Tessa Berring Surreal-Absurd Sampler
'Real does not know' (Anna Mendelssohn)
In a sense maybe all poetry is absurd? Or at least, all poetry is artifice. When younger this was a disappointment. (a poem isn't real?!) But later the realisation that the artful space of poetry reveals a freedom. A poem is where language can escape, can be unbound from a single behaviour or fixed ideas of knowing. A poem can be the making/expression of deep felt alternative worlds.
— Tessa Berring
Flight
Is the god dead? I don't know
Are you young? Very young
Lemons turn soft
in the microwave
Lemons from the trees
where all the swallows
Poem About Love
which began as a poem
in quick time
using only the words
tender and slip-knot
It then changed to this
by which I mean
the poem vanished
and there were no words
and it wasn't at all easy
Swallow Your Clothes Whole
I'll leave you the swear words
in an envelope on the top step
Yes! They are for you, whispered by me
The barely audible 'fucks'
that no-one heard, or the bird heard
(The pavement stole my heart)
Who likes who? (ask the asymmetric mice)
Don't care. Don't be nice.
Fluffed up pillows for a lie down
(fake feathers for your moneys worth)
A day like this is hard to come by -
(bones, longing, scent of another dusk)
There are places we must go to
Pink chairs in inquisitive corners
A neglect of certain plants
that might still flower
Difference
(i)
Difference is
When did it last rain?
(I'm not insinuating anything)
Viewpoints arrive in the wrong language
I NEVER GET LONESOME!
Sometimes
(ii)
The silence of puckered lips
(I rub nothing out, and I find nothing)
It lies in collecting records
broken as sunflowers and nickel ash trays
More foam than crumb is a lake thing
Deep in a hollow
It Is Time To Re-learn The Art Of Writing Long Sentences
Tell me about your head
of hair
your perfect dress
that fits you like a trap
or like a glove
around your torso
(Stop photographing cherry stones!)
Someone somewhere told a joke
about five penises
and a glove
and everyone groaned
(yes, they groaned)
Why write when there is no time
and much despair?
Why despair when my hair
smells of fingers
and the shallow depths
of woodland soil
where mushrooms grow?
PLAYING HOUSE
I'd like a golden apple
or a red one, or I'll cry
(This room is so tiny
when covered in snow)
Did you hear about the woman
who bound her face
in hot spun sugar
as a protest against everything?
We could do things too
like breathing in, then out
Oh my God, oh my God
you'd really love that, wouldn't you?
Tessa Berring lives in Edinburgh. She is the author of Bitten Hair and Folded Purse (Blue Diode Press) Putty (If A Leaf Falls Press) and Cut Glass and No Flowers (Dancing Girl Press) She also works in visual art, translation, and collaboration.
The six poems are taken from Bitten Hair and Folded Purse apart from 'Swallow Your Clothes Whole' which was published by Callie Gardner in Issue 15 of Zarf magazine.
