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Susan Jordan

Picture
Susan Jordan 
Susan Jordan moved to Devon in 2011, having lived in London for the greater part of her life. She is glad to have escaped from the city and loves being near to Dartmoor and the sea. She read English at Oxford, has an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and has always written both poetry and prose. Before joining Jo Bell's online poetry group '52' in 2014 she saw herself mainly as a prose writer, but since then poetry has played a greater part in her writing life. She has had poems published in a number of magazines and anthologies and is an active member of Moor Poets, as well as a regular attender at Poetry Teignmouth. Her first collection of poems, A House of Empty Rooms, was published by Indigo Dreams in 2017 and her second collection, I never think dark will come, will be published by Oversteps Books in 2021. 

​

Words

sometimes       they   spread          like         cobwebs
      over gardens        grown lush      with looking
            imprisoning     leaf      and colour
                                                    in their    sticky
                                                                         net
 
sometimes
            they land        in pairs               on the table    
                                    as you  eat      your breakfast
R-number                   hand sanitiser
            excess deaths                                      two metres
 
 
sometimes        they go                      missing   
            just when        you  need them                     
           most
to stop
           the world
                     slipping          
                                away
           or to say      I don’t believe this
 
 
sometimes      you find them                spinning
            grey threads                from your       mouth
to a head         and shoulders
            flattened          on a pixellated            screen
 
 
sometimes      you can remember
                        the different taste      they had
            before    you had to  
                                    speak them
                                                     from
                                                             behind
                                                                      a mask



Resurrection
 
No one has explained
how ashes become bird
how the egg of flame
feathers molten bone
how fire solidifies
into beak and talons
how a dazzle of sparks
alights as arched wings
how flight dares upward
from the last lost ember.

​
‘A fin in a waste of waters’  
– Virginia Woolf on beginning to write The Waves
 
look
a whole book
empty for you to write your thoughts in
what a dare   a shark’s fin
slicing through crinkled water that
 
laps
and then slaps
against you     you keep diving to find
those places in your mind
where writing will surface again
 
wait
not too late
to dive once more for the hoard you missed
the long-ago drowned kist
where memories lie half-open
 
pull
a handful
from the inside    gently guide them up
soon they will flower    cup
each one in your hand   let it speak
 
know
how their slow
unfolding brings you closer to words
to voices not yet heard
take your pen     go after the fin


​My House
 After Denise Levertov
 
She’s someone who keeps her eyes open.
Sometimes she forgets to shade them
but she guards her modesty.
 
She welcomes you in but lets you know
the way to her heart is narrow
and not easy to find.
 
She likes to dress tastefully
but maybe overdoes the jewellery.
She doesn’t shy away from colour.
 
Her grooming leaves much to be desired
but you can’t help admiring her chutzpah
in showing herself as she is.
 
She’s someone you could settle down and talk to,
a good sort, a shoulder to cry on,
an ample bosom, a strong pair of arms.