Two Poems by Marc Chamberlain
Not-husband
More than streetlight
boyfriend more than the city, babe
it is the name of no poetry
the tutorious name you’d centre
to silence me, how
could my husband treat me this way.
Then throw the glass the chair
the vase my friend Oleg gave us
on our big day to the wall.
Years later sleepless in bed
I hear the clang
of someone’s security gate downstairs
think of the things you left
for almost a year
the key I let you keep I can’t explain why.
Grit
Beyond the Forest Marble were Greensand
Cornbrash Fuller’s Earth
Ice cubes crystal cocaine
on the deep set sill
the pane a mirror a man’s hands behind me
Black Rock Gault
strips and pockets of Frome Clay
I was told put your tongue here
At the edge of the Mendips were Oolite for freestone
the base of a seam
of Oxford Clay
for roads fletton bricks London
Marc Chamberlain’s poetry has been published in titles including The Hudson Review, Magma, The Mechanics’ Institute Review and The Best New British and Irish Poets 2019-2021. His poetry criticism has been published in The Times Literary Supplement. He is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing (Poetry) at Durham University, working towards his first collection and writing a critical thesis on the poetry of John Wieners.