Not the razor nor the stars –
never the stars. Your proximity
should be a window but not
as wondrous as a very red apple.
Never torches
beneath the porous night roof.
But food for the little one’s unicorn.
But the lazy sighs of emergency mushrooms.
Goodbyes should be sweet storms.
Start learning in the school of night and quiet.
Never sleep in the same bed twice. Remember:
Sadness does not make for a good ladder.
Laura Theis is the author of the acclaimed poetry collection 'how to extricate yourself' (Dempsey&Windle). She grew up in Germany, relocated to the UK where she writes poems, stories and songs in her second language; and has an MSt (Distinction) in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford. Her work has been published in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Canada and the U.S. An AM Heath Prize recipient, she has also won the Brian Dempsey Memorial Pamphlet Prize, the Hammond House International Literary Award for Poetry, and the 2020 Mogford Short Story Prize and was a finalist in over twenty other international poetry and fiction competitions including the Poetry International Prize. The poems in her debut collection have been highly commended in both the Acumen Poetry Prize and the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize, and were shortlisted for the Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize as well as three consecutive Live Canon International Poetry Awards. Laura’s work has also been widely anthologised and appears in a variety of literary journals from Strange Horizons to Mslexia.
Latest posts by Laura Theis (see all)
- Packing advice for the one who is leaving - 18th February 2022
- Name Change - 14th November 2021
- the silent sea - 2nd August 2021