The Doll and Me
I hate the doll, its plumpy head,
its brunette swirls, its itsy cheeks,
its pout, its lashes, the uptight clothes,
marrowless arms, nerveless teeth,
its squeaking, the mess
it makes on the floor.
I want to detach the twee wee feet
and hammer it to the fence, drown it,
skewer it to the door, to say ‘this is what
has become of us’. Even naked
it makes me angry and afraid.
Mirages
A house is not a terrapin
or a sailboat
or a maelstrom
The sunstorm that swindles
at midweek
sycamore green embossed on the heart
like sequins or worlds
Elephant Slide in the Exclusion Zone
After David McMillan’s photograph, Pripyat, Ukraine, October 2002.
To forgive
can sometimes mean to think
of them as a child: a wisped head
turned in a wheaten basket. Soft fists.
A bumblebee in a foxglove flower.
Escapes
I remember
the rocks hot under
my skin, black sun-glistened
flecks in sugar-almond stone,
rush of foam-tinged
sparkling water, the pull back
of waves fizzing sand.
The Watersteps are ruins now, but you can still see what is left of them by walking through the dank forest on the edge of town, over the train lines and then down to the crease where two wave-like hills meet. The steps sit half-swallowed inside a wide clay gorge. A little further up the gorge, there’s a stream at least half as wide as the gorge itself. It drops down an accidental waterfall caused by the collapse of the Watersteps. A sheet of tarpaulin wafts, hit by the unravelling crystal carpet of water. For the most part, the stream disappears amongst the rubble and soft ground at the foot of the waterfall. Only further down does a meagre version of it reform, bypassing the steps entirely.
The Watersteps have haunted my imagination for a long time. The first poem I ever wrote was about the steps. I hated it, re-wrote it, destroyed it and started again. I have been repeating each step ever since.
Continue reading “The Watersteps by BR Williams”
When I was nine, I dreamed of going to Mars. I dreamed of being swept away to fantastical lands. I dreamed of joining David at Groosham Grange, and travelling with Sarah in her quest to the Goblin City. I’m still a dreamer, but I no longer dream of escape. The ordinary and the fantastical inhabit the same world. There are ghosts, vampires, goblins, cyborgs, and aliens round every corner, lurking down every close. There are mermaids and krakens in the ocean, dragons in the sky. Continue reading “Dreaming St. Conan’s Kirk by Ever Dundas”
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 