Unable to Break
The young couple left the café quickly, nothing bought, and stood together in the grey, slushing snow, bodies angled obtusely, heads bowed like February willows. He looks up. She reaches behind his ears. He buries his head on her shoulder and they stand silently as the afternoon spills, minutes mumbling. They are immovable, talking now, nodding, aching tenderness, touching to try and reconnect, deny the decomposition. But no kiss or final turn. They remain waiting, unable to tear away, break. Epitaph for An Ant The flying ant staggers across the table, slipping in and out of cracks on the surface, searching Martian ravines for a new home. She sees it and picks up the salt holder. In a twitch of an ant’s antennae, she stamps the salt holder down, savagely smearing it across the table, erasing the ant over the wood it found so hard to walk on. The bottom half reduced to a black tar scar. The top half a full stop. She continues talking as if nothing untoward has happened. To her, nothing has. God has spoken and we ants can do nothing but pray. Barely Connected She screeches, banshee, flapping her arms – a wasp! zipping around the bedsit. It settles on the window, an insect Goliath, pulsing abdomen tapping an SOS on the glass, the window fused shut months ago. Armed with a rolled up magazine, I approach, stalking, my girlfriend shrinking into a fading armchair. I nudge the colossus and it hums defiance. Go on, do it! the Empress brays from her Coliseum. One strike. The wasp merely shivers. I strike again, leap back, the wasp wobbles. Well? Is it dead? Shaking our stunned heads. One more time! The wasp collapses onto the window sill, still alive. Be a man! The sting of her words weakens me. Manhood is insect death? Resurrected, this Hercules continues its labours, climbing up to the light, humming hurt and hate, my girlfriend shrieking like a horror movie victim. So I try a vacuum cleaner, sucking the wasp into dusty Hades, quiet, the bedsit still. Gingerly, I open the bag, prod the dust ball and gasp. The wasp, its body barely connected, writhe with life, a force of Nature. I close the bag, run outside and empty it in a cloud of dust to dust. I return to the bedsit, head hung in guilt, unable to deal with the real pests. Published in Queen Mob's Teahouse in August 2019.
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Poetry Biography:I have had over 70 poems published in the following worldwide magazines and literary journals: A Handful of Stones, Acta Victoriana (Canada), All the Sins (UK), The Amethyst Review (USA), Amsterdam Quarterly (NL) The Blue Nib (Ireland), Bolts of Silk, Borderless Journal, The Brasilia Review (Brazil), Bushfire Literature & Arts Review (US), Cadenza, Cake Magazine, Carillon, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (Hong Kong), DASH (USA), Clackamas Literary Review (USA), Cooch Behar Anthology, Dawntreader, Dreamcatcher, The Dillydoun Review, Earth Love, The Ear (US), Eastlit (East Asia), Erbacce, Envoi, Finger Dance Festival, Ginosko, Gloom Cupboard, Hidden Channel, Inlandia Journal, IS&T (Ink, Sweat & Tears), Into the Void (Canada), The Journal, The Lakeview Journal (India), Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Lunch Ticket (USA) The New Writer, One Hand Clapping, Orbis, Oregon English Journal (USA), The Passage Between, Prole, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Sonic Boom (India), Third Wednesday (USA), Of Nepalese Clay (Nepal), New Contrast (South Africa), One Hand Clapping, Opportunity Publishing, The Oregon English Journal (USA) Origami Poems Project (USA), The Paddock Review (USA), Panoplyzine (USA), Paper Swan Press, The Passage Between, The Peacock Journal (USA), Pens on Fire, Poetry Salzburg (Austria), Potomac Review, (USA) Prole, Pulsar Poetry, Rear View Poetry, Queen Mob's Teahouse, Qutub Minar Review (India), Red Ink, Shiela-Na-Gig (USA), South Bank Poetry Magazine, Stand, Waterford Teachers Centre, (Ireland) We Are a Website New Literary Journal (Singapore), Weber - The Contemporary West Review (USA), Windfall (USA), Writing Magazine, Words for the Wild and Verbal Art (India). Archives
March 2024
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