The Urbanista Writer’s Ledger (TUWL) is back with our first piece of writing for 2019. TUWL is a creative writing series that publishes original pieces from some of Liverpool’s most talented writers. All submissions have be original works and must not have been published anywhere else. If you have a piece of writing that you’d like to submit then contact us here.
This week, we have a poem from writer, Bev Clark entitled ‘Weeds’; a delicate mediation on vulnerability, resilience, survival and the struggle of reconciling oneself to a difficult and uncomfortable past. If you would like to know more about Bev’s work you can contact her via twitter here. In addition, if you would like to read more of Bev’s poetry then you can find her collections here.
WEEDS
The weeds in my garden
stand ten inches high.
They crept up on me
between a very dry July
and a wet, August Bank Holiday.
Seeping their little heads
through pavement cracks;
strangulating my bedding plants.
Deep down,
in the dark soil of my memory,
I planted those seeds:
festering deeds
I never believed
would show their ugly heads.
I spray the garden
with “biological” poison
which, they say, will eradicate in time
but scrawny little memories
with jagged little prickles
keep scratching at the surface of my mind.
I thought, if I filled my garden
with beautiful, showy flowers,
there’d be no room for doubt, or fear or shame
but the stems are so imbedded
in the past, and so deep-rooted,
their tangled leaves are racing through my veins
and the poison is choking up my brain.
Not everything that grows is beautiful:
Sometimes the ugly stand tall, strong, proud:
shouting their audacious name out loud.
I can only cower
in the shadow of their hideous honesty.
I should have been more diligent cutting down;
in pulling up their roots and hoeing out
each trace of fibre in the soil.
I should have paid attention to the past.
Instead, I let the sunshine do its worst
feed my fear and shame
then the summer rain refreshed my guilt.
In its dishonest name,
leaving the crumbling earth the blame,
uncovered those hidden secrets
I buried long ago
and so…
between a very dry July
and August rain,
my weeds sprout up
once again.
