Slippery Fingers

 Slippery Fingers

I keep letting go of things but
you always find a way 
back, a dream
finds its way to your landscape.
You reside in November 
and December. Once I kissed you
on New Year’s Day. There’s a song
I wish I had never known. A place 
I hid from you that contains echoes 
of harsh words and retorts I never made
but should have. Tears now
are all meant for then. Meaningless.

You had a stone, semi-precious, 
not beautiful, plain
to keep you safe away
from home. I had nothing but a bracelet
that broke, falling off my arm among 
American forests. A sign. A sign of what?
I thought I knew.

I keep burning things you gave me—words
too because that’s what I was told
to do. Perhaps they’ll find their way to ash
and earth and where deeper promises go.
Do you find me in places
you didn’t expect to leave me?
A hair hidden under the bed, one moved
once a year. A hair tie that slipped
off my wrist. A memory of my voice
within other English accents.
A sign. A sign of what
I still don’t know.

Like this free poem? You can show your support by buying me a coffee @ https://ko-fi.com/amvivian or by buying one of my books (The Waiting Usurper, Asphodel Meadows, The Family Care). They’re available on Amazon and to order from any bookstore. They can also be borrowed via Kindle Unlimited.

Extracts are available on my website https://amvivian.com/

03/03/2023 0

Branch Davidians: the Siege at Waco

Terrorism
from every corner 
of the room,
like the prophet said.

In children’s dreams
soldiers’ feet sound 
like rain, 
on the crude
corrugated iron 
roof.
Mother’s feel it in their 
Milk.

While their men stand up 
in old blue collars.
Licensed 
and unlicensed
guns from under 
the bed. From locked 
cupboards.

God hovers
withholding judgement.
Retribution comes easy, flung
with bullet force,
splattering onto concrete.

The sun streaked red
in the morning, across
the bone coloured smoke,
from the flames started
once the war had been won. 
Plumes of souls escaped 
like the prophet said.

We watched screams
on the T.V. 
in our makeshift fortress.
We shook. 
We clutched tighter
our convictions
and bought more
black-market guns.

Like this poem? You can show your support by buying me a coffee @ https://ko-fi.com/amvivian or by buying one of my books (The Waiting Usurper, Asphodel Meadows, The Family Care). They can also be borrowed via Kindle Unlimited.

Extracts are available on my website https://amvivian.com/

01/10/2022 0

A Widower’s Commute

Taking part in the daily commute
meant he had a purpose; he was working.
He started taking the train so people could see 
him sat waiting at the exposed 
platform, and he copied their worried faces.

He tutted when he heard the announcers 
muffled voice explaining: the train would be late,
the train would be shorter, the train would not
be arriving. 
He perfected the folding of the Financial Times
so it would show only one
column. He made a point of not talking
to anyone, though he’d raise his eyebrows
every so often and nod his head 
as if about to speak.

The steady rock and rolling of the carriage 
was comforting and he envied those who
could stand there with their eyes shut, 
their bodies bobbing, following that movement,
not stumbling nor stepping on someone’s foot.
He liked the closeness of these bodies, sweating
in the packed, badly ventilated carriage. 
There was reassurance
in seeing the same faces: the world still continued 
and loss did not break you, make you forget
to change your underwear or wash your hair.

When his daughter popped round, always
at four o’clock on a Thursday,
he would rant about the hassle
of the daily commute.

Anything. Anything
so he didn’t have to think
about the empty, sunken chair
in the corner.

Like this poem? You can show your support by buying me a coffee @ https://ko-fi.com/amvivian or by buying one of my books (The Waiting Usurper, Asphodel Meadows, The Family Care.) They can also be borrowed via Kindle Unlimited.

Extracts are available on my website https://amvivian.com/

23/07/2022 0

The Great Eccentric Entomologist

Small, hard beetles, shinning jewels 
perverting the light like pearlised 
varnish on the nails of young girls. 

They weren’t tough 
enough nor wise
enough to escape 
him and his pinch.

Dead in his palm, dead 
pinned against a white backing sheet, 
pincers reaching for a final hand hold. 

His hobby, his collection, his delicate love
and the reason for his simple secretive smile.

Across counties and countries he chases
them, seeking out their scuttle 
of high heels on Sunday morning streets, 
their palate of cheap eye shadows. He takes 
them all, from the smallest to the gnarliest. 

Chrysomelidae
Coleoptera
Dermestidae Dynastinae

He blends into his surroundings: 
a shopping centre, an unpronounceable
city jungle. He changes hues, changes browns, 
and greens and greys. He doesn’t need to attract; 
he hunts, he yanks, he lifts, he breaks every rule
of the countryside. 

Not for him the flippant elegance of the butterfly.
Not for him, our man so fashionably eccentric 
in his shirt made by sweat-shop children. 
No, he collects the Scarabaeidaes of life,
in their urge upwards to become 
most beautiful, most venerated, most highly paid
of all the Scarabaidas.

Photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels https://www.pexels.com/@magda-ehlers-pexels/

Extracts are available on my website https://amvivian.com/

25/06/2022 0

Back Water Town

 
The walls are peeling death
in their old rugged shack.
Her bare feet padding across the bare
floor boards. The baby crying
into the heat. He is sitting in his chair,
Sticking to his chair, Smoking 
hand rolled cigarettes one by one. The lighter’s 
flame bursting, flickering, made hazy 
by the heat.

He looks outside,
through the grubby window. Dirt
lays down, suppressed
to the path. Plants burn 
up brown and hang their heads.
They reach down deep
for water.

She sits down
beside him. Their smells musking 
together: strong and stale. Sweat
has beaded on her legs, beaded 
round her hair line. 

He watches
her in her over-washed dress,
fabric so thin she could be naked.
She looks too young.
He feels too apathetic and stifled
by her heat.

The sun burns 
through the shack, tanning at her legs.
She lies down, writhing sleepily,
slowly: her only energy.
He turns his attention back 
to outside, ashamed
at seeing her dress stuck, dampening
around her curves,
wet to her skin, defining.

He wants a woman from across town,
clean and clear
with transparent skin and summer fruit perfume.

Original Photo by Kira on Unsplash

Extracts are available on my website https://amvivian.com/

07/05/2022 0

My Daddy Owns your Daddy

 
			My Daddy Owns Your Daddy

My daddy owns a Porsche and a Range Rover
for weekend city driving and mummy’s little run around.

My daddy has a cottage in Devon, a house in London
and a penthouse in Dubai.

My daddy works a 50 hour week and plays golf on Saturday
while Mummy uses his credit cards in Harrods.

My daddy says big business is the future
and Capitalism helps those who work hard.

My daddy will pay for me to go to Oxford,
like his daddy paid for him.

My daddy will get the best for me:
a nice house for my friends and I.

My daddy will pay my bills and my petrol money
and my clothes allowance.

My daddy will get me a job in the city
and find me a man like him. 

And my baby’s daddy will hire
Your baby’s daddy on minimum wage.

Extracts are available on my website https://amvivian.com/

07/03/2022 0

Alone

The cold is constantly here,
now the sky is black.
I try to find my own light
candle pooled
thick and wrinkled
wick bent down
trying to soak up
all its liquid.
I find
I’m not thinking of you.
Light a match
with a puff,
a fizzle
against the broken heel
of my shoe.
I hold it out, burning
it down
bites as a chill
my cold fingers
burning.
Steam of pork
fills my nose.
I do not ignite.
I do not flash.
The last match
tossed to the floor.
Loudly, I curse myself.
The wick plops
sinks into the wax.
Given up.
Find myself not thinking
of you.

I found this old poem and I thought I’d include it here because it taught me an interesting lesson that I thought I’d share. When I read this out one person hated it, didn’t understand it, and was very vocal about that. Never mind, some poems are unsuccessful. It hurts the ego to get criticism but … well … there is always another poem waiting. The next day though, someone else in my class came up to me and told me that their daughter who was doing a PhD in Freudian psychology had loved it, finding layers of meaning that had excited her. It blew my mind how different the reactions were. I learnt a valuable lesson: you can’t please everyone and you can’t control how people react to what you create. Everyone brings themselves to what they’re reading/listening to/watching and will react differently. This means that there is no objective truth about a piece of creative work. I can only aim to satisfy myself and get my writing to be as close to how I envision it as possible. The rest is none of my business.

Photo by Anjo Antony on Unsplash

Extracts are available on my website https://amvivian.com/

23/01/2022 0

The Sewer Refugees

 
I was a rat.
A bent double, dirty sewer rat
with yellow eyes.
Eyes made bad and bruised
by my sluggish liver.

I was dragged through thin pipes
that I caught skin on. In flickering,
rationed light I couldn’t see
how the sores weren’t healing.

Some days there was singing — godly songs
but I didn’t understand the words.
I was a sewer rat.

I developed a cough.
Chesty. I spurted mucus
thick, like the slime leaking
down the sides of that storm basin.

We came here so long ago
we forgot to get out.

Inspired by accounts of refugees hiding in the sewers during WW2.

Photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash

Extracts are available on my website https://amvivian.com/

18/12/2021 0

Ms Jekyll and Ms Hyde

Ms Jekyll and Ms Hyde

My secret self carries a razor blade
My secret self pretends
to play nice. My secret self
reads too much Plath
and tastes victimhood
in her back teeth.
Overcooked meat.

My secret self is sizing you up:
belly, flank, and rump.
My secret self knows
the softest point,
the weakest tendon, the fastest
and fattest artery to pick
into. And she wears her issues
like shaved-sharpened hair
in unfeminine places.

My secret self is the undertone
to my laugh. Only the blind 
can detect it. My secret self
is the smear, sudden and swift
on all the white around you.
A newspaper stained thumb.

My secret self calls you close
and closer with candy-scented
skin, with lying promises 
from scabbed lips covered
with lipstick. They crack
and creak like aged bones,
like a cough on your clammy
neck. But you’re swayed 
by her smile, by her thighs,
by the spilling
of her breasts’ potential. How
can something so rounded
be so sharp? An unripe apple.
A wasp’s apple. A tart plum.

Do not be deceived 
by my secret self, unless
you desire a storybook
nightmare and a biblical
soul-sucking. See my secret
self walk at night. Alone. 
Under the weakest streetlights
to coax them all out with a swing
of her hips. And they come.
Rats after the piper

Photo by Camila Quintero Franco on Unsplash

Extracts are available on my website https://amvivian.com/

23/10/2021 0