A poet's thoughts are always busier than their pen
J. Pennington-Twist
MY WORK
“Writing poetry is about capturing the very essence of something. Exceptional poetry should ache with beauty and give life to something in a way that nothing else could.”
Certain Things
(Coverstory books – Second Prize)
When you go,
What will it be like?
Who will pull
The bee sting out
And cut the doweling
To a perfect length?
Will I find the necessary papers
And will I know what to do
With your shoes,
Your drill bits
And your (unfinished) puzzle book?
When you go,
What will it be like?
Will you depart,
In the carriage
Of a perfect English Summer afternoon,
Or will the air
Be cool and distant,
Like you yourself
Could sometimes be?
Like I myself
Can often be.
What will it be like,
When all the things you’ve ever said
And could’ve said
Are taken with you like tattoos?
When I must let you go
And turn to a reflection,
That I doubt
I’ve ever truly seen.
J.Pennington-Twist
Pica Pica
(Ironbridge Poetry Festival – Shortlisted)
I see in you,
A bloom eternal,
Life’s reaching hand
In flighted form.
The young are fed
As young should be,
Come fish bone cloud
Or leaden storm.
I see in you,
This pale new day,
Sweet sonnet sung
In cackled rhyme.
As privy to
This courtship waltz,
I care not
For the sands of time.
I see in you,
A manumission,
My foolish manner
Laid full bare.
In iridescent monochrome
Are born these notions pure of tone.
My tutor
Winged and yellow eyed,
Her grace
A gently turning tide.
Strange days
Have tested blood and bone,
I’ve lived each one,
But not alone.
J.Pennington-Twist
The Great Exhale
(National Poetry Library – Highly Commended)
The sound came,
Whilst the world was busy
Wrapping things in plastic.
Pylons and cattle,
Bending and vibrating
Where they stood.
To come, was a billion light years
Of hollow fall,
So slow and massive and tar like,
That each and every gaping phoneme
Spanned a deafened generation.
The sound came,
As heavy as everything.
Breathless and perpetual,
A living ache,
Causing flesh to sag
And minds to fail.
It had announced itself,
As some unimaginable chord,
So ominous and hellish in its dissonance,
That holy men pressed cloth
Into their bleeding ears in fright.
It was an unceasing drone,
The key of ‘A’,
A tinnitus ring by comparison.
Unstoppable, in absolute black.
Relentless, omnipotent.
How magnets sound inside.
Time itself was drowned out.
The universal lung,
Sick and dizzy with expansion
Had begun the great exhale.
J.Pennington-Twist
If you'd like a bespoke poem, do GET IN TOUCH and we can get started.