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    Wayne HOLLOWAY-SMITH



 (A piece of) LOBSTERS



    A SHORT excerpt from
    one LONG poem


Part songbook, part elastic melodrama,
Wayne HOLLOWAY-SMITH’s LOBSTERS
is forthcoming from Makina Books...




Preorder a copy direct from the press here ...

 








three sticks of lipstick

I ate

four buttons

I ate

the smoke
from her red jacket a custard pot
so full of rage it torched
my tiny childhood—a heart beating against the four pillars of the room
from the microwave we had discovered pain
was dielectric and lumpy—tipped into the body
from the outside o lord
did anyone ask for this type of touch





and my body is a group of sudden musicians striking up a tune of longing
they don’t notice our acts as living things becoming objects
the radio is getting hammered now
I am singing myself into dead stuff

I ate

the shadows now the shadows
are retreating imagination is a malady
this is the last time I will write about your leaving:
one life may hide another now she is gone and here I am



 
like Sellotape trying to hold a river in place




I’m sorry we existed like this
you woke up and were suddenly healed
to talk about the original

hunger was impossible

your hair screwed in tight your scalp fixed to the bone
your mind banged down with

all this love

we sourced
our understanding of the world from our own bodies




Wayne HOLLOWAY-SMITH has published two collections of poetry, ALARUM (Bloodaxe, 2017), a Poetry Book Society Wild Card Choice, and LOVE MINUS LOVE (Bloodaxe, 2020), shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. He won the National Poetry Competition in 2018.







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Partner to a press called Tenement, Hotel is a publications series for new approaches to fiction, non fiction & poetry & features work from established & emerging talent. Hotel provides the space for experimental reflection on literature’s status as art & cultural mediator. 




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