Liam Bates Surreal-Absurd Sampler
“My interest in the surreal and absurd predates my interest in poetry. We almost all have dreams, I guess, but not everybody wants to hear about them. I have always wanted to hear about them, to have a poke around in someone's selfhood, beyond those pesky impositions like veracity and linear time. That predilection was nourished by my childhood diet: Terry Pratchett, video games, cartoons, along with inherited fascinations like Ian Dury and Vic and Bob. The objects of focus might've shifted over the years but that bananas mode of thought is still where I'm most fruitful. Poems, like dreams and jokes, allow space for this process of subversion and surprise, whereas if I took a surreal-absurd approach to answering queries about Harvard-style referencing, I might exacerbate the confusion of several university students and cast my continued employment in student support into serious doubt.”—Liam Bates
Posture and Grip
Shortly after my decapitation, I got this job
at Threadbare Removals Limited.
The duties are straightforward. I happen
to have a knack for squeezing through
narrow gaps. The head removal guy says
it’s as if I lose my air like a lung
collapsed by an arrow, so I help
in loading the van. I can’t drive
without incident, so I ride in the centre seat
as the skinniest, and team’s most junior member.
At the other end, I do the same
in reverse. Beneath my black polo that’s branded
with the company logo, I’ve taken to wearing a brace
for my back. Lifting with the legs. Each booking
fits neatly in a slot; bleeding over
costs double for the extra.
It’s a job. When I’m off
for too long and it’s quiet, I find myself
pacing the apartment, carrying a desk.
It belongs pushed back into the corner.
It’s better under the window overlooking
the street. Or maybe in the centre
of the room like a hearth in a medieval mud hut.
I disregard the basics of manual handling
and tear through my stitches.
A Decade of Grazing
My tutor said I showed real promise
walking on all fours
and snipping clumps of grass,
teeth acquainted with grinding, but
I only joined a few classes
before e-mailing sincere
apologies. The excuses
got lazy: the dog ate my alarm clock,
a warlock put a curse on me,
it’s honestly my shadow
who you’re after.
Until I stopped bothering entirely.
Periodically, I’ll find an ex-classmate online
and nose through their feed.
A lot of them are doing well,
especially George,
who is a piebald horse now.
Click-clacking through pictures.
Him in a field.
Him walking down a dirt track,
trees in pink blossom either side.
Him in a stable.
On Their Radar
When heavy wind is forecast, I slink outside
when the neighbourhood is sleeping.
Nobody sees me tipping bins and throwing
litter into hedges. Nobody sees me
pruning phone lines with secateurs,~
although come morning they’ll notice
the light on their router’s gone orange
and maybe their day’s improved. Me
vaulting their side gate,
kicking down a fence panel,
capsizing the trampoline, the table
reimagined as koi pond white plastic ornament.
It’s not the recognition, it’s the effort
that’s important, hence the town meeting
when the mayor infers we have strayed
and incurred the disapproval of the gods,
a sacrifice may be in order,
would anyone volunteer themselves
to begin making amends
for our transgressions, I nod along
but I do not step forward.
Self-Care
On your advice, I drew myself
a steaming bath with scented oils
and lay down in the water
like lentils soaking overnight.
It helped with the ache.
I felt my torso untighten.
Under bubbles though for so long,
when I resurfaced and wrapped
in a towel, it was clear I’d washed
the opacity from my skin.
It spiralled away with the water.
Now I cast a cellophane-pink shadow.
In a well-lit room or bright weather
the curl of my internal organs
becomes apparent, pulsating
for anyone to see.
I’ve started sleeping in a woolly hat,
pulling it down past my eyebrows.
I don’t want you to know
the banality of my dreams.
Compulsions
In the waste ground over the back, that family
of hypnotherapists who moved in, how lovely
to swap our sightings round the breakfast bar—
I saw them pruning hedges, removing
chickweed, dock, you saw them unclick a footlocker,
their pocket watches, metronomes, all lunchtime
watched them placing uniforms on hangers,
semiformal but loose fits, calm earth tones, wire spectacles
down the bridge of their noses, constructing
their nests from green branches and saliva, the Fibonacci
spirals of the framework. In autumn gold, a bouquet
of sparkles bloomed on the chain link fence
and the room had gone dark without me clocking till you
said, Don’t you want this lamp on? Yes, and I’ve quit smoking.
Liam Bates is a poet originally from the Black Country, now living in Lancaster. His poems have appeared variously in publications including Ambit, Abridged and Anthropocene and were commended or shortlisted in competitions by Magma, Bridport Prize, Creative Future and Wolverhampton Literature Festival.
His first two pamphlets are available from Broken Sleep Books, winner of the Michael Marks Publishing Award 2020, and his full-length debut, Human Townsperson, completed with funding from Arts Council England, is also now available from Broken Sleep Books.
