ISSUE 15
THREE POEMS
JESSICA WOOD
devise a language that fits my body / ethics of sharing
I sit with the smell of lavender
the sound of constant screaming.
“Am I hearing what they want?”
They slide between a different time,
emotions unfurl as their bodies sway.
I feel myself
lurch for fear of their falling
but they rebalance
shift their bodies into shapes
the elongated line
the supple S
the fierce stomp
until the ground shakes.
Their bodies surprise me.
Moving Kinship
get comfortable with feet
feel your body
rolling across the floor stretch
twist your back, enjoy yourself
its called re-familiarising,
kinship.
I cant help thinking about the dust
underneath us, dead skin on my clothes
and the sticky trace of feet I step into
and shudder.
I scan the room in search of doe
eyed people in the headlights of not knowing
what to expect.
The phrase ‘body politic’ is thrown
in the air, a song to dance to
and these aged bodies feel
no shame but to caress themselves
in its downpour
make shapes the size of a stage.
Provocations
n. to provoke, or incite
play with time, mould dough into the soft body of a foot
press it to your ear and speak:
Who holds time?
Does the past hold me or do I hold it?
Does the present hold me or do I?
Movement
Today we’ll dance between
the lines of politics
and chew over grand words
we’ll move across the border to
utopia and dance where unlimited
resources and budget dwell.
In that space, how would your limbs move?
what would your body want to do that time prevents?
Commissioned by Yorkshire Dance as a response to the Encounters Festival, re-imagining age through dance, Leeds, October 2019
