The London Magazine June / July 2007
Second Light Newsletter. July 2007
Acumen Literary Journal, September 2007
Orbis - Quarterly International Literary Journal
Envoi
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About the Author
forms of writing. After an English degree she became a newspaper reporter,
moving to BBC TV as a documentary writer/ producer / director.
She is now Head of the Media Department at Middlesex University, London,
England and teaches on the successful Creative and Media Writing degree.
She has a PhD in creative writing from Cardiff University. She lives in
north London with her husband and two daughters.
Maggie's poetry is widely published in magazines. Her pamphlet Quintana Roo
was published by Acumen Publications in 2003.
Excerpted from Lipstick by Maggie Butt. Copyright © 2007. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
In war time women turn to red
swivel-up scarlet and carmine
not in solidarity with spilt blood
but as a badge of beating hearts.
This crimson is the shade of poets
silenced for speaking against torture,
this vermillion is art
surviving solitary confinement,
this cerise defies the falling bombs
the snipers taking aim at bread-queues,
this ruby's the resilience of girls
who tango in the pale-lipped face of death.
ON MY 85TH BIRTHDAY
For breakfast there will be chocolate,
heaped and glossy like a race-horse,
sweating with saturated fat.
And I will devour it,
cramming in the melting mouthfuls
coating my fingers and my face.
In the morning I'll ride a motorbike
black leathers and no helmet
white hair streaming loose, a challenge.
For lunch there will be crispy bacon
in white bread, with butter,
mouthwatering aroma of defiance.
After my nap in the bed-shop window;
I will invite my doctor in for scones,
and lick thick clotted cream along the knife.
And in the sunset
I will ascend to heaven in a glider
singing in the eerie silence.
The next day I'll dance barefoot in the rain
or take up smoking (inhaling deeply)
or sub-aqua diving,
or run with scissors
if I choose
LOVE SEEPS IN
Love seeps in and fills me up
as water overruns a sinking ship,
snaking down corridors
coating them with silver,
bubbling through cracks and crevices
thundering up staircases,
claiming everything.
