Tag: Poetry

An immigrant dared to sing

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I was very excited to have been shortlisted for The Bridport Prize in 2022, with this poem! It was inspired by an incident which occurred as I sat in the hospital gynaecology department. An immigrant woman, heavily pregnant, was trying to communicate to the receptionist, but had no English. The receptionist was shouting at the woman as though she were a second class citizen. Talk about dehumanisation! 

AN IMMIGRANT DARES TO SING


The bellies are fecund, dumpling-doughed 
in their roundness. 

The names roll, no one choking.  
I clutch my pot, all yellow, all of it. 

In walks a womb. A refugee cradles it.
It is full of child but does not exist for

its mother has no tongue to match our ears and
she knows none of our songs.

The receptionist gets loud and slow, and people stare.
This woman has the audacity, they say

to bring her womb to birth babies, steal roofs
from heads and snatch notes from palms. 

To sleep with ears not bleeding and folds of flesh
safe in the knowledge they’re her own.

I am ashamed to be English. 
To nurture a visible womb.

I am unable to sing Arabic.

©2022 Sarah Drury

A Bluebird in 8 Ways

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A BLUEBIRD IN EIGHT WAYS
                           ~ After Wallace Stevens
 
I

A poet is a bluebird
who drizzles the sky
with indanthrene songs 

II

I am making words
out of the bluebird’s tongue,
littered on the paper 
like a rejection letter.

III

The bluebird looks at me
with its reticent eye - 
wants to sprinkle lies
in the blackbird’s ear.

IV

I have no time for cheats.
Bluebirds are full of infidelity,
wagging their sweet 
little tails at the worms.

V

I know a fine song
if it licks my heels.
I smile and my breast heaves
at the fortissimo.

VI

When the bluebird flies away
the chicks’ chasm-jaws 
snatch at a stopped watch.

VII

The snow dusts the blue wings.
Makes snow angels on the ice.
I fall, my womb a pomegranate.

VIII

I never did fit in a box.
Too big dreams for a small forest.
No blackbirds with carbon plumage.
I want diamonds. 

Copyright © Sarah Drury 2022


Wallace Stevens, (1954), 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird' from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. New York. Random House.


Images by krstnwatts0 and Johnny Gunn from Pixabay

Blackpool Tower

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Many, many years ago I had a very frightening experience. I was young – around 14 – and my life pretty much revolved around playing the cello. I joined an orchestra in Lincoln, which is a fair drive away from my hometown. An older man, must have been sixty-plus, used to give me a lift there. There were usually several of us, but this one night I was alone with him on the journey home. He stopped his car and made a very inappropriate move. It was dark, and he had pulled his car over to the side of the desolate country lane. I screamed and went ballistic, which must have taken him aback, as he quietly drove me home.

That is the backstory for this poem. Blackpool Tower is a metaphor, but I won’t explain and ruin the images your mind will weave as you read!

The layby takes me back 
to the lanes not lit up 
like Blackpool Tower, where I fell, 
illuminated by blown bulbs.

I should not have been hitching rides
with dirty men, him telling me 
we couldn’t make babies 
with his thing choked in rubber.

His death would be better.
I would prefer a cadaver.
Stiff fingers, curled, like questions.

His wife.
Evenings, he slipped into her.
The usual in, out, in, out.
Nothing in it for her. 
Never is.


Copyright © Sarah Drury 2022

Glass

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My husband passed away 12 years ago, which affected me deeply for a long time. I have come to terms with his death, which was traumatic. I wrote this poem as a tribute to our love. 

GLASS


You hold me, I am porcelain. 
I am chipped in places, but not broken.
You like the chinks and cracks, 
they let hope shine in. 

Our lips meet in earthshine, 
until the moon’s shadow dances 
at my throat.

Your hands, they are granite, 
they are feathers.
I like the crowns of thorns 
you wear upon your palms. 

They make me bleed 
when you place
them on my breasts.
I know we are living
amongst the dying.

I am Venus, you create me. 
You take me from my abstract world 
and paint me into starry skies 
above the Rhone.

Your kind hands model the widow 
from the girl. You carve me 
out of glass to see 
if this heart still beats –

if it is still yours.


Copyright © Sarah Drury 2022

When the Sea Was Origami

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The leaves on the tree shimmer,
catching the breeze, casting
my mind this way and that.

I have words circling my head,
clattering around - flitting
between memories and dreams.

What did I have?
What would I like?

I want it all and none of it.
It is all inside, cloaked in smiles.
The sunshine cannot let

the moon control the tides. 
The sea is calm, tacit; it ripples.
Wavelets are origami ships.

My dreams are beneath 
an ocean heart. 
Blue. 

Serene.



©Sarah Drury 2023