Series Notes Contact Rehearsal Hotel
Series Notes Contact Rehearsal Hotel
60.
SHOUT PLETHORA
Ginny Darke
SHOUT PLETHORA
Ginny Darke
Four poems—
555
Alternative blessings
A basin
& Sailor, sailor.
555
Alternative blessings
A basin
& Sailor, sailor.
* * *
* * *
555
Ash I sunk
a plinth crypt
feral ox elm
sheaf drip
latch alcove
moist lure
err again
fulvous nylon foggy knees
quartz snag toad
ghosts briskly
utmost slip
we plot
and quell
a marrow thing
spins itch plume
whirl net glyph
the mauves clots
blink nymph
balms glint
skies call
Alternative blessings
candles glow
beneath sheets
like fevers
breathing quiet
yesterday went
home forgot
your brain
we danced
a little
bit regret
fell sideways
mouthed songs
wrong not
gently pulling
off names
the water
left in
the glass
overnight tastes
bad because
it got
haunted flames
kept singing
notes burned
down blue
hours gathered
quietly pretending
everything never
happened anyway
some things
ache forever
A basin
Ankles bitten, roiling water, something unamused shifting in the silt. Say sorry. I did, but there was no lifeguard, no priest to pay witness. My oil gush guru once called me a hillock, which was close enough. Though there are worse things to be compared to than a slightly useless rise in the landscape, something you'd bike over and forget. The thing is, they keep those grudges. The pond won’t freeze over in winter anymore. I saw a heron just standing there, bored out of its bird mind just waiting for something, anything to happen.
Sailor, sailor
My reservoir of help has depleted so I am
practising my departure, my silence, stretching
across four empty rooms, undoing
my coordinates slow as a flag, waving.
I imagine myself in the soft betrayal
of a current. I shout plethora and let
the sky try it on for size, watch my shadow face
the wrong way and be unable to blame it.
The lighthouse sees and winks. It is all so deliberate,
the polite sun unzipping our coats. If I were wayward
at sea, maybe I’d find joy in the small declarative
facts of drifting—this is water, this is sky.
Ginny Darke is a Welsh poet based in Bristol, England. She has been shortlisted for the Poetry Wales Award (2025) and was a Foyle Young Poet. Her poetry has been published with The Stinging Fly, Poetry Northern Ireland and Basket Magazine amongst others.
Back to Rehearsal.
Ash I sunk
a plinth crypt
feral ox elm
sheaf drip
latch alcove
moist lure
err again
fulvous nylon foggy knees
quartz snag toad
ghosts briskly
utmost slip
we plot
and quell
a marrow thing
spins itch plume
whirl net glyph
the mauves clots
blink nymph
balms glint
skies call
Alternative blessings
candles glow
beneath sheets
like fevers
breathing quiet
yesterday went
home forgot
your brain
we danced
a little
bit regret
fell sideways
mouthed songs
wrong not
gently pulling
off names
the water
left in
the glass
overnight tastes
bad because
it got
haunted flames
kept singing
notes burned
down blue
hours gathered
quietly pretending
everything never
happened anyway
some things
ache forever
A basin
Ankles bitten, roiling water, something unamused shifting in the silt. Say sorry. I did, but there was no lifeguard, no priest to pay witness. My oil gush guru once called me a hillock, which was close enough. Though there are worse things to be compared to than a slightly useless rise in the landscape, something you'd bike over and forget. The thing is, they keep those grudges. The pond won’t freeze over in winter anymore. I saw a heron just standing there, bored out of its bird mind just waiting for something, anything to happen.
Sailor, sailor
My reservoir of help has depleted so I am
practising my departure, my silence, stretching
across four empty rooms, undoing
my coordinates slow as a flag, waving.
I imagine myself in the soft betrayal
of a current. I shout plethora and let
the sky try it on for size, watch my shadow face
the wrong way and be unable to blame it.
The lighthouse sees and winks. It is all so deliberate,
the polite sun unzipping our coats. If I were wayward
at sea, maybe I’d find joy in the small declarative
facts of drifting—this is water, this is sky.
Ginny Darke is a Welsh poet based in Bristol, England. She has been shortlisted for the Poetry Wales Award (2025) and was a Foyle Young Poet. Her poetry has been published with The Stinging Fly, Poetry Northern Ireland and Basket Magazine amongst others.
Back to Rehearsal.