Poem
Caroline Bird
Thoughts Inside A Head Inside A Kennel Inside A Church
Thoughts Inside A Head Inside A Kennel Inside A Church
Thoughts Inside A Head Inside A Kennel Inside A Church
I had become increasingly suspicious of those around meespecially after an attempt was made to kidnap me
and two masked soldiers raided my house while I hid
in the grandfather clock. People noticed my language
was no longer that of the peacemaker of Europe. I’d become
addicted to my paramours story, I had specialist books out:
What My Paramour Thinks About So-called Liberal Reforms,
The Ninety-nine Sleeping Positions of My Paramour (with diagrams)
and Instructions My Paramour Feels Your Dog Would Obey.
I couldn’t smoke a cigarette without apologising to the walls.
So my friend set me up with sandwiches, a flask of sugary tea
and helped me build the kennel: “There is nothing more relaxed,
more tranquil, than to live alone in a kennel in a church.”
I had no more kidnapping scares or menacing phone calls.
No unmarked jeeps waiting in the street for me. I didn’t receive
a Valentine’s card saying “No one likes you, love from everyone.”
Although, I couldn’t stand up straight due to the low kennel roof
and living in a church was like living inside a lull in the wind.
I wondered why my friend had been quite so insistent
about fitting the car-clamp onto my left thigh, I’d run out of toffees
and what with no TV, no travel Scrabble, no rowing machine,
there was literally nothing to do but pray.
© 2011, Caroline Bird
Published with kind permission of the author.
Caroline Bird
(England, 1986)
Caroline Bird was born in Leeds in 1986, grew up in London, and is currently studying English Literature at Oxford University. She has published three collections with Carcanet: Looking Through Letterboxes (2002), Trouble Came To The Turnip (2006) and Watering Can (2009). Watering Can was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and she is the only writer to have been shortlisted for the Dylan Tho...
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Poems of Caroline Bird
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Thoughts Inside A Head Inside A Kennel Inside A Church
I had become increasingly suspicious of those around meespecially after an attempt was made to kidnap me
and two masked soldiers raided my house while I hid
in the grandfather clock. People noticed my language
was no longer that of the peacemaker of Europe. I’d become
addicted to my paramours story, I had specialist books out:
What My Paramour Thinks About So-called Liberal Reforms,
The Ninety-nine Sleeping Positions of My Paramour (with diagrams)
and Instructions My Paramour Feels Your Dog Would Obey.
I couldn’t smoke a cigarette without apologising to the walls.
So my friend set me up with sandwiches, a flask of sugary tea
and helped me build the kennel: “There is nothing more relaxed,
more tranquil, than to live alone in a kennel in a church.”
I had no more kidnapping scares or menacing phone calls.
No unmarked jeeps waiting in the street for me. I didn’t receive
a Valentine’s card saying “No one likes you, love from everyone.”
Although, I couldn’t stand up straight due to the low kennel roof
and living in a church was like living inside a lull in the wind.
I wondered why my friend had been quite so insistent
about fitting the car-clamp onto my left thigh, I’d run out of toffees
and what with no TV, no travel Scrabble, no rowing machine,
there was literally nothing to do but pray.
Thoughts Inside A Head Inside A Kennel Inside A Church
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