Laura McKee

Housewarming

Come to my house. It is empty –
a prison for sounds.

You can mark it with your footsteps,
you can echo in its corners,

there will be time, later, for words.
Before the furniture comes

we can eat pizza from the box
and test out the airbed.

Together, we’ll make a ghost.
Come in person

or in an envelope.
The rules for shoes are as you please

and coats go anywhere
but not yet. Come through here,

share with me this little square of sun,
say how it will be perfect

when I have done
this or that thing which I never will do.

Walk down the hill. Buy macaroons
and a four pint carry-out,

watch clips on my phone.
Just come. Come to my house.

It demands, selfishly,
to be filled

ashamed of its scuffed bones
ashamed of its honest age.

Do not wait. Come while you…

After an amazing number of submissions, we are delighted to announce the following three poets for Against the Grain’s 2018 list. Many thanks to all the poets who supported us with their submissions and best wishes.

Sarah James – How to Grow Matches

S. A. Leavesley/Sarah James is a poet, fiction writer, journalist and editor, fitting words around life and life around words. Overton Poetry Prize winner 2015, she is author of four poetry collections, two pamphlets, a touring poetry-play and a novella. Her poetry has been published by the Financial Times, the Guardian, The Forward Book of Poetry 2016, on Worcestershire buses and in the Blackpool Illuminations. Her website is at www.sarah-james.co.uk.

Sean Magnus Martin – Flood-Junk

Sean Magnus Martin is a poet from the Lake District. He won the 2015 Battered Moons poetry competition and was shortlisted in the 2015 Outspoken poetry prize. He was also…

for John
i.m. John Mackie 

I’d had fantasy relatives before of course
Lily Langtry my distant LeBreton granny
Cary Grant my uncle Archie Leach
then you came along
you called me cousin then cuz
because of the Mackie McKee thing
and it stuck
though you felt more like an uncle
in reality a Facebook poetry friend
we only ever spoke through the ether
the cradling of a phone
the pressing of silent letters
we only ever touched on the day to day
the name of the latest passing
hurricane or star
we only found time
to argue about Bowie
you knew more about him than me
and more about Sorley MacLean
who was your actual uncle
you remembered sitting on his knee
and the smell of damp tweed
now I feel a need to find you
not necessarily to sit on your knee
but certainly to give you a hug

((how things work))

I remember you explaining
about centrifugal force
when we saw Elvis on his motorbike
going round and round The Wall of Death
in Roustabout
his quiff still intact.

You asked me if I understood
and I said, “Oh yeah,
but I don’t really believe in it”.
Which made you laugh
and we were always each other’s
best comedy audience.

Near the end you broke your pelvis
and when you were no longer at home to gravity
I leant back against the wall
and felt the ground disappear
trying to believe in something invisible
holding me tight.

((how things work)) was first published in Aireings, Winter, 2009

………….

Laura McKee lives in Kent. She first started writing poems in 2009, inside her head, while pushing her fourth child in the pushchair, to and from playgroup. Aireings magazine was the first to publish her work, including this poem about…