Put the kettle on, find a comfy chair and put your feet up. Here are some Sweet Words from poet Gaia Holmes to enjoy.


Photo credit: deanjenkins from morguefile.com

I'D LIKE TO LIVE IN A FRENCH FILM

where the thin tea-brown light
paints me wise and beautiful
and the sound of my neighbour
playing Elgar on his violin
seeps through the walls
and makes
a stinging soundtrack
to my life.
Nothing will be bland:
you will be addicted
to my skin,
you will smoke
stumpy Gauloise cigarettes,
fill your car
with lust and violet clouds
as you drive through storms
dodging
monstrous wind-fall trees
and crashed telegraph poles
just to get to me,
just to plant little kisses
like forget-me-nots
at the top of my thighs.
And in the morning,
every morning
the wet streets will shine
like pewter,
the world will sound
like Paris and rain.
The air will smell
of hot sugar,
swollen dough
and carousels.

Reproduced with kind permission from Dr James Graham's Celestial Bed by Gaia Holmes (Published by Comma) RRP £7.95. You can purchase a copy here.


Gaia Holmes is a Luddenden-born poet whose work digs beneath the surface of mundane, urban life to reveal a remarkable seam of exoticism. Her carnival of characters - bingo callers, burger sellers, critical theorists - are all cast from the least expected places but, rejuvenated by Gaia's verse, find a new voice and a new ability to captivate. Gaia is a graduate of Huddersfield University’s English with Creative Writing BA, and has previously made a living as a busker, a lollypop lady and poet in residence at Bradford Libraries. Her poetry has appeared in Brando's Hat, Dreamcatcher, Mslexia, Pennine Platform, The Slab, Staple and The Yellow Crane as well as in two anthologies: Taste (ClanU) and You Can't Make a Hamlet Without Breaking Some Heads (Bluetouch).