Poems

Listen to Julia read 'Small dreams of a doormat':

Small dreams of a doormat

I shall do such things… what they are yet I know not
- King Lear

Go on then - don't make eye contact
just walk all over me, I know my place
among the lowest of the low, pushed into doorways
under everything and everyone;
you'd put me right out if you could, except - I have my uses.
Wipe yourself off on me then call me dirty? We shall see.
It's murder here: the wind whistles viciously under the draught excluder
and I bear the brunt of every booted stranger like a scar.

Smutty bastards, lady mucks! I harbour grime:
caked and hardened to a crust its dust becomes me
and my filthy mind. Biding my time, dreaming low-down dreams
of multicoloured silken-tufted flying carpets
morning and evening, from your going out until your coming in
night after night, year after year
I lie here, bristling.

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