Fukushima
staggered by a blow
six hundred million times more
fierce than the first time
man delivered a sun
to bloom and scorch upon her loam
untold shadows
no fire this time in shattering waves
though now, as then, so many souls
vanished from this tangent
and the swallowed star,
made on earth, extracts the same
deadly half-life toll
Paul Sands was born in 1962 in Erdington but raised close to the River Trent in Nottingham. He began writing in 2010 and recently self-published his first collection of poetry.
When a sex symbol takes to sensible shoes
Suddenly across the store, through a middle aged
bottle glass blur, I spot blonde hair familiar as a logo,
but hesitate unable to make out that fantasy body
drawn by an adolescent boy on his exercise book.
Close up, these photographs from the ‘Misfits’
are like meeting an old friend after a debilitating illness.
Trademark eyeliner has become heavy shutters closing
on the empty windows of a house whose occupant has left.
Her body still forms a perfect 8 but is not gift wrapped
in gold lame instead she is a hillbilly’s wife in white cotton
Sunday dress posing in a Steinbeck farm yard.
Looking down the barrel of the camera,
lips no longer part in the throes of an orgasmic O,
but are forced into a localised smile.
The confection of a single 1950s picture
draws my eyes like wasps to a baker’s window,
leaving me craving other heyday poses, addictive as sugar.
Paying my last respects to the snapshots from her final film,
I notice, more shocking than being shared around
like a joint by the Kennedy boys’ club, her comfortable shoes.
Fiona Sinclair reviews for numerous poetry magazines including IS&T and Happenstance. She is the editor of the online poetry magazine Message in a Bottle. Hew second pamphlet A Game of Hide and Seek is out now from Indigo Dreams.