how it feels like to be an empty blister packet ?
by Cassie M Flint x Poojan Gupta
Voices of packet #1
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nothing more to say
white emptiness- no firing
your invitation
yes, sure, that’s my word
maligned I am, and hated
I will outlive you
it’s like Sisyphus
only ever moving up
never pulling down
franked or branded mine
inked into my very skin
my name is now lost
guard me from the sword
wrap me from the burning heart
be my counterpart
watch pass key swear first
their etymology speaks
through our language now
shoals of herring swim
mercury is moving me
I’m Argentina
Ruminations from blister pack #1
​
Lying in their birth canals
Or coffins, their event horizon,
My small soldiers wait always
Static, encased, passive entirely
For the human nail, finger
Or knife to extract them
From their sterile vacuum.
I, too, can only wait
Shedding my silent load
Over hours, days, weeks
Or never.
Unlike them, I keep my shape.
Like a pirate chest, its treasure gone
I am open, exposed, dented, used.
​
I heard, along the line
That I’ll be dumped, become detritus,
Reborn maybe, burned or blown away.
Just like a broken terracotta crock
Displayed behind glass from Sumerian days
I have been a vessel made by man
And will outlive my maker,
Perhaps be mounted on a plinth
Stared at by wide-eyed children
Whose skin is translucent
And whose brains are not their own.
Pages from notebook
Through a serendipitous meeting with Cassie in Newcastle in Nov 2023, a path has been created. Our conversations now extends into working together on a hybrid collaboration with blister packs. This ongoing experimental project 'wording' focuses on giving a voice to these packets, how it feels like to be an empty blister packet?
About Cassie M Flint
Cassie has been a teacher of English for virtually all of her long working life. Her own passion lies in poetry and in the creation of it. Throughout the pandemic she ran a ‘Wild Writing Workshop’ on YouTube which she admits gave her the words to write her way through the isolation. Essentially perhaps a rather cerebral person, she finds such power in the written word and a fascination in the ways that we as people communicate. This now extends to the ways in which we communicate with non-humans such as landscapes, fossils, paintings, flowers, buildings, and so much more. The entirely manufactured products (blister packs), the impact they have, the stories they can tell and the creative process Cassie and Poojan inspire and are part of, are now one of her current exciting writing ventures.
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