Fiona Sampson

At peace with myself

as if the shutters right round a house

were suddenly open           like that convent in Carcassone

pale blue shutters opened every morning all along

its modest façade

in those days I was alone and unhappy

but the clouds and rooks above the towers

seemed unchanging and unchangeable

like the exact level of difficulty in my own life

in those days history was historical

and in the cool creek beds of limestone streets

the quotidian busied itself

with new boots and imported cigarettes

at tables outside the zinc celebrants

mingled discreetly

Whether the Picturesque bites off pieces of landscape   

& after lunch from the yard door a hesitant guitar which in open air

could be a lute could be air itself being plucked a visitor

in the doorway singing quietly just that sweet waver like the young Joni Mitchell

her sugarcrushsweet line

New Drought

Heatrapture : the buzzard rising slowly

is a boxkite : an aeronaut

and gravel under the wheels : of a reluctant car

creeping downhill : exhaustion

of the will & of wonder : heat continuous

and now it holds : us

and it seems fire might rise

from the bleached : beaten

heart : unaccustomed

as it is to : this penetrating God

I’m not tree : nor blackspot buzzard

adrift :  on dustair

being only self  : mote

in the suneye

Fiona Sampson MBE FRSL is a leading British writer, Romanticist and poet. Professor Emerita of Poetry, University of Roehampton and Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College University of Oxford, she’s received numerous national and international literary awards and international critical acclaim. Translated into 38 languages, her most recent literary biography, Two-Way Mirror, was Washington Post Book of the Year, New York Times Editors’ Choice and a finalist for the Plutarch Prize & US PEN’s Jacqueline Bograd Weld international biography award. Her most recent of eight poetry collections, Come Down (2021) won the Naim Frasheri laureateship, Wales Poetry Book of the Year and the European Lyric Atlas. Becoming George is published by Penguin Doubleday in February 2026.

Procrastination

From my window I see a tree
hanging stubbornly to the abyss
he grew as it could
amid the ruins of the building across
because one night his seed thought this city
was a mountain range.
Like for our desires
the frail tree pays the price
he will always fear the fury
of an unexpected storm
the sadism of capricious rain
the ferocity of sudden winds.
His aging roots cling to the vertical wall
with the strength of a remorse.
This year to be prudent
he will not bear a single fruit,
for any bird is foolish enough
to nest in him.
In distance it’s clear what the fate
of the stubborn is:
neither falling nor giving up.
Almost dry
he feeds on its own pride
and postpones everything to keep on living.

……………………………………………

The extravagant traveller, up river

Then I saw it in the oily water,
the gift of the industry and of hatred for the living,
sailing the course up river:
the impossible salmon,
a brawny monster
adorned by greens and violets,
by oranges and reds,
in the livery that only desire lends
to the eager to reproduce it at all costs.
Weird iridescence amidst the trash
of the condemned river,
like a man obstinate
in finding the path saying
“I am your life”, a gift
for naiveté obstinate to believe,
a sting for the tightened sinews
under the harsh scales,
an overdose of hormones
flooding the minute brain.
And that mouth open to the desire of breathing
still some more of its last day,
kept the last syllable
of those who don’t allow to be defeated
not even by their own silliness
nor by the borders of the docks
where they never stop, where never
for any one thing they stop.

……………………………………………

Haute couture

There’s no worse profession
than being a fashion designer
who decrees
that for this season
the length of verses
must reach the knee
or fall to the ankles.
Their sour mannequins then parade
across every available runway
resembling oversized strawberries
a massive salmon
teetering on huge high heels
or absurd pots flipped upside down
ready for the promised applause
of the repetitive
tedious news.
Whether the “how” should be half-naked
or if it’s proper to show the “what ”
their creators assure that if invited
Homer and T.S. Eliot would say ‘’It’s fine’’
and nearly no one would hesitate to agree.
In every matter the edict of fashion
is the worst thing in this world.
……………………………………………………………………………………………

Ants

This living path
crossing the garden
comes from a land
that isn’t ours
though we constantly
traverse the surface of another kingdom.
We know nothing of its tiny jungles
the desolate desert of a tile
the fleeting waterfall of an open tap
the consecutive holes a staircase unfolds.
Below and around us
another infinite world lives.
It disturbs us that this domain
resembles so closely to what we see
from the window of the twentieth floor
far below and at our feet;
murderers heroes and villains
have their time and occupy their spaces
in a manner we consider mechanical.
The meaning of those days so different
is an enigma,
we quickly dismiss it
so we feel terrified
when we watch a child
paying the ants
his deepest attention:
he’ll forget as he grows the times
he fixed his eyes on a different kingdom
though our kingdoms
began on the same day
……………………………………………

On the foolishness of fairy tales

The good ones almost never win.
Love is weak
usually, neither late nor early,
justice is done
and time
cannot heal
even the smallest wound
but what would become of us
(understand value and cherish)
without fairy tales?
……………………………………………