2 poems by Livvy Hanks

The threat of nuclear war makes me want to buy furniture

Russian troops land in Odesa and I buy new candlesticks inexplicably

hurry myself a little closer to completion according to the magazines

I’ve read you starve because the crops fail because the soot

blocks out the sun meaning there is time to understand things

I have ordered arrive unbroken precisely as I had planned even if I’m not

going to be home, I have options amid the wreckage

of cardboard I consider my next move

the TV further into the corner and contemplate the shabby armchair

commentators are eagerly furnishing their war-game fantasies

from rooms whose windows still have panes of glass

would look good in our new front door I suddenly decide

this year will unfold in well-glazed comfort like a half-silvered mirror

I will be able to see what’s happening but also to keep it out

of nowhere in DFS a saleswoman asks my views on arms

wooden or upholstered and explains various ways to pay

more and more attention to soft furnishings I long to disappear into

the fantasy of a house where we will live to perfect ourselves

for just one hour before it all falls down

pillows and silk covers muffle the radio and the salespeople drown

it out speaking only of the sofas they know

something somewhere has blown out the windows of us

we close the curtains on the jagged edges of everything

must go in the room of beautiful things I want so much

just to sit down

Hazardous waste amnesty

You drive your noxious cargo to the recycling centre

where men in biohazard suits for once don’t

hustle you to a portacabin and growl questions

about where you got this paint from eh

what’s a nice girl like you doing with all this brilliant white emulsion

last year they reached capacity by about noon

junior officials sweating about whether they should

redecorate the town hall or just dissolve all the waiting cars in acid

there is such danger in all of us

such oil-based lubricant

such antifreeze

such hydrochloric acid eating our insides while we sit

in a queue of cars that crawls forward at the speed of democracy

aching for the moment – oh handle it with gloves –

when we can pass our vessels of poison

to the faceless state and go

_________

Livvy Hanks's poetry has appeared in publications including Under the Radar, The North, Lighthouse, Atrium and Spelt. After completing an MA in Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia, she worked as a writer and editor, and has since moved into politics and campaigning work. She lives in Norwich.