Juliet Wilson

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Beach Hut

Warm wood smell
of the sun-bleached floor
scratched by damp sand
under my purple flip-flops.

Milky coffee from a thermos flask.

The sea glimmered
beyond the beach.

My eyes shaded
by the brim
of an oversized sun-hat,

I paddled in the sea
but never learned to swim.
​

A Fist Full of Bees
                            ~for Bob

The bumble bees were furry
like your favourite cat

You caught them one by one
stroked them gently
and held them in your tiny fist.

Their whirring wings
tickled your skin
as they buzzed.

When your mother opened your fist
the bees escaped
and you cried

though you had not been stung. 

Alchemy

In a war zone existence, delimited
by snipers, landmines and hostile troops,
a couple fall in love.

Alchemists, they make a home with
scavenged chairs, a broken table, a second-hand bed
and a sense of humour.

They transcend the ordinary, buoy themselves
against the terrible gravity of war
with the feather lightness of joy.

The pull of vestigial wings between their shoulders
lifts them above their troubled town.

Admired

Strange how deep under her skin he is.
She only knows him through his distant admiration
across darkened dance-floors and concert halls.

His desire waterfalls down her spine,
unnerves her, his heart’s poetry
troubles her through his hungry eyes.

She finds herself looking out for him,
wonders how much she likes to be admired,
how much she’s learning to admire?

Time to leave

When the artist's magical light seems to last all day
.....a warm glow slanting with a chill at its heart 

when rowan berries shine like jewels 
.....and the robin sings its sadder song

when the gold of August fields fades away to brown
.....and green becomes yellow above our heads 

then swallows and martins chatter and flutter
gather in crowds on telephone wires
and wait for the northerly wind to blow them
south—its time to go, they know

Weather Forecasting

When her divorce came through
she spent hours browsing old photos
as if they could tell her secrets.

She stares at one of her and her brothers
playing in the snowy garden
when they were very young.

She and her husband used to laugh at this photo,
at her strange flowery anorak and how
there would never be winters like that again.

Two heavy winters later
she realises we can never know
the future ice and snow.

Influential Poets

At the literary festival
the academic poet greets
like a long lost friend
the young poet whose first collection
is just out.

They talk ‘man to man’
(of course they’re both men)
about poetic vision.
Around them chat other poets,
perhaps not so young or important,
less fashionable or lacking confidence.

But it is one of the overlooked others
who tonight will go home
to write the poem that one day
will change the life of the woman
hiding just now behind the academic
trying to pluck up the courage
to ask for his autograph.

Haiku

double rainbow--
the changing colours
of the cherry tree.
​

Juliet Wilson's Profile

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Selected Haiku

sharing 
another secret -
unfolding buds. 

                    insomnia -
                    the herring gulls laugh 
                    at the early dawn. 

                                    a snake slithers
                                    across the balcony -
                                    sudden thunder.

grey skies -
two crows chase each other
through falling snow

                    high winds -
                    the broken bridge over
                    the river

                                    January winds -
                                    abandoned Christmas trees
                                    litter the streets

Home Town

It seems smaller
now I am taller
(as are the trees).

But really it is bigger -
fields have grown houses
and the one remaining horse
feeds by a pond
beside a motorway.

Suburbs stretch to the sea.

Rain is the Weather of Loss

Grey grief skies cry
on his papers, lying forgotten
in piles I don't think of,
reminders of someone
I won't see again.

I clean grey sad walls
and floors and empty myself
of hope.

This town has a face
now without pity,
endless silk rain
hides simmering hatred
and secrets I dare not
explore.

The Last African Elephant

(Somewhere in Kenya or Zimbabwe, 2033)

She wanders slowly across the plains,
hunched and tired.
It is years since she last saw
others of her kind.
Listless,
she pulls grasses from the wayside.

Suddenly she stops.

She flutters her ears,
moves her trunk
from side to side.

She stands still for minutes.

Then, carefully she walks
towards a pile of bones
almost hidden in the grass.

She picks one up, explores it
with the tip of her trunk.

The savannah shimmers
with a herd of elephants,
lowing quietly.

She lifts her eyes towards
the horizon.

The herd comes closer,
her mother, her children.

She drops the bone
and starts to trot.

A gunshot.

A heavy fall.

Blood pools across the dusty ground.

Haiku

pouring rain -
two labradors fight over
a teddy bear

These Streets Were Fields

Twenty years ago these streets were fields

stretching as far as her eyes could see

down to the beach.

She hangs her washing on a patch of grass

where once she lay in meadow flowers,

watching birds fly past.

Her sons play football on a concrete road
built on fields where her brothers played
when they were young.

She knows bulldozers have returned

to dig up the field behind the school

and make another street.

But if she half closes her eyes and sits without moving

she can still hear birds and grasshoppers

alive in the ghostly fields.

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