Suzy Hobson
the man who slept in his car
ours was the last house next
to the patch - a dirt of waste ground
where road turned to track -
where home spun mechanics
performed
tune-ups, oil changes
whole engine transplants
aficionados of wreck
he’d arrive there at dusk
park on the gravel
outside the light pool
from the last lamp
his nibs is back
my father would say
right under my bedroom
scared - I’d peep out
see dim cigarette glow
through misted glass
safe in a warm bed
sleep blanked out thoughts
of a man hunched and cold
asleep in his car
they found him one morning
with the engine running
no one would tell me
I asked in Science
about carbon monoxide
he started to creep
back in through my dreams
a half shadow lit
by a bright glowing ember
I picked February flowers
wild from the hedgerows
a small private ceremony
on his old parking place
yellow primroses arranged in a cross
we’d made our peace
he never came back
Suzy Hobson is at her most content walking the shoreline with her dogs, Suzy feels fortunate to have lived all her life near a beach. She grew up in Aberystwyth on the West Coast of Wales, swapping sunsets over the sea to sunrises, when she moved to Scarborough on Yorkshire’s East Coast.
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Suzy has always enjoyed disappearing into the world of words. As a child she would entertain a captive audience of family, dolls, and cats, with the productions she wrote for her puppet theatre.
There’s usually a hint of menace in her short stories, a sense of the fragility of life in her poems and her song lyrics are poignant. Her favourite genre is sci-fi – where endless possibilities are on offer.
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Published work –
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2 short stories in Crosscurrent – short stories and poems about The Newport Ship, by Cwtsh Writers (2018)
1 short story and 4 poems in Five at Four – an anthology of poems and prose by the Gartholwg Writers (2022)
short story/poetry – ASP Literary Journal #7
lyrics – Man Alone, Dave Dark and the Sharks
Aphrodite and the Astronaut, Dave Dark and the Sharks
Stockhausen Syndrome, Dave Dark and the Sharks
The Gazebo Effect, album, Dave Dark and the Sharks
(played on Radio 1, Radio 6, Spotify, Youtube)
