Waves

Every seven seconds, we collide on the sand

we gathered when we drifted here – all old cups and papers,

residue, coasters, things to help quit smoking,

a marriage contract pulling back and forth,

ourselves from ourselves.

We lie, buffeted

by the flotsam of our years.

.

Outside, spring passes,

and we find with some amazement

that the moon still has a pull. The bath tub’s caked

and gummed with days. The window’s started splitting,

letting in more rain.

Somewhere, great tails

dash the seas, and we barely face each other.

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In progress, for progress

I’m working on a website. 

It has been a good year for me, in regards to my poetry. I feel as though my work has continued to improve, and the number of acceptances I’ve received from publications has helped my confidence and willingness to continue.

In light of this, I’ve been trying to put together a simple website to act as something of a portfolio. It can be found here, for now: http://bnorris12345.wix.com/benjaminnorrispoetry although this obviously isn’t the finished site.

Yours, Benjamin.

In Protest: 150 Poems for Human Rights

I’m delighted and honoured to be included in this important and ambitious project, organised by the Human Rights Commission and including work by leading poets from around the world.

The collection is available to purchase at http://www.amazon.co.uk/In-Protest-Poems-Human-Rights/dp/0957521030/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382433376&sr=8-1&keywords=in+protest+150+poems

The Hothouse Remains

Written for Zymbol Magazine, read by Benjamin Norris (and Anthoine).

First video.

 

1.

The heat in here stays constant, netted

kept unmoving, billowed down.

Down all, all the leaves to

lethargic rubbered limbs – I can only

ascertain who comes or goes by read-

-ing the peaks in this dim but varied

show of slanting white-wet lights

2.

wrought iron corridors
this swelling, lead crystal-
-ised sweat rises and
congregates in old fields

obese lungs, panting.
A stamen paralyzes the

hacking of mists. Some-
where, damp leaves
a shattering.

3.

We grow inside houses.

It may be easier
to find us – look inside
there’s a space where you can see
a battle with the urge
to simply orbit one another
swinging around a larger mass
we haven’t found a word for
yet. The days drop off,
we spend one moment
seeking ways to wound,
the next lost in grasses with
blades splitting skies, and these
useless links are what birth us
to ensure we never really move

4.

You spoke of long-gloved hands: you claim to not
see where the climbers stretch to, only spaces:
the leaves are powder. Distance swells, unorganic

a beating through the lead-lined frames: afterthoughts
assume your shape: you remember that before we burst
husks, there was a minute when we were not

5.

What happened here?
the window lining pulled away – just
an inch, a curve allowing
different airs

to penetrate
the sticky mass, the bulb
heaving with humidity

so all clamour to the splitting
shock grows out from the glass –
the vapour’s fit for breathing

the vapour’s fit for breathing
though fast closed up again:

enthusiasm soon resembles
panic: grassy hysteria gums
and tramples underfoot while

spring passes by outside
as we knew it would.

For the year

Springs

 

Here returns a sky of broken clay pots clamouring
for my attention amid the memories of snow.
Our prayers for a crack in the clouds above answer
me in realisations that all of these are moving south,
and soon you will see them too. A new bird breaks my sight.

 

Summers

 

A pause chased my lip: it seems you
weigh your heat with consequence when
all has bloomed, and starts to dry:

you said something else too: you chose
to remove the sunlight on your tongue, that thing
which formed a family, you pulled us close:

still life streams and we become you:
an image, too: there were once days like this –
our mouths moved and music came:

 

Autumns

 

these feet, bridging

something gone and something not so –

all roots return. The trees do their trick,

pretending to die.

Days to come, unseen,
we get on our knees and curl

before the mists descend
with all their clatter.

 

Winters

 

January slid through her fingers, weeks ago. Soon there was

nothing left of it – they said „it is happen-

-ing to me too” they said „don’t even panic” but

for one; the days are not lengthening, not

springing up sooner. For her; quite

the opposite occurs.

fracture

Your hair changed with the seasons, falling

straight with the scent of ammonia and

the tangles teased each morning in your

pointless set of rituals. Those days

it happened to be red, but never mind –

Spring was on its way.

 

It was days after the operation –

I traced the stitches where I’d kissed,

and began to beg to be let in. You

barely twitched the sheets aside, and

tried your hardest not to move your head

or make any kind of sound.