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Samantha Walton

Samantha Walton has
published three chapbooks: tristanundisolde (Arthur Shilling Press, 2010), City Break Weekend Songs (Critical Documents, 2011) and Amaranth, Unstitched (Punch Press, 2013). She completed a PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2013, specialising in detective fiction, psychology and law, and she now lectures in English Literature at Bath Spa University. During 2013, she co-organised the Syndicate poetry series in Inspace, Edinburgh. 

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be HAPPINESS: now

        i, if you'll let me, have forgotten your name
   helen, mark, steve, your names are the carnivalesque
 prelude to forgiveness,
a forum made of tin foil, modroc & lace for indifference
my attempt to construct a convincing reality out of people
i never really believed in
memory is a patched-up and slumping mattress
a sticky dress you borrowed out of politeness
a digression – when friends are people you wouldn't recognise on tv
because, i never asked you to be my friend
& no one can disappear completely
terror isn't something you can just pop in the sea
    i want to ask my spring greens the story of their lives
riot, now, reproduce, now
    rent a mountain with your last dime
   & dance to the natural rhythms that i show you while i take my photo
         in which soil did your populace grow, little flower?
    whose little mind has my mind conquered?
         be HAPPINESS: now
       be not estranged
           cut up the strangler with your notice
         and slice abuse from the minds of bereaved – make a scarf
           for the eyes of the saturated & laugh off infidelity
         section the solicitors & squat in the bureau of national statistics
           file sighs &
          fold your hands into mine
             we'll change the meaning of unclean
            for my hostility read nostalgia, for bouts of silence read I LOVE YOU
               if i had an identity, it would be in spasms
             with your large voice & your benevolence
                please teach me mindfulness like a bad science.


'be HAPPINESS: now' © Samantha Walton.

Samantha Walton reads her work.
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