Poetry by Helen Jackson
Another Westminster Bridge
It’s not the flash and glint, the brackish Thames,
or the busker murdering the bag pipes.
It’s not the bulldoze past of a pinstripe
suit on his daily commute. It’s not stems
of heather, find the lady, tourist scrums
queuing for selfies in front of the Eye.
Not the bus-stop lovers kissing good-bye
as the tube chimes its echoes of steel drums.
No it’s round the corner, under your feet,
where last spring, flowers lay plump like pillows.
That’s where you glimpse it – all that mighty heart:
a plaque on a headstone, facing a street
of protestors, flags of blue and yellow.
Behind, the palace tears itself apart.
XV
Here they come,
carrying their bottles,
fluorescent dwarves
with ropes and ladders
and gasping mouth-pipes.
They come to me
– Mother of the World –
in high sun, driven, it seems,
by a desire to festoon
my hair with billowing
rainbow bunting.
I don’t mind, I suppose.
But it does get tiresome.
And if I sneeze
they tumble away,
or dig in their heels
and jab hooks in my skin.
Some love me so much
they choose to stay:
sleep on my chest,
hide under my joints,
green boots gleaning.
But from time to time,
when the fancy takes me,
I blow the cloud windward
and let them come.
Feel their feet tickle my ears
as they hold open their arms.
I wink at Lhotse,
she gives me a nod
and together we turn
our foreheads to the sky.
Tightrope
There are so many things that I hold dear:
like muddied hands, our walks along the shore.
Sometimes I forget you’re no longer here,
that you cannot see this now, cannot hear.
And as I know how quickly sleek grief thaws,
there are so many things that I hold. Dear
God we’d fight for days though, you’d disappear
from sight. I must remind myself, because
sometimes I forget. You’re no longer here
to remind me, you see. The rip, the tear
of wires and blood, the shred of heart and gauze:
there are so many things. That I hold dear
to them, all these battle-won souvenirs,
is because they’re all I have. Final flaws.
Sometimes I forget you’re no longer here,
set you a plate, expect you to appear,
your loaded footsteps and key in the door.
There are so many things that I hold dear.
Sometimes I forget you’re no longer here.
Helen Jackson is in her final year of the MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck. By day she is an accountant but by night procrastinates about putting pen to paper. She likes writing formal verse and once had a sestina published in a City Lit anthology. One day she will possibly get around to joining Twitter.