The day the soldiers come
they’ll give you twenty minutes to pack.
Think now what you’ll need
without this place you call home.
And remember the woman too stunned
by those uniformed men,
who smoked and laughed in her kitchen,
to use that precious time.
She sat by the cold grate
while her boy packed one suitcase.
She opened it weeks later
in a cold and hopeless land
to find no cook pots, scarves or pickles,
but a clockwork train, coloured pencils,
an atlas of constellations.
David Clarke‘s first pamphlet Gaud won the Michael Marks Award in 2013. He has published two collections with Nine Arches Press (most recently The Europeans in 2019) and a further pamphlet, Scare Stories, with V Press. The Field in Winter will be published by Nine Arches in the autumn of 2023.
Please Don’t Bomb my Bed
My bed has several tricks up its sleeve.
(I bought it on the never-never, never-never.)
Sometimes it houses a small library
and a newspaper stand and a Portuguese café
with cinnamon and tarts.
Sometimes it becomes a German cabaret.
Happy to see you! Oh bleibe, bleibe stay…
I’m listening to Nina Simone:
here’s my wedding ring. Goodbye old sleepy head
& remember darling – don’t smoke in bed.
Some nights the duvet loses its shape.
Schopenhauer said life was a tin of prunes.
which was troublesome to open.
Sheet-washing’s a crackerjack day – a carnival.
It’s not always easy to sleep.
I listen to the Leningrad Symphony.
I listen to the World Service.
God have pity on us.
Julian Stannard’s most recent book is Heat Wave (Salt, 2020). A new collection – Please Don’t Bomb The Ghost
of my Brother – is forthcoming, also with Salt. He teaches at the University of Winchester.
. https://www.saltpublishing.com/collections/vendors?q=Julian%20Stannard