Kerstin Jump –
Editor’s note: As part of our recent collaboration with Bath Time magazine, we could only submit one poem. However, it felt wrong not to publish those that didn’t make it, so we wanted to present you with an extended collection of poems about life at Exeter by Kerstin Jump. From memories of nights out with friends to the puzzle jug in the RAMM and Lidl, this collection captures all essential aspects of the city.
Photograph after a pub night
Someone said: it's not really all of us
on that wet log, October,
drunk and laughing.
Lathered in midnight.
It's a lovely photograph though.
More a representation of then for now
but it's no more
then than the smell
of toast, the sprang
echoing to the hall
or lavender on sheets leading
you dreaming to images of half
then half another hour
framed
but its 2pm and we’re sober
awake, current, not laughing.
More wrapping up in the hum
of all the times we do, will.
This paper's no wetter now
than the inside of your mouth
still, sand like and nervous
from speaking too fast for the
small thing
you’re trying to say.
No more those seconds conjoined than a friend
across the room smiling
or a friend silent.
Because what's to be said
about what isn't happening
but could be, half held
in lemon dish soap
slipping.
Headache in Lidl
I thought yes I could have bought
the whole store
some pilgrimage to take stacked jars of
pickles dried
dates and tiger bread call me the whipper
of the
suns shaky wheel slanted silver chariot
wobbling
to the medicine isle I thought yes I'll
definitely never
need the doctors again I'll never need for
cough syrup
pink soup ibuprofen potions again call off
the witches
hunt call off the long crusade have you seen
this little
highlighter collection I thought yes I will
slide on my
socks and colour this whole shop pink, but
only after I
ripen and bite this lovely fruit, though.
For Exeter’s Fake Puzzle Jug
Often, I am confused by taps – which is
because I do not
know the intimate world of plumbing's
inner workings.
And, often, I am amused by numerous
bible verses as
I was not born surrounding their LED
conversion.
Despite that, it is still lovely to drink red
wine with you.
And this funny funnel tower flask – with
all its easily poured
seduction – seems only as paradoxical as
your face is
here – mouth open – now our gospel
stories begin trickling or
slowing. We have no need for glasses, so
sunk amidst muted
clay sunshine – I find myself in true belief
that
you are surely glowing
Written
Let Us Bury These Coins. Somewhere.
Deep And Dark. Let Me Hide. My.
Necklace. In The Rocks. I Took.
Its Sweetly Rough Beads From. Let's.
Go To The River. And Bathe.
Away The Dirt. We Lay In.
There Are Bird Bones. Please Let Me.
Braid Your Hair. Let Me Engrave.
This Name In Wood. Or Wall. Let.
The Angels. Come. Or Something.
Like Them. Let This Be. The First.
Or Final. Title.
Venom and McDonalds
the space between the door and doorframe
like
the sliver of salt line light on the hand
passing
you the shot that finally makes you vomit
green
or pink depending on the grass we sleep
upon
in my dreams venus or earth depending
upon whether
I am feeling fantastical or absurd; the
flashes
of cream spread cloud smothering the
moon
like white toenail clippings or a wish that
only quarter
counts showing stars strung up
constellations the
imagined lovers like the gaps in the dark
motorway
leading us to the home we might live in
talking
singing knocking on wood depending upon
my
satisfaction seeing you in the real
streetlight or another
where each flickering penny drop adds up
to a whole.
RAMM Pocket Watch Collection
It was certainly a possibility that there were around fifty four or so stopped pocket watches strung up behind the glass museum windows – none of which were turned on to tick tick tick – in fact I stood there for certainly some amount of time (I can't say precisely, for surely, certainly, clear causes), staring determinedly to check with my mobile phone wrapped motionless in the back pocket of my jeans – that I, so focused, forgot that certainly it could assist in that instance; I thought how ridiculous I was to not own a wrist watch or heartbeat reminding Fitbit and considered that, in the context of pleonectic collection (nobody needs to tell the time in that many ways), people do certainly catalogue the different brands, but apparently not so much here – in this display – as it was shrunk down to only chained or silver covered types – the ones usually hidden in suits or wore by ties; I concluded, stood awkward with my hands scratching and my face searching for any sign of a leather banded line of them, that certainly it could be because people – almost any post sun dial – are far more likely to be buried with them still clasped on, maybe even still circling, to remind us how much time we spend in that half-finished valley – floating fifty four or so thousand years trying to silently collect microscopic watch pins in stacks of bells, or count the exact number of consonants in each museum catalogue description; I imagine it looks like the full colour spectrum thus turning us all to busy shrimp or little white birds with inserted clocks in our clear museum cabinet sculls, so just when we think to look at our skinny crustacean bird wrists wondering am I done now? the once grey post rainbow thing up there switches off the too bright display lights and we all fall down limp again – smashing the glass on our way out.