jacqueline martin
POETRY
(a few tasters)
First Time
After the lemon bit me back
I knew I wasn’t going to like it
- until I was made of waves,
my edges slick as liver:
then I liked it,
bold as bones and goblin cackle,
all my cupboards open.
I’d imagined ice,
a maraschino cherry;
not this warm glass of spite,
all thump and blister.
It would have to do.
Published in The Moth magazine issue 48
Superhero
I used to cup the perfect, shiny belly of my bodysuit
to gauge how soon a pregnancy would show.
A grape, a prawn, a floating sea horse could stay undetected
by adversaries; my secret smile might not.
I flew with nausea,
I kept my torso safe when there were blades or tentacles around
and left all devastation on the hour just to shoot myself
with FSH (break vial, pinch up and stab)
holding the music in my head, the love for what will come
after the combat’s done.
Each cycle, I would knock the obstetrician right out cold
between my knees: the sedative no match for Zip! Zap! Pow!,
the torturous clamp inducing my best comeback lines.
Careful to hurtle less, I spent more time in clouds
mulling infinity, the cosmos, waiting for a superheart to grow
but no sparks caught, no powers could help
and I returned to crime-fighting. The doctor said that
charity work was just the thing for someone in my situation.
Published in Popshot Quarterly magazine issue 33
Sundays
We wipe our shoes and lay our coats on Nanna’s bed Get off that bed
the tang of alcohol, some ham and bread buttered on Secret Shelf that folds down and folds up and down again and up Leave that alone the cat with golden claws Don’t touch the ornaments the dog with silky hair You know he doesn’t concrete yard with musty apple trees, a shed of comics (in American), some rough-skinned fruit Don’t eat those What’s a Tootsie Roll? Just wash your hands stretch fingers round the brick of soap, quickly, before kidnappers can reach the outside toilet Save them sweets for later and I will so I cannot be told to share.
Published in The Cannon's Mouth magazine issue 69
I Dreamt That Lemn Sissay Was My Estate Agent
He came in clouds
and the grey skies broke
across his smile.
He came without paper or pen,
preferring to memorise all that he felt,
the melting of rooms into words
and the words into worlds
where the reader might live.
He pulled in the corners,
he let all the skirting boards speak,
asserting the power of edges,
the joy of collision,
and made the decision
that photographs paint an elision
while speech gives the reader
the paintbrush to tell their own tale.
He needed no measure.
Pacing the spaces,
the span of the garden,
was his speciality -
most of the rooms were
two Lemns and a half -
he swapped them;
unlocked every shape
so the floorplan could flex
and the angles became
Mother Hubbardly,
no longer stubbornly regular.
He showed me a secret.
Even a windowless bathroom
can offer love:
switch on the light, feel its radiance
warm you as if for the very first time
and the people will open their
mouths in an ‘o’,
and the people will know
they are home.
Published in The Moth magazine issue 43
My Dog Pieshop
My dog Pieshop will eat just anything -
paper, poo and tarmac, plastic shopping bags and string,
pebbles from the garden, crispy crisp bags from the park,
chunks of polystyrene, thorny flowers, leaves and bark.
One time, when these finds were being fished out by the vet,
a dapper little man fell out, his suit all wringing wet.
My name is Bond, James Bond he said, Your dog has saved the day,
then Pieshop coughed a diamond up and James Bond squelched away.
Published in The Caterpillar children's poetry magazine issue 27
The Crocus
thrusts through the blackened soil at dawn,
eager to know the early light that warms the slenderer
to bud, to swell, becoming blousy, opening that tender
throat to passing feet and claws, in trust, in triumph,
such an easy bloom, bright satin trashed within a month
and left to blanch, unpurpling on the lawn.
Published in The Dawntreader magazine issue 46
The Woman With The Giant Hands
I first saw her on a train, gazing at winter dusk
while everyone around just looked at
her or peered into the windows where reflections
told the same, extraordinary truth. If there had
been a child we might have grimaced as it
sorted through its reference points and finding
none that matched, began to form a question.
If there’d been a dog, it might have settled by
her side to beg a blanketing of warm dry flesh
but there was not, and we were all for throwing
her right off the speeding train despite not having
spoken to each other, as we watched the gentleness
with which she placed her fingers in a steeple,
frowning as the light outside grew dimmer than within.
Published in Magma magazine issue 68
Love Is
Love is a squirrel
burying some crap or other
in a place it will forget.
Stuff grows there anyway,
sprouting and fruiting
while Love digs again,
finds other hoards
of other Loves
and tucks them in its cheek.
The Tastebuds
Peanut Butter pitches low,
bing-bong, the bass
goes bouncing round
my mouth.
Lemon hits a high note:
screeching teeth,
no melody,
and then comes
Chocolate. Humming,
strumming (‘til it makes my jaw
cry right into
my cheeks).
Burnt Toast has no tune at all
yet reaches to the roof,
a gobsmack
of a song.
Published in The Caterpillar children's poetry magazine issue 36
Pond Tale
Four green goslings
scatter on the pond
for a fist of frogs, no
not frogs, feast,
for a fist of feast
or crumbs at least.
Gull scuds in
wet wing, feet first,
gabbles Little Goose
that he cunningly
rehearsed:
Grass tree, feed me,
sunny or a salty,
muddening the pie
in a cool flat sky
but the goslings eat
and look him in the eye.
Cloud song breaks
on the water’s face,
and the damselflies
flash by.
Published in The Dawntreader magazine issue 46
Margate Sands
The sea says Schhhh
and the gulls say Awkhhh
but the seaweed sulks and stinks.
I cannot see the sea that the seagulls see
when their dinner is a real live fish.
The sea I see is the one they see
when the scraps from someone’s chip shop tea
are pulled from a bin and scattered on the quay
where big birds vie
for the fried fish bits and the half-drunk drinks
and a splodged-up pie.
The sea says Schhhh
and the gulls say Awkhhh
but the seaweed sulks and stinks.
I cannot see the wind that the seagulls ride
when they hang with a wing-wide hunch.
The wind I see is chewed by waves
and is runaway from by the sand in the bay
and the paper serviettes that were left from lunch
to flock along the beach
and the sea-splashed pier where the people shout
More fish! More beer!
The sea says Schhhh
and the gulls say Awkhhh
but the seaweed sulks and stinks.
Published in The Caterpillar children's poetry magazine issue 20
Care Home
We serve modern food.
The step-a-slope will turn into a slope but we don’t have the time for that right now.
You are welcome to bring in a very very small beloved piece of furniture.
A call button in every room (except the toilet in the hall, the laundry cupboard
and of course, the garden shed) means care is right at hand.
No pets and no dementia. No toenails can be cut by staff.
The downstairs lounge is where we have our fun activities.
Sadly, we do not take residents who cannot make it from their own room
to the downstairs lounge.
No towels or sheets are issued but most people have a relative to bring some in.
Let us know about a stiff tap. Or a light bulb should it die at night.
Hairdressing is twice a week! This is extra and there is a waiting list.
Published in The Moth magazine issue 37