A Short Season of Other Poets: Angela France

The Real Bedtime Story

I’m the thing that’s under your bed
to bite at tender night-time toes.
I’m not in any Disney films;
no little girlies’ noxious squeaks
and nauseous frills disturb my rest.
You won’t find me on nursery walls
nor caught in plush and gummed to death,
dissolved in slime from puking whelps.

I’m the worm that gripes old women
to yearn for young flesh and the itch
that sends the wolf to speak in tongues.
I’m the knife that hacks at heels,
the bloody smear on crystal slippers,
the hex in the apple. You need me.


previously published in ‘A Twist of Malice’ (Grey Hen, 2008)

Angela France will have her second poetry collection out later this year with Bluechrome - pictured above and entitled 'Occupation' - to be launched at the Ledbury Festival this summer. She has had work accepted by a number of magazines including Iota, Acumen, The Frogmore Papers, Rain Dog, Obsessed with Pipework, Orbis and Envoi. Her poems have also appeared in the anthologies The White Car, When Pigs Chew Stones (Ragged Raven Press) and Mind Mutations (Sun Rising Books). Angela regularly participates in poetry festivals and online workshops; she is also a co-editor of both 'Iota' and 'The Shit Creek review', and an Admin for the popular Poets on Fire poetry forums. Since September 2007 she has been studying at the University of Gloucestershire, for an M.A. in Creative and Critical Writing.

You can find more of Angela's poems on Poetry pf.