Poetry | My life as an artist


I lost sleep last night—so tired my head is a potato. My life was always art, but work made it dirt.

Is life always dirt? I lost my night working potatoes. A tired head, but my last sleep was art.

My part is in. A new bearing from which thick plants bud. Much depression arises from the underground.

I’m chasing versions of me through alleyways in search of a thought. A furtive heart. A tuber in the dark.

My, so much potato. But I made it art last night. Is life always tired? Night is lost sleep. My head-work was dirt.

My depression is a much-thickened underground part bearing buds from which new plants arise.

Lost my work last night, my life was dirt. My head is but a tired potato. Sleep is a lost art.

Which plants bear the buds from the underground? My depression is thick.

Growth is spoiled. And what of labour? I don’t do work—I hold the hands. Help in my harvest. It’s my soil. Me, I know what I am on to. Please.

A dark thought in a tuber: I am in an alleyway chasing furtive versions of my heart. Search through me.

Hold on—don’t harvest my labour! I help the growth of the soil and I know it’s working. I am the spoils. Please me. My hands know what to do.

I am chasing versions of me in dark alleyways in search of a furtive thought. A tuber for a heart.

I am working on my growth, its harvest, my hands in the soil. Please, help me. I hold the spoils of my labour, and I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do,
I don’t know what to do, and I don’t know how to live with it.

 

Holly Isemonger

Holly has been published in Cordite, Shabby Doll House and Voiceworks. She is the author of the chapbook Hip Shifts (If A Leaf Falls Press) and Deluxe Paperweight(Stale Objects dePress) . She can be found at hisemonger.tumblr.com and tweets @hisemonger.

More by Holly Isemonger ›

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