excruciatingly beautiful
Two words that capture voters’ response to Zoe Piponides’ ‘This Oh So Bearable Lightness’ and illustrate why it is the Pick of the Month for December 2022.
Voters found the poem thought-provoking, original and gripping. They loved its rawness, its powerful images and Zoe’s clever use of language.
Zoe’s published work includes a collaborative novel: Payback (Kition), based on the Cyprus haircut crisis and poems in various anthologies including Eighty Four (Verve) and Nicosia Beyond Barriers (Saqi/Commonwealth). She recently co-edited Larnaka The Anthology (Armida).
This Oh So Bearable Lightness
If you should lose this oh so bearable lightness
be warned, I shall overturn your day,
tear it apart, ensure it ends in the dark.
I’ll mould your skin in sodium yellow,
load you with enzymes till your gut swells
and your head and heart no longer belong to you.
If you should miss the flight of a thought,
I’ll grind your voice, lock it in an hourglass.
I’ll buckle your feet, numb your hands,
I won’t take no or sorry for an answer, I won’t believe
a word you say, I’ll encapsulate you in ethanol,
make you choke away your larynx.
I’ll plot on a map new nodules, pin your throat
and turn your eyes into footballs; your chin will lean
on your shoulder, you’ll be my other creature, She.
I’ll keep her safe in a cyberspace file, she’ll act
in ways you may not approve of, skin to water she’ll sink,
she’ll sing rough tunes, cackle and snort,
show you the back of her tongue, the glint of her uvula.
She’ll hitch up hems, wear her face loose-lipped, she’ll be
the first to stir and leave her keys in a jug.
She won’t dip and delve between a yes or a no, a just
in case, she’ll flaunt her fruit, no matter how raw,
with an oh, what joy it is!
If she forgets such lightness, I’ll clamp her limbs,
I’ll pull and squeeze and twist till she’s an endless line
and then – I’ll turn her into words.
Other voters’ comments included:
This Oh So Bearable Lightness is a sharp, magically humorous delight!
True, sensitive, painful
This poem’s brilliant title lives up to its deep, relatable content. Hauntingly beautiful and profoundly intimate are phrases that spring to mind when describing this refreshingly personal piece of art!
clever play with words and images; use of seemingly grisly acts to convey messages related to joy and protection
Visceral. Thought provoking.
Original. I like the expressions.
the innovative use of language, memorable imagery and for pure inspiration
beautiful wording
Intense and dark
Unusual. Sticks to you.
The atmosphere, the suspense… a very enjoyable read!
Raw poem. One you can return to over and over
Very weird images and poem! I loved it.
Very clever language play
Brilliant poem! Loved the emotion behind it. It really came through to the reader
Wow! So dark!
I like it a lot, the words she uses to express her emotions and imagination
Powerful, thought-provoking, well-structured poem
It grips you and leads you to an exhilarating finale
I felt the poem in my body, every word and sentence flowed through me, making me uncomfortable but wanting more. I was completely encapsulated in it.
It’s different, unique and thought provoking
A dark, moody wake up call. Love it!
Powerful and haunting …
Every word is so carefully selected. Very powerful!
************
THE REST OF THE DECEMBER 2022 SHORTLIST
A cross lights up in the distance, a bird
skeleton. We roll by faith
my inhale dry like the hoarse
wind in the lungs of a chainsmoker.
Bruised night skies and a
flatpack cross over factories.
Where does it come from?
Does it cascade down
on McDonalds cafés, duck-yellow,
on married couples,
on all the Shakshoukas being made?
A river in my water bottle
blue blood in my veins,
winter cold as every iron bench
every dry hand and paw
every freezer burn bread. Fruit preserves slipping through
hands in the dawn.
I vacuum seal figs and leave, suddenly. The hushed cut of air. Bagel stands.
Liv Aldridge is a writer and poet from rural Sweden. She is pursuing a Literature degree in Durham, but is living in Kraków for a year. Her poems have appeared inThe Gentian and Carmen et Error and her reviews appear occasionally in NARC.
*
THE SEA IS RISING
The radio spits
“The world is ending”
and I sulk down the stairs half shame faced,
mostly hungry.
There is a lobster man in the stairwell
that scares me — the door propped ajar
like a constantly crooked finger beckoning
an unknown hither. Perfect for lurking, so
there might as well be a lobster man smoking
in the stairwell that scares me
“Those are bad for you.”
The peach crust of his head cackles, like
a hundred lobster cages prematurely withdrawn, like
the death rattle of empty air rising out of the ocean, and not
at all like the wet gasp of a peach, or the crispness of bread crust.
I have crab for dinner.
Rakyah Assam lives on the Welsh coast, where she’s working on her forthcoming pamphlet ‘LOBSTERGIRL’. Her poetry has been commended by the Young Poets Network, and appears in Sylvia magazine.
*
Melting Iceberg
It’s no good looking
at a shooting star
with a fly trapped in your eye. You hear
the yawn above the skin tide
mewling and popping like a calved whale
while you spell out the words:
mastodon, sabre-toothed tiger, giant bear.
But this is mammoth, humungous, too
enormous to contemplate – at times
quiet, sometimes mute. You stare
through the classroom window, watch
the dust as white space
slides from frame to frame.
Alison Lock’s writing connects an inner world with a love of nature through poetry and prose. Her work has been published in many literary magazines, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Her latest poetry collection is Unfurling (2022) Palewell Press.Twitter: @alilock4 Website: www.alisonlock.com
*
James Nixon teaches at Arden University and is completing doctoral research into the legacy of Arthur Rimbaud and hauntological poetics at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is a former Royal Holloway Emerging Writer Fellow, a Writer-in-Residence at Cove Park, and a Writer-in-Residence at Phytology, Bethnal Green.
*
Driftline V
by Laurence Campbell and Tom James Scott
Sound recording: Tom James Scott and Laurence Campbell
Words for part V: Tom James Scott