Poems by John Challis

Night Work
 
Nights I’m in Farringdon
with takeaway and working late,
my tie like a slack noose,
I hear the sound of someone
fiddling with the lock. I lay my head
upon on the desk, it’s louder,
like pulleys turning in the wings
to strike a set. I fob it off
and tune myself to Smithfield men
rolling carts of butchered meat.
As sirens fade to silence,
pennies drop in beggar’s cups.
I wonder at the will it takes
to leave a job, pinch the cash,
flog the art director’s Mac,
and whether living on the lam
is preferable to signing on
the devil’s dotted line.
Tell me. I’m listening.




The District Line
 
If you ride the train to the end of the line,
keys in your fist for the robbery districts,
 
if you sit for an hour, your city in the window,
as roads laid over roads laid over dirt laid over bones
 
turn slowly into fields, where the only towers are chapels
standing firm over parishes of graveyards over
 
graveyards, then you’ll have to peel away the masks
you’ve worn over the years, the selves
 
tried on for pleasure, to conform or please another,
that never grafted properly.
 
And even when you think you’ve found yourself
staring from the window, reflected over marshlands,
 
there’s a tremor underneath your cheek,
that shows you what you’ve always known.
 
 
 
The Resurrectionists (Bloodaxe Books, 2021)
 
 
 
 
 

John Challis’s debut collection, The Resurrectionists (Bloodaxe, 2021), was a poetry book of the month in the Guardian and highly commended in the 2021 Forward Prizes for Poetry. He is the recipient of a Northern Writers’ Award, a Pushcart Prize, and an Author’s Foundation Grant from the Society of Authors. He is an editor for Poetry Salzburg Review and a Lecturer in Creative Writing at York St John University. His second collection, The Green Parcel, will be published by Bloodaxe in 2026. 

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