Bio
Gary Bills was born at Wordsley, near Stourbridge, UK. He took his first degree at Durham University, where he studied English, and he has subsequently worked as a journalist. He is fiction editor for Poetry on the Lake. Gary gained his MA in Creative Writing at Birmingham City University, with a distinction. He has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize, including for his post-modernist epic poem, "Bredbeddle's Well". Gary's poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including The Guardian, Magma, HQ, Outposts, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Pomegranate and New Lyre, and he has had three full collections published, namely - "The Echo and the Breath" (Peterloo Poets, 2001); "The Ridiculous Nests of the Heart" (bluechrome, 2003); and "Laws for Honey" (erbacce 2020). In 2005, he edited "The Review of Contemporary Poetry", for bluechrome. His work has been translated in to German, Romanian and Italian. Translations of his work appeared last year in the prestigious Romanian journal, Vatra.
Gary Bills
The Family Man's Vacation
Every ailment was a destination,
Potentially, and every ache or lump
Was examined for the ticket it might be,
Potentially. He waited for the bump -
And strange to say, it came as quite a find:
He truly did not care - his mojo gone,
His apathy, the yardstick of his mind;
His eyes were turned towards another sun.
It was a kind of holiday, all told,
From job and wife and child. He couldn't tell
If other suns might rise when one feels old,
So old in spirit, altered in that Hell -
Or if there's only darkness - that's yer lot...
The bell-enchanted darkness of the deep
For broken ships like him. 'As like as not,
By faith we merely croon ourselves to sleep'.