Poem By Jenny Dunbar

Poem
  
First
Your words are like lanes of fast traffic 
I am dazzled in the cacophony
pressing hard into my eyes
so move into another room, 
breathe quietly, collect my thoughts, 
the sounds from the radio drag on 
somewhere behind a door.
  
Next
where I am has cool spaces which heal, beginning to banish the incipient irritation, 
although sitting too long aches
and the mood dial always moves inside my head, fickly,
now I smile in every part of me.
  
Later
the hours have passed since we collided
the ballad of noisy displacement repeating itself,
homeless associations let loose about the place
free falling as you speak, 
one is programmed to respond out of politeness, but with the option of silence.
  
So
I realise that kindness heals
somewhat temporarily, 
better than falling for something malignant
eating away 
like it does.
I use patience
eliciting tears in the effort
trying silence to its limits
sensing its grip tightening around my shoulders
then release,
I distract myself from reeling into the frame and burning up
directing my energy towards an unavoidable truth,  
the myth that charm is benign, 
it is deceptive,
cruel, 
over the years encasing its trophy 
in an amber bead. 

Graduating from The Royal Central School in London, Jenny followed a career in the performing arts. Writer, singer and potter she has moved in many worlds always inspired by the juxtapositions in life. She is a published writer of poetry and fiction, her debut novel, Sweet Earth, was published in 2014 followed by her own anthology, Thoughts of Time, in 2016. Jenny’s work has been  included in anthologies and journals over recent years. Currently working on prose poetry, having completed a novel about supernatural ballads, she finds making bread a necessary distraction in these troubled times!