Kerstin Jump-
The concept behind these poems is transformation. The first poem specifically talks about transformation of identity and location. The second poem explores transformation in terms of memory and people after death, physically and imaginatively. The third poem looks more at transformation of ideas and the sense of never truly being able to incite any meaningful change or transformation.
A pot of local honey in a Dorset cupboard
Slathered like pinned, dead spiders
Into the stomach, through bowels and blood
Sipping tea, eating and washing the China
Get a taxi, get a train, get on a bike
Fly, like the mouse in an eagle's grips
See Niagara fall, see Rome dance, sea sand
Sell shells, sell jewels, buy, and be sure
Wear on the wrist and jingle to the city
Look across at the skyscrapers and castles
The suited kings of old
Stop by a near chain, sip Brazilian coffee
Ask for a croissant, twist in the bird's claws
Feel the saliva from its beak, sweet,
Dripping into the pot like local honey
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When the body happens, which it can
Oh, and it is so much more grotesque
than the blisters that get to be smothered
In barrier cream or the varicose vein and
bald patches or naked skin or rotting feet.
The lacking and the growth is so lucky,
To be not just dents, but scars, and cancers.
Seeing it, flaking like pastry, putting a sour
Taste in my mouth, at least raising the
Bumps of my tongue and erecting my nostril
Hairs. No, not even the privilege of watching
Your hair ripped by the brush, or the
Blood at least proving, in some freakish capacity
That you could stand, breathe, spin, rupture
Into a cartoonishly smoking ashen pile before me.
I am allowed to animate you, perhaps a
Pirate or cowboy, a vigilante, gun holstering, red
Only in costume, read to filth and to
Life spawned in dirt and the mud containing
A million angry warbling microscopic cults. Perhaps you
Are a secretive monk – under your cloak lies
Magic and postcards. I can imagine that
They’d contain me, though of course they can't
Were they to can at all – which they
Do not. The rope you sling is for
Wild horses in the heat and grappling across
Something, somewhere. And yet, again, again, and again
There is not the smell of sweat and
Unwashed hair, either by means of fighting or
The same constraints that lead me and every
Melting body to seclusion, tray fed meals and
Bed before eight. I hope you leave me
Clues, puzzles, maps and the feeling of being
Watched.
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- bath bomb faltering to either a cloud or tree
It cannot be both
It smells sweet it smells like the whole room
Either it is ultimate in its bright procession
Banners, cymbals, the loose blood clot
Shattered fences, tomatoes in the stocks
Bonfire night fireworks, surrounded by a thousand
And more chains of smoke, concussion and drugs
It must be remaining in its foulness
Groping in the dark, the dirt, worms and spiders
Leaflets sneaking through letterboxes, docile
Angry at the thuds above, so close to the sky,
But clawed by birds, music, hymn, poem, law
Creaking, or silent, - watch from the water
Lines of light, bright and mystic cross the plump
Waves, wrinkles, circles, algae, fish, powder or sand
Paper, lit, burnt, ash, ash, dirt, seed
(Cover photo credit-Nicoolay/Getty Images)