Carole Bromley
Carole Bromley is married with four children and lives in York. Twice a winner in the Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet Competition, she has two pamphlets with Smith/Doorstop (Unscheduled Halt, 2005 and Skylight, 2009). She has won a number of first prizes, including the Bridport and her poems have appeared in a range of magazines and anthologies. Carole is a graduate of the MPhil in Writing at Glamorgan University and currently teaches Creative Writing for York University’s Centre for Lifelong Learning. Her first full-length collection, A Guided Tour of the Ice House, was published in 2011.
Japan Dressing Box
left to Branwell Bronte by his aunt, Elizabeth Branwell
Sometimes I reach for it in the night,
trace her initials with my finger,
curse myself for not filling it with brushes,
paints, all those folded-up dreams.
Her night cap’s on the peg, her pattens
by the door; but this is all I have of her now,
a lacquered box, cracked where
I’ve opened it over and over.
Inside, an empty gin bottle, a phial
of laudanum, Mrs Robinson’s portrait,
her dear letters in a ribbon, and here,
under a lock of mama’s hair,
the poems I will never finish.
A Candle for Lesley
I lit a candle today, one of those night-lights
it’s difficult to get a flame going on.
Felt a fool but had to do it anyway,
having gone in. January, and the Minster
emptied of chairs, the nave an echoing expanse
where school parties were shepherded
from Rose Window to roof bosses upside down
in a mirrored trolley. The whole of the East end
was a mass of scaffolding, workmen taking out
panes, shouting down to one another as if
they were fitting PVC. And me,
in the middle of it all, thinking of you.
Not praying exactly for how could I in that place?
You might as well try to be alone with God
in Newgate market, or the fruit and veg aisle
in Tesco’s which was where I was standing
when you rang. You said you were not ready
and I said I should hope not, and afterwards
stood with my phone, my list, my half full basket.
A man reached across for bananas
while his wife steered round me and sighed.
If you would like to find out more about Carole you can contact her here or through www.poetrybusiness.co.uk
Carole Bromley is married with four children and lives in York. Twice a winner in the Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet Competition, she has two pamphlets with Smith/Doorstop (Unscheduled Halt, 2005 and Skylight, 2009). She has won a number of first prizes, including the Bridport and her poems have appeared in a range of magazines and anthologies. Carole is a graduate of the MPhil in Writing at Glamorgan University and currently teaches Creative Writing for York University’s Centre for Lifelong Learning. Her first full-length collection, A Guided Tour of the Ice House, was published in 2011.
Japan Dressing Box
left to Branwell Bronte by his aunt, Elizabeth Branwell
Sometimes I reach for it in the night,
trace her initials with my finger,
curse myself for not filling it with brushes,
paints, all those folded-up dreams.
Her night cap’s on the peg, her pattens
by the door; but this is all I have of her now,
a lacquered box, cracked where
I’ve opened it over and over.
Inside, an empty gin bottle, a phial
of laudanum, Mrs Robinson’s portrait,
her dear letters in a ribbon, and here,
under a lock of mama’s hair,
the poems I will never finish.
A Candle for Lesley
I lit a candle today, one of those night-lights
it’s difficult to get a flame going on.
Felt a fool but had to do it anyway,
having gone in. January, and the Minster
emptied of chairs, the nave an echoing expanse
where school parties were shepherded
from Rose Window to roof bosses upside down
in a mirrored trolley. The whole of the East end
was a mass of scaffolding, workmen taking out
panes, shouting down to one another as if
they were fitting PVC. And me,
in the middle of it all, thinking of you.
Not praying exactly for how could I in that place?
You might as well try to be alone with God
in Newgate market, or the fruit and veg aisle
in Tesco’s which was where I was standing
when you rang. You said you were not ready
and I said I should hope not, and afterwards
stood with my phone, my list, my half full basket.
A man reached across for bananas
while his wife steered round me and sighed.
If you would like to find out more about Carole you can contact her here or through www.poetrybusiness.co.uk