Helen Pletts
Cirkus by Helen Pletts
I can’t understand the clown
but the red looks beautiful -
gold braid bitten into the fibres.
The lion tamers
(ticket collectors on Sundays)
have fallen under the gymnast’s cloak
of sand dust.
I swear she kicked them as she left the ring
—their tongues pawing at her tights.
But she is the one snarling
at the broom boys
who left grit on the star;
sharp under her toes.
Side splits in the silk
part like a ripe red mouth
and the red swallows hard.
The drip of silver and turquoise,
the strip of air
lashes over the heads
of six black Russian stallions
and the smell of horse
straw-smart and welcome,
brings the rush of animal.
A camel dances the token Sahara waltz -
her face a tea-sipping marchioness.
Fur dewlaps a-ruffling
she bows out like the horses.
And the faith of the straight-backed boy in blue
graces a stack of white wooden chairs
(no net).
Bottle Bank by Helen Pletts
A lean-trousered scrabble;
pressed aside the green-breast-curve, toe-tipped
arched form a-gape-reaching,
visage-crimson-cold.
A jagged white slit creases the cheek;
and the human bright-blue-eye echoes
love lost, the pricelessness of heart
scattered, like the glass shards
you hopelessly filter. Your stick twists
but it won’t stretch, nor grasp without prehensile
tendency, the bottle’s neck.
Shark by Helen Pletts
The first time I saw you,
you were in the supermarket;
quiet, lifeless; icy slices.
I came easily close to you that day,
eyeing you through the glassy freezer top.
The second time I saw you,
you accidentally moved closer to me
like a startling, silver dart;
your steady, black-tipped flight,
surface breaking
between the lapping, phosphorescent foam
and my legs;
standing
in the Indian Ocean.
July 2007
The restless Owl-boy studies Venus by Helen Pletts
What do you see owl-boy, stirring
the feathered dark around you ?
Your hollow head, plane on the pillow,
rattling with unbecoming dice-thoughts
beside me. I see your lashes blink
their sleepless histories. The wishing star
warms to your company, her cold
knuckle bends in your favour. Breaks
empty beds half open like walnuts--
you creep from one shell to another.
Settle on a rib that tilts you skywards
and you’re out into the dark again
sunlight shattering the tiny ice hairs by Helen Pletts
the grass holds the curves of silver hair
and we are the shimmer of curving blades melting.
Close and fine as green weaving silver and the steam rising
from hot tea, white bursting in a exhaled breath of coldness;
curling white smoke held in the air as briefly as us
3rd March 2025
sky-blue in blue circuitry by Helen Pletts
electrifying and extending the blue canopy.
Sunlight facing into spring blue as we disappear,
for even the paper white petals are louder in blue
than we are; blue wavering on white edges,
blue light continually combusting around us
20th March 2025
and this mountainous angle is forged granite;
a grinding point reaching to the stars. And darkness
stretches the peak into the falling dark above the door.
And to get there I am two heavy feet striding here in lamplight,
and your two feet are planted elsewhere on the equal earth
17th March 2025
silver is the light in rain by Helen Pletts
the falling patterns in a steady beat
silver is rhythmical, a steady climbing spatter;
noisier when each flat leaf repeats the song
until silver is a flailing storm of stones
22nd September 2024
I notice her looking beautiful by Helen Pletts
she leaves her shyness deep in shadow and scores
darkness with brightness. She is weighted with persistence,
her silver falling towards me through black treacle night;
all meaning gasping, deer lifting their heads, forgetting to eat,
and me forgetting to walk, and all of us standing here, just standing,
as her silver brightness covers us
15th March 2025
the new deer talks to the thoughtful moon by Helen Pletts
from her gentle curve in the earth in the sleepy warmth of undergrowth
white is calling the dreamers from the brave open fields
to the secreted hearths of hedgerows, soft heads nodding in the winter stalks.
Knees folded underneath; her sweet brown back, languishing.
He is without her, in the darkness of the black moor
Helen Pletts: (www.helenpletts.com) Shortlisted 5 times for Bridport Poetry Prize 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023 and 2024, twice longlisted for The Rialto Nature & Place 2018 and 2022, longlisted for the Ginkgo Prize 2019, longlisted for The National Poetry Competition 2022. 2nd prize Plaza Prose Poetry 2022-23. Shortlisted Plaza Prose Poetry 2023-24. English co-translator of Chinese poet Ma Yongbo. She has three collections of poetry. Bottle bank (2008, ISBN 978-1-84923-119-0) and For the chiding dove(2009, ISBN 978-1-84923-485-6), containing a total of 45 poems, published by YWO/Legend Press (supported by The Arts Council). Your Eye Protects the Soft-toed Snowdrop, a collection of 11 years of Word and Image by Helen Pletts and Romit Berger (2022,ISBN 978-9-657-68177-0).
The title poem ‘Bottle bank’was longlisted for The Bridport Poetry Prize in 2006, under Helen’s maiden name of Bannister. The poem was first published by Charles Christian on Ink, Sweat and Tears, the poetry and prose webzine, on 20th June 2008 and as a podcast 14th December 2008. She is a regular contributor to this webzine. The title poem ‘For the chiding dove’ was translated into Italian by Gabriel Griffin and first published in ‘Poetry on the Lake Journal two’ (2009). She is also published in International Times.IT, Cambridge Poetry, Orbis, Aesthetica, The Fenland Reed, The Mackinaw, Vox populi, Polismagazino, European Poetry, Verse-Virtual, Verseum Literary. Her poems have been included in several anthologies published by Open Shutter Press, Fly on the Wall Press, and others. Her prizewinning prose poetry is published in The Plaza Prizes anthologies 1 and 2.
