top of page

Victoria Punch

© Erika Benjamin

back

next

the poet

Voice coach and musician Victoria Punch is curious about voice and identity, the limits of language, and how we perceive things. She has had her work published in Poetry Magazine, Mslexia, Magma and One Hand Clappingas well as in Christmas Stories: Twelve Poems to Tell and Share.

the poems

A cold striding

00:00 / 00:54
SoundCloud_Sharing.png

                        Bridled with ferns

                        in April, a year uncurled.

                        Up – yet feeling low on the blue

                        fuzz of new rain – the brush of a 

                        wing on the eave


                        The earth, it seems, has turned on the 

                        warming drawer and laid the plates

                        inside, crockery carrots 

                        and cucumber, cutlery laid 

                        in lines and rows, potatoes, peas and 

                        purple sprouting broccoli babies


                        The earth rises like dough. Proven, 

                        prickling with spring, 

                        the lick of blackberries prophesied, 

                        the implacable hedge, laden with strings of

                        wildflower childlings, seeded by flight, small mice

                        and hiding birds, a little shy


                        I’m asking, but I can’t recall

                        the question in the face of the morning

an ode to the
unexpected find

00:00 / 01:08
SoundCloud_Sharing.png

                        I marvel. oh my,

                        oh you – small lime green lurker

                        how did you – damp smirker – 

                        get there. armpitted and puckering

                        gloop grip in my top 

                        sneak under my collar 

                        your squeaky sneaky ways and 

                        hazy origins amaze me


                        you have umami, by the look of you

                        tang of salt on my tongue, you tiny

                        appetiser, so phlegmatic, enigmatic


                        part of my one point five daily litres 

                        of mucusy nasal secretions

                        little air crumb catcher, dust, dirt and 

                        pollen snatcher, crunchy

                        bacteria beguiler you are crisper 

                        as you dry


                        your quasi-spherically makes me queasy, I quease

                        I am uneased by your 

                        tacky feel, your unexpected gloop

                        your roundness – rolled


                        who rolled you, oh green one?

                        wherefore and what nose did you come

                        from? oh how I’d like to know


                        or maybe (s)not

Last Flight on the Road

00:00 / 01:54
SoundCloud_Sharing.png

                        that morning – stung by cold

                        blankets on and steam-breath in the air

                        low motor hum of the old car, road

                        ticker-taped and on for miles

                        grey and dim in the husky half-light

                        sidled by the frosted trees


                        thick as thieves the trees

                        stood, still and stoic, lime-cold

                        leaning on the morning light

                        that came in waves upon the air

                        replicating pine for miles

                        they lined the open, empty road


                        we made our way along the road

                        surrounded by the stream of trees

                        counting down the miles and miles

                        curled and hunched against the cold

                        hats and coats and frosty air

                        looking for the early light


                        his silence was a kind of light

                        he joined our vigil down the road

                        cut through the still and lingering air

                        the owl came softly through the trees

                        I held my coffee long gone cold

                        and I forgot about the miles

                        I felt he stayed with us for miles

                        orange wingtips in the light

                        his face was braced against the cold

                        level with my eyes, along the road

                        he slipped like water past the trees

                        gold and russet on the air


                        I held his presence in the air

                        carried it for miles and miles

                        wings the colour of the trees

                        wings the colour of the light

                        eyes held fast along the road

                        I forgot that I was cold


                        his face – the air, his wings – the light

                        I sat for miles in silence on the road

                        I watched the passing trees and felt the cold

Publishing credits

an ode to the unexpected find: Invitation to Love

  – Issue 3 (the6ress)

A cold striding: Magma (No. 85)

Last Flight on the Road: exclusive first

  publication by iamb

Twitter-X.tif

S h a r e

bottom of page