Sam Alexandra Rose

Tag: amwriting

  • Publication Notice – Soft Cartel

    I have three poems in Soft Cartel today – “hurricane”, “Edges”, and “The Boy in the Window”! You can read them here: https://softcartel.com/2018/08/03/three-poems-by-sam-rose/

  • Publication Announcement – Little Rose Magazine

    My poem “I am recounting” has been published in Little Rose Magazine today! Read it at the link below, and to give you a feel for it, I did a quick sketch of what was in my head when I wrote it:

    https://littlerosemagazine.weebly.com/home/i-am-recounting

  • radiation

    we take the afternoon off work to visit the nuclear

    medicine department of the hospital

    and in the evening I try to access some feeling and I ask
    myself

    if I cry, will that help flush the radiation out of my body?

    or will it just give the bags under my eyes a buttercup glow

    as if my pupils had become suns

    stop

    I say

    stop

    It was just a CT scan, just a tiny amount of radiation

    and you are just melodramatic

    you are just a girl, not spiderman

    and nothing is happening

    but that’s what burns

    that still, nothing is quite happening here

    no going nuclear, simply stoic

    script-sticking

    I compromise and just a couple of drops slip through

    that is all I can offer

    that is all life offers of anything

    just a little at a time

    just a little glow

    A version of this poem was published in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily in April 2021.

  • Publication Notice – Amethyst Magazine

    My second poem over at Amethyst Magazine is out now. What a busy month! Read it here:

    https://amethystmagazine.org/2018/07/29/cocoon-a-poem-by-sam-rose/

    I also did a little drawing to go with this one, after not drawing anything for a very long time:

  • I am eating lunch.

    I am eating lunch

    I am not fighting cancer.
    I am eating my lunch.
    And then I am going for
    a walk in the overcast
    bright of the day.
    And then I will go back
    to the office and write
    some articles. I might
    have a snack and
    listen to some music.
    There is no fighting here.


    Just noticed today is the 8th anniversary of my big operation. I’d be eight years cancer free today… if I hadn’t found out two months ago that it’s come back. That stings a bit. Here’s a new poem.

  • Publication Announcement – Terror House Magazine

    I have two poems published in Terror House Magazine this month: “Twelve Months”, “Control” and “Exchange”. Read them here!

  • to be close

    these are not tales of wanting to be close
    but tales of need
    tales of nothing else will do
    tales of we are losing anyway
    I tail off when we try to make sense
    of what is happening
    when all we have is positivity all the while
    listening to others complaining about
    the mundane, the unimportant, taking
    suggestions from people who have
    no idea pretending to make notes
    in my invisible notebook – my no-book
    wearing an invisible grimace as they speak
    they don’t have to travel an hour to
    talk to an expert, they don’t have to prepare
    their bodies for impact, their brains for
    impact, their nerves to be wracked
    but we pretend that is okay
    all the while wanting – no, needing –
    to get away, to return home,
    wherever home may feel today –
    home is where I can tell these tales
    before we trail off and stare into space
    lost together but tied together
    in the want – no, the need –
    to be close.

  • Park Floor

  • Publication Announcement – Eunoia Review

    My latest poem has been published by Eunoia Review! It’s called Post-diagnosis and I’m very proud of it. You can read it here – enjoy!

  • Concave

    My heartbeat makes my loose-fitting
    t-shirt flutter rhythmically
    over my chest. I stop breathing
    so I can see the full effect,
    watch the fabric
    fall in, fall out.
    Braless breasts separated as if
    in argument, creating a cavity
    at my centre. Each tiny shudder
    makes me feel thinner
    than I am, more fragile
    than I am. Makes me wonder
    what I am.
    Every pound of my chest disturbs
    the white cotton, reveals my
    torso as empty. A trampoline
    for tiny ghosts, only the bounces
    to be seen. Only the tremors
    of the canvas to be found, the concave
    and the rebound.
    I am only little,
    I am only gentle,
    I am only nothing.
    But we keep going. One organ at a time,
    one anomaly at a time.
    Keep cutting it out until there is
    nothing left.
    What will be left of me,
    in the end?
    Only tiny ghosts jumping,
    only a tiny heart thumping wildly
    at nothing.
    Fall in, fall out.