Speaking Terms

Revolves around communication (or the lack of it) and demeanour. Colin Tuff takes a sideswipe at intimate family relationships, ranging from petty squabbles to expected sex - he even weaves in a four act play! Shot through with humour the poems are argumentative, dogmatic and with not a little irony. Be it a transvestite villanelle, a holiday tiff or a voyeur looking through bedroom skylights, these poems are not, as he describes, “more hung-over than Picasso’s nose.”

A Book at Bedtime

You didn’t believe me when I said,
in the heat of that moment,
I could read you like a book.

You said you would
make me eat my words...
gave me chapter and verse.

But tonight I take the book from your hands,
start at your shoulders, fingertip-caress
your back, your spine, your lumbar,

massage your ISBN number,
turn you over, run my hands
down your cover,

— designed to entice me in—
blow gently on your
leaves, linger,

watch them unfurl,
use my index finger
to tease your pages open

until I can dip in, find my place
and now, this story moves
at a pace, it’s a thriller, I follow

your arc and can’t put you down,
you feel your spine crack as I push
you fully apart, dip my head,
hungrily eat all your words.

Bio: Colin Tuff grew up in Southend-on-Sea, spent his teens in Norfolk and studied construction management and economics in Sheffield. He is fascinated by the minutiae of life and always fails to see the big picture until it is released on video. He lives in St. Ives, Cambridgeshire, with his long-suffering wife and children who often unwittingly provide the inspiration for his writing.