ROOM CONTENDING WITH CONFESSION FIND HOPE
Light so bright it hurts the eye
leaves a burn on the underside and in a film there would be
a single note and no one is speaking.
Seen from sofa-ed head through bubbled glass;
distorted magnification casts bended plastic
ends and words lost to spine mirrors.
Red eye circles, door undone, a sound so real,
and on the wall minute beats ebb, and overhead
the lightbulb hums, waiting for its end.
Curtains like a painting of curtains smouldering.
From the boundary of strokes, gold is dripping.
Dry plaster bulges petroleum.
Flames fall, breath of a beast, but without warning,
in the sanguine glow, for an undead moment,
sparrowsong and flower fields fill the mind.
SAPLINGS
Here in this hideaway,
where orange and brown drift
against our questioning skin,
aspirations and reputations
slowly, slowly are remembered
no more – spinning teeth
at the trunk, at the core.
And though this can seem
the loneliest place, we fall
as seed into new ground
more fertile than ever before.
THE TEMPERED LAMENT
In sure and certain hope
(the spinning and vibrating – cut,
the scent of sap, bleeding,
quick to meet the ground,
the shaking and the splintered spewing,
metal, rubber, mud, churned
to remnant
in the blink of a sapling’s eye,
rain dampens down
discarded branch,
jagged uprights cling
to dignity, an appearance
of an ending)
the plantation earth bides its time.
Andrew Senior
Andrew Senior
Andrew Senior is a writer of poetry and short fiction based in Sheffield, UK. His work has appeared in various places recently including The Honest Ulsterman, Crow & Cross Keys, Osiris Press, Postbox Magazine, Isele Magazine and Abridged. Visit https://andrewseniorwriting.weebly.com/