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Two poems from sing & hide

Cai Draper

An extract from Cai Draper’s new pamphlet, sing & hide, published by Bad Betty Press in November 2022.

 

Single Form

after Barbara Hepworth

 

The sculpture is of me. A monolith

born of London turf. Blue, green,

dun gold teetering. And this curiosity –

its main feature is a perfect circular

space, a lack where

metal was. The words I’ve flung

through there: fear, shame, rage

shaped in the rank expression

of language to take flight.

If you know the secret to why we sing

and hide our faces, I am listening.

 

 

1800pt

after Fiona Banner

 

It’s hard to believe

they are, in fact, without

language. A full stop

(I didn’t know what that was

exactly): a pause or end

a breath in between. The people

might be the letters. Becoming real.

Solidifying. Like a sentence

from which the words have been removed, these

things have just popped out from fiction.

They made my father realise

how beautiful the trees are.

 

 

‘Single Form’ was previously published by in the Poet’s Directory. ‘1800pt’ was previously published in Unlost Journal.

 

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