Overseas drama
Voice clear
on fibre-optic tunnel.
Vibrating vocals
scorch
bleak understatements
at each gurgle.
I feel the quicksand workplace
has meshed leaves of
covered toilet seats
as security against STD’s
and other warts
of a slightly mentally ill nature.
My mother burped in tune
to her unnatural rhythm.
She menstruated infrequently
as the Pill only left scars
on her already battled psyche.
After numerous doses
of lithium-like trances,
she tranquilized herself
as one would a diseased elephant
aiming gently
pulling trigger
one shot
pop.
Those sounds of home
become so clear
when you hear
the fear
of being so near
her death-like stench
and water-bloated belly.
Her hands were wrinkled
beyond help from Palmolive.
She died
in a resuscitating nightmare
of blissful shocks.
To this day,
I have kept a copy
of the Hypo-needle wrapper
that they left in haste.
Years later,
after pulling my stressful,
high-strung back out
on a construction job,
I met a doctor in Emergency
who recognized my name.
“We tried to revive your mother.”
I said, “Thank you for trying,”
and hoped that now
he would be able to sleep
without having ghouls
of suicide-infested full moons
to cloud his thinking.
I hear your voice over the line.
Coiled tops of emotion,
spill into old tuna fish sandwiches
with a black olive,
freshly picked in Spain,
as decoration
for bleak peeling walls.
Page(s) 120-121
magazine list
- Features
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- 10th Muse
- 14
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- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
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- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The