Tessa Berring

helpful phrases

Mouth

I'm thrilled about eating the stew.
Really I am!
And of course you deserve prizes,
lots and lots of prizes
(medals, cups, plates) all the time.

Absorbent 

A photograph is a fast food counter.
I don't care what you think, 
but we could always go out for a meal 
or buy in some biscuits. 
Did someone say my party 
was the most beautiful party? 
The weather is blue, grey, milk, 
blue, grey, milk. 
I'm down in the garden with the hellebores 
and somebody else.

Too Much 

Love is a frying pan. 
It sizzles 
like the cafe which closed
because no-body wanted to eat. 
Peep, Peep, Peep!  
Can you hear the coal tit?  
This damp foam mattress is enormous.

Wipe 

We could each go undercover 
and forget who we are. 
Is the hospital on the top shelf, 
precisely where we can't reach it? 
This is how I write poetry now 
full of misgivings and no wildlife. 
Let's watch the sun sink behind a hillside
leaving smears.

Spring 

So which came first the map or the place?
Or was it always the egg? 
Some things are quite ordinary 
like my ordinary high pitched voice. 
It isn't my fault that I don't want to lick you, 
that cold uncovered salami attracts flies.

Tessa Berring's collection 'Bitten Hair' was published by Blue Diode Press in 2019. She is also 1/12 of the Tapsalteerie Press anthology, Makar/UnMakar: 12 Contemporary Poets in Scotland. Further work can be found via Pamenar Press, Dancing Girl Press, Stand Magazine, and Tenebrae Journal.