Anna Saunders Featured Poet

Silks
If she could only forget
the way he slithered
belly down, rippling
as if the earth were using him
for an accordion.

If she could see him instead
as a thing to inspire silks.

He claims he hasn’t always worn
this viscous shell.
Suckled on soil
or cowered lowly.

He said all she need do is stroke him
and he will rise.

He flicks chiffon to peak and plummet.
Beats the air
with pearl-speckled gauze.
Twists sheets into a sheath
enfolds them.

When she sleeps she dreams of pupae.
Embryos of men
breaking membranes to birth limbs
thoraxes twitching
with unfurled wings.

She wakes foetal-trussed
fingers spored with a bloom.

Sees a collapsed silk shell.
His pearlescent signature scribbled
from wall to door.

 

Where are the ghosts when you want them?

The girl in the Shock Flick
startles when she hears
the groan of a ghost
dragging a stump
down the parquet floor.

Recoils, foetal
when she realises it is her cousin,
the one who bought it
when her brakes failed.

She doesn’t want her back
not like this, not as a bruise
on the air, a thickening
of the atmosphere.

Not see-through
a dirty pearl chiffon
drifting over furniture
like a wind-blown blouse.

Some of us welcome the weightless.
Sit up all night
waiting for a door to dance.

Ears primed
for sounds of shuffling.
Eyes alert for the sight of grey.

 

Anna Saunders is Executive Director, and founder, of Cheltenham Poetry Festival and also works as a teacher and writing mentor. Anna is the author of Communion (Wild Conversations Press) which was praised for its ‘lush imagery and music’ by Nigel McLoughlin and Struck ( Pindrop Press ).

 

Anna has been described as a ‘poet of quite remarkable gifts’ by Bernard @’Donoghue and Struck has described as ‘a very fine, beautifully sustained collection by a gifted poet whose work is unfolding in remarkable directions’ by Nick Drake.

Anna’s work has been published in journals and anthologies which include Ambit, The North and Amaryllis and is due to be published in Iota and Envoi. She has recently completed a Masters in Creative and Critical Writing at The University of Gloucestershire.