States of Poetry - Poems

States of Poetry 2016 - Western Australia | ‘Alice at Last’ by Kia Groom

by Kia Groom •

States of Poetry Western Australia - Series One

States of Poetry - Poems

States of Poetry 2016 - Western Australia | ‘Alice at Last’ by Kia Groom

by Kia Groom •

States of Poetry Western Australia - Series One

'Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly...'
– Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

I un-wake to damage.
Light-bulb stutters, frantic
once off, once on, illuminates
imagined city
skyline.

Inside my bedroom it rains
for days. The head
full of synaptic hauntings
shudders. Old-milk sky
dimming.

I tell myself there is
a world outside
the world. Stay still
completely
still & gather dust.
& watch the fretful halls.

Walls convulse,
contract & close. The filament
at the bulb's chest flickers. Lethe
is half
dream-drowned in me.
There is a sickness not worth
surfacing. Better
to sink. To listen: soft light, soft
light & the pressure
the pressure of doorways.

Kia Groom

Recording

Kia Groom

Kia Groom is founding editor of Quaint Magazine. The recipient of an Academy of American Poets award, the runner-up for the 2014 Judith Wright Poetry Prize, and a pushcart nominee, Kia's work has been published in The Mary Sue, Delirious Hem, and other blogs and magazines, as well as journals such as Cordite, Going Down Swinging, Westerly, Permafrost and Inky Needles. Her work is forthcoming in the Hunter Anthology of Contemporary Australian Feminist Poetry and HYSTERIA: Writing the Female Body.