Download PDF Here 13th Anniversary
Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume One December 2022.
Point of Return, poems by Anni Wilton-Jones.
Trolley Camp
an oriental torture
garish overhead light
chatter and bustle
– daytime levels
at well beyond midnight
and when utter exhaustion
gives promise of relief
a three a.m. stress booster
I.V. antibiotics and E.C.G
in conspiracy against
the torment’s cessation
desperate remedy
wearing my peaked cap
to block light, if not sound
allows a scant three hours
of blessed rest
destroyed
for good
by seven o’clock chaos
plus shocked declaration
of raised temperature
and urgent application
of appropriate meds
Good morning, Campers
Hi-di-hi!
Energiser
for Ben
He sees me
as human
thinking person
not just patient
tells me of his trip
to Wales and beyond
listens to my poem
face serious
above the concealing mask
and lifts me
out of here
into tomorrow
and a return
to normality.
Returning
Now that I am active again
– unable to stop writing
I see just how ill I was
and for how long a time
brain functions at basic
all wires tuned to fight
even digestion being
too much wasted effort
the skill involved in guiding pen
and thinking, simultaneously
too tense; so side-lined, put on hold
until all else was well
visual disturbances, momentary lapses
ashen face and swollen limbs – now history
my pencil and my writing-covered pages
symbolising my returning health.
© Anni Wilton-Jones
Anni Wilton-Jones, a resident of Co Mayo, has also lived in Wales, England and Saudi Arabia. Having experienced a varied range of careers she is now retired and concentrating on her writing and her photography. A writer of poetry and prose, she has read in Wales, England, the USA and Ireland. Her collections include Bridges, Winter Whiting, Moth (a chapbook about abuse, written under the pen-name Victoria Tims) and Put On Your Thinking Cap (a chapbook of photographs and poems for children). She currently leads Pen & Ink, a Mayo writers’ group and reads with the Hermit Collective. Having recently experienced a severe acute illness, which called a halt to her writing, she dates her period of recovery from when she felt able to write again