Not too too bad... Lee Wilson

Lee Wilson back from a stint 'incognito' has just published a debut book of poetry: You've got an eyelash.



Recently reviewed in Ambit.

From Lee:

"Here's a couple of poems that haven't been in other magazines for
your 'how yah doon' suggestion. You could put a link to my bit of
myspace - www.myspace.com/youvegotaneyelash - and possibly even
mention, if you like, that an ebooklet of extracts from my book is
available by sending a blank email with 'send sampler' (without the
quote marks) to wilson at eyelash06 at orangehome dot co dot uk"

"Though a few of these poems are from my book, there is one that's
not and a new one that only has a working title of 'Jenny' so if you
use this let me know and I'll try and think what the real title is.
(I've always wanted to be a slacker but could never sufficiently get
my shit together for that heady world.)"

Possibly see you Tuesday, then,
Lee.

*********************************************

Fist and grasp

by Lee Wilson

There was once here a single bookshelf
where stood red, leather-bound pleas for Empire
my dad spent Sundays driving to amass.
He worked through them nightly; I felt
a peripheral but certain respect
as I turned in sync the pages
of Doctor Strange, or Aquaman.

Did someone die to force those sales –
or was it some familiar thing
my dad’s life, now, is shedding, at sixty-one?
I imagine a string of andropausal types
holding their tongues for an easy twenty,
leaving their pitch at a need for space,
when the truth is they’d found some.

Sublimation, like God, works in mysterious ways.
My teens I spent drawing muscles
I’d never have. Steve Rogers
was skinny too, before that injection.
If my dad knew he fought the Nazis
like me he never said.
Lacking a dialogue, you find your monologue.

The line is broken now
between the deed and the word;
between fist and grasp. My neurons
are marching up to Belson;
cutting the barbed wire. Those part-works
are boxed up in the attic.
No, sometimes an attic is just a cigar.

(Ed Note: David Kessell also has a new book of poetry out with Survivors.
You can hear his words here.