Golem (www.4word.org) explores her migrant heritage and sense of otherness. She is currently expanding this work into a collection.