by Lennie Varvarides
Sometimes, it isn’t regret that makes for fealty remorse —
it is getting caught between the frenzy of feeling and a word
— those rascals rant on an emotion that is fickle by far
Spare parts in a loss, a fancy that drifts from place to place
— like particles in wishes wasted on air;
a thought platter of past beats that bat off-course and crash
I would rather eat pie, stuff the crust between the lace —
avoid the wrong word making headway by muting the fucker
before it gets ahead of itself with sentences that won’t end well
— This form of cohesion was not choosing questions
it was entrapping the phrase — force the word to shift shape
make the speaker believe something is safe — than gaslight the voice
Shy, it swallows the shallow skin into sink — speech is young
no time to think, pulps out like pebbles without the smooth of marble
born onto a wife like a slice of recklessness that follows.
About the author:
Lennie Varvarides is a British Cypriot poet living in North London. She is the Founder and main creative of DYSPLA, a London-based art organisation focusing on creating, developing and celebrating the Neurodivergent Aesthetic, the specific style and perspective that stems from living with a neurocognitive functioning that diverges from ‘normal’. This selection of three poems represents a small sample of Lennie’s main thematic obsession - that of Neurodivergence and how cognitive difficulties and differences inform poetry. In her work, she explores how Neurodivergence is made visible in poetic form and if systematic patterns of thought can shape one’s personal Neurodivergent Aesthetic. Lennie’s poetic style is rhythmic with the heavy use of obscure word associations that inhabit a particular Neurodivergence at play. In 2020, Lennie received funding from The Arts Council England to focus on developing her poetic practice and to research the Neurodivergent Aesthetic within her own writing.