Crash

Maggie Mortimer

• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781528980869
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Poésie

Crash is a collection of understated poems. More of nuance than telling, it aims to make the reader explore the text. Subjects range from a petrified housewife to a suicidal partner. It is the darker side of a car ride with a stranger. Although you're belted in and approaching the highway, you can still say your prayers and pay small non-descript bills. A kind of cadence to great poets that have inspired me not only on the page but with the sounds of words and other mysteries. Now you're hitchhiking. There are but little tests or quizzes, so spread your arms wide, take in the open road and enjoy the ride.

Copyright Information ©

Maggie Mortimer (2021)

The right of Maggie Mortimer to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528980845 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528980869 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2021)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

The chapel mass

A sky passes

Slender and stuck

(doors too cheap

for heaven).

It’s May again

She made it

Her cancerous bones

Creek and Crave

Bottled milk

In the night.

If she was

In S Africa

Would she write

Of apartheid

Or the hawthorn

Of native Canada?

For now

She lives

And develops

In small-town

Ontario

Cropped and bumped

By farms for sale

And gov’t banks

That are down.

Her family

Hitchhikes

And buys woollen

Socks

In the city.

Each ballgame

A bet

On a neighbour –

Whose wife

Is

The biggest assassin?

We watch

Snakes and tadpoles

Devour the earth

As if

A desert’s left

And now

Man’s drunk

Is another

One’s

Cheat

In between

Highways

And cleavage

And running

Shoes.

Amiable than this

Was the time

He spat at me

We ate Cantonese

And his mouth’s

Corner drooled.

Her redressed

The paper hat

Chopsticks

Bowing to the ground

Lost flowers

In a minefield.

Our feet

Abstractly touching –

One streetcar

Track

To another

Fortune cookie

In my pocket

D...

Table of contents

• Crash
• About the Author
• Dedication
• Copyright Information ©