the poet
Nominated for The Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, Mims Sully is a poet from Sussex, England. She was a winner of the Visual Verse Autumn Writing Prize 2022, and has had her work published in Prole, Ink, Sweat & Tears, The Ekphrastic Review, And Other Poems, Obsessed with Pipework and other journals, as well as in anthologies by Sidhe Press and Black Bough Poetry. Mims started writing poetry after studying Creative Writing at the Open University, and many of her poems are inspired by her experience of caring for her mother, who had dementia.
the poems
Simple Hex
For A Slanderer
Write their name on a piece of paper.
Put it through the shredder.
Place the ribbons in a bowl.
Ignite. Watch them grow
tongues, curl back
and blacken, flaking to ash.
File your nails (the sharper the better)
then clip the tips, sprinkle over.
Add some callus
freshly grated by pumice,
a crust of wax picked from your ear
and one salty tear.
Lubricate the mix
with your own spit
and lashings of mucus
then stir and speak:
Unkind words
will not go unpunished
but form ulcers
yellow and bulbous
tight with pus
on the tongue.
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My Father’s Belt
looped around my waist,
moves when I breathe
like a phantom limb.
The leather cracks,
moves when I breathe.
With bronze lustre
the leather cracks
as if with laughter.
With bronze lustre,
his face creased
as if with laughter
as disease spread.
His face creased,
a shifting of skin,
as disease spread
its tightening belt.
A shifting of skin
drawn across bone
like a tightening belt;
his body buckled.
Drawn across bone
this broad strap
buckles my body
with a strong clasp.
This broad strap
holds me together
with a strong clasp
like my father's arm.
Holding me together;
like a phantom limb
my father's arm
loops around my waist.
Afternoon Entertainment,
Chamberlain Court
I wasn’t sure at first
if she was even listening,
though we sat in rows
in front of the baby grand,
as the piano man played
all the old classics.
It was when she closed her eyes
that it happened –
her hands
started patting her jeans
in time
to Over the Rainbow.
Then her fingers
stood to attention,
as if remembering:
the coolness of ivory,
warmth of wood,
weight of black and white keys.
She leant into the music
as her right hand rippled
across her lap
onto my leggings,
while her left hammered chords
on the neighbouring gentleman’s knees.
And just when I thought
I should intervene,
she opened her mouth and sang
at the top of her voice
about a blue-skied cloudless world
where someday, I might find her.
Publishing credits
Simple Hex for a Slanderer: Prole (Issue No. 27)
My Father's Belt: Pulp Poets Press (March 1st 2021)
Afternoon Entertainment, Chamberlain Court:
exclusive first publication by iamb