Strolling and Controlling

Six poems on perambulatory loneliness, fury, and forgotten Nymphomaniacs by Lizzie Homersham

Sep 21, 2022

Lizzie Homersham is a London-based writer and editor whose poems come for you like little daggers buried in candy-floss. We’re delighted to have published her in the Lugubriations book (launching next week September 30th, do join) and to be able to publish some of her poems here on the Substack. Photos are by George Jepson. - RA

Strolling and controlling

‘Running’

Stuffing tissue deeper

‘Falling’

Down a hole

as opposed to a staircase

‘Sewing’

a web of steel

To be brushed with,

brushed against

Against a brush

There are no more comparisons

I wrote a list of place names around spokes of the sun

Rays and razing, daisy-chaining degradation

Let’s go to all of these I said and ride the circle line repeatedly

Escape from family

I heard of a man who changed his name to Quiet Carriage,

and saw on the screen a man I’m out of touch with

in Nymphomaniac

Addiction I can well imagine

Wishing unwell

There is no balance though, just different shifts on the imbalance axis

In a toilet on an airplane and singing

You can say what you want

But it won’t change my mind

In case my mind is changing

I still want the ditches to talk to you about trains

All this white stuff billowing,

out the back of a

Puffa jacket

They cut it open

Jimi Hendrix

unleashing parakeets

from a window

according to Chris Packham

Helicopter landing

best enjoyed in retrospect

the path of least resistance

is this what it feels like

to write poetry

stealing words

out of a friend’s mouth

sitting opposite

stopping the hand

from reaching

for a receipt

to jot down

the billowing

If I fear I make connections

Thoughts start moving fast

I need to slow down,

Why put us together

we could be left apart

The toes of a pair of shoes

Facing in toward each other, or outward,

how to choose

What difference does it make besides the question

Of form

The position of feet, heels touching

Or the heel of one foot, in the middle

Of the other

By the arch

So if I move directly from first to second

With a gear shift, abruptly pulling

I miss the second, middle step

And fall

She walked

She walked to get away from herself

Her mother thought of one way to assist after she died

She would

Fill out a form for her heart’s release to a spreadsheet hung out to dry

Sell the cells on a sheet

Sewn up

Names encrusted as salt towelled off damp skin

Counterweight of sleepers laying track

Sinking killing industry

Stroked a puppy to death like Lenny

Incised the neck of a frog turned into a dog

Stood at the chopping board

Still green

This careful nightmare

Your message to me

Pizza rats

Pregnant with shock

The phrase she’d devised to describe expectation

The gravity blanket she would stuff down her throat

Be held

Razor men who have faces

At arms

Length of screaming

If ever she needed a stage name she’d call herself Gravity Blankets

Speak like a wheel

Burning holes

The scene saw quantity of publicity as bad news is

No news is

At 20:45

An itch about a back issue

Out to get away

At the intersection of loving

Flying or swimming

Light

Heart stopped as with duck meat

Bonding over dinner

Coffee with a non-vegan five-pound note

Short of a six quid lobster

Bussing past

Plastic wrap stuck to a free gift

Soap carrying race war in its beak

Deep filled

The basis of peace

Forgetting

Good for carving

All this gratitude

Why do you say thanks?

Or sorry as blockade

Sisters’ birthdays

Dogs the next day

Non-speaking parts

Forgiven the unlikely chance of meeting payments

Too easy to cite

Ancestral

Ducking chairs

- Lizzie Homersham