Dancing Bear
by Richard Scott
Children bring me coins
to watch him balançoire, tombé —
they imagine he has a
forest inside, they close
their eyes to see him
foraging on a high cliff
above a burnished lake —
belly to the wet earth
but inside is just a savage
who loves only his
claws, his wild mouth,
tears at honeyed flesh
with his barbed tongue
so I tamed him with
a rod, a crop, my fist —
starved him until he would
dance this way, that way.
At six o’clock you should
see me count my money —
hatfuls of brass and gold.
I uncouple his snout, rub
a drop of lotion in, pour
myself a drink as my
father unzips his bear skin —
places his naked head
on my lap — throat exposed.
He apologises to me
for all the places on my body
his hands have scarred
but I just close his eyes,
sing him to sleep,
nuzzle his ears — a blade
in my other hand.
From Soho. Reproduced with kind permission of Faber & Faber
Forward Prizes for Poetry
Shortlisted for Best First Collection 2018
Soho
Richard Scott
About Richard Scott
Richard Scott (b. 1981, Wimbledon, London) used to be opera singer but the ‘inhuman rigours’ of the profession left him seeking escape. ‘After years of obsessing over texts, librettos and poetry that had been set to music, poetry seemed to me like almost a logical step. It became clear to me that when you took the music away, there was still a “music” and a rhythm to the poem — and that fascinated me.’
His chapbook Wound won the 2016 Michael Marks Award. In the same year, he won the Poetry London competition with ‘crocodile’, a poem at the centre of many of the trajectories worked out in Soho — submergence, flesh, the vulnerability of queer bodies. Its snapping linebreaks and sharp images remind the reader that he is, above all else, a thrilling poet.
